On April 28th, security officers conducted a search at the homes of three lawyers and the office of "Team Against Torture" in Nizhny Novgorod. The search is believed to be related to a criminal case involving a person in North Ossetia, who complained about being tortured. The incident was reported by the human rights activists through their Telegram channel.
On April 28th, law enforcement officials conducted a search at the homes of three lawyers from the "Team Against Torture" organization, as well as their office. During the search, they confiscated several flash drives and Olga Sadovskaya's laptop and phone, along with 80 hunting cartridges owned by her ex-husband. It's worth noting that on April 26th Sadovskaya was awarded the Moscow Helsinki Group award.
The lawyers were interrogated in connection with a criminal case in North Ossetia. "By using this criminal case against our client, law enforcement officials are putting pressure on one of the few human rights organizations still operating in Russia," Oleg Khabibrakhmanov of the Team Against Torture says.
This was a second search in a month, following a similar incident in Pyatigorsk on April 14th.
The Team Against Torture was established by human rights activists after the closure of the Committee Against Torture, which was labeled as a foreign agent and added to the Ministry of Justice's register on June 10th.
Over the course of 22 years, the Team Against Torture has secured compensation totaling 298 million rubles ($3,726,212) and successfully prosecuted 159 perpetrators of torture.
