Our editorial staffes have received an appeal from Dr.Victoria Poupko, President of Mass Branch of American Association of Jews from Former USSR, about the serious situation of Albert Saaev who had hacked the main propagand website of puppet regime in Chechnya.

Is Russia Heading Back To Dark Age?

Acts of outrage, retaliation and possibly butchery are awaiting a citizen of Dagestan: Albert Pashaevich Saaev, born in 1982, director of the Moscow- based computer company “000BITS”. In the summer of 2009 he broke into the official website of the Kadyrov regime (in Chechnya) and revealed the code of the site to (still unidentified) people who posted a banner insulting to the ruler of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadirov.

On 23 September 2009, Mr. Saaev was arrested in Moscow and on 1 April 2010  Moscow Kuzminskiy Court sentenced him in a CIVILIZED  way, following the Law of the RF, to 2 years of prison.

But instead of being sent to place of detention, all of a sudden Mr. Saaev appeared on the evening of April 14th, on the Chechen state TV channel in Grozny. His wife was in shock : he had clearly been subjected to torture. He was not at all the same man she had seen a few days before. She is afraid for his life. He might be beaten to death by, for example, the shovel handles that Ramzan  Kadirov enjoys beating people with personally. During the 15-minute TV show, Saaev apologized in front of Kadirov. All this occurred after the Moscow Court sentenced Mr.Saaev, and destroyed all documental evidence of his crime (??!!).

What does it mean? On April 14th, 2010 Mr.Saaev was secretly transferred (deported) to Chechnya. Neither his wife nor Mr. Saaev’s lawyer were informed about this action. Mr.Saaev has never lived in Chechnya, and he committed his crime in Moscow. That’s why his trial was in the Moscow Court, and the  sentence was rather strong. For what reason was he deported to Chechnya, directly into the hands of the sadistic tyrant, Ramzan Kadirov?  Do we live in the time of feudalism, when a rich and mighty feudal Lord could dictate his own “laws” to the Court, even after the Court had made its decision? Or, are we returning to Africa of the 17 and 18th century, where the Colonial Courts were just the puppet shows of dictators?

The formal response to these many questions was that an additional investigation (or better interrogation) was needed in the case of Mr. Saaev.

As we learned from his wife Shahry, Mr.Saaev was put in pretrial camera in Grozny; no investigations were undertaken. He supposed to have his lawyer visit on Monday, April 20th, but the lawyer was not allowed to see Mr.Saaev, nor was his wife Shahry allowed to see him. The lawyer received a document stating that he needs to have permission from the Interior Minister of Chechnya to visit his client. This requirement is absolutely unlawful, as is the whole situation with Mr.Saaev.

We have a reasonable suspicion that Mr.Saaev has already been murdered or is being subjected to terrible tortures, and it is for this reason that he could not be “shown” to anybody.

We urge you to stop in all possible ways this predatory behavior of Kadirov and his henchmen, and to make public the whole situation. We urge you to intervene as soon as possible. The situation is critical.

April 20, 2010

Dr. Victoria Poupko
President of Mass Branch of American Association of Jews from Former USSR
Director of Anna Politkovskaya Memorial Fund (Massachusetts-based)

According to Dr.Victoria Poupko, she has already sent her appeal to Amnesty International, Committee on Prevention Tortures, Belgian activist Annemarie Gielen, FIDH, her colleague Andreas Diekmann in Germany, local Brookline-announces, and the local website The Truth. She said that she is also going to sent her appeal via postal mail to American Human Rights office.

Let’s remind you, on April 21, World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) has also made an application to Russian Government for Albert Saaev.