Ichkeria.info has reported that a Chechen asylum seeker who was afraid of forced extradition to Russia, took his own life in an Austrian deportation center.

Arslan Duzhiev, born 09/06/1973, hanged himself in a deportation camp in the city of Traiskirchen, Austria and died in the hospital of his injuries on August 11th. His reason was clear, he did not want to be sent back to Russia where he had suffered a lot of pain.

According to Vakha Banzhaev, the head of the Organization of Former Prisoners of Russian Filtration Camps from the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, in March 2000, masked and armed men in military camouflage organized a mop-up operation in the center of the city of Mahachkala, Dagestan. They beat Arslan in front of his relatives and then abducted him. His relatives could not find any traces of him for one year. Finally, employess of the Red Cross located him in a prison. In March 2001, his relatives went to visit him in prison, but they couldn’t recognize him because of torture and beatings. After his release, he was treated for a long time in different hospitals. After his treatments finished, he moved to Europe with his family. They passed the border of Poland on June 27, 2010, where they gave their finger prints to Polish border guards and continued on their trip the following day to Austria. When they arrived in Austria and they were detained according to the Dublin-II agreement. Austrian authorities put the family into the Traiskirchen deportation camp where many Chechen asylum seekers await their deportation. Arslan tried to explain his situation but noone cared about what he had to say; they said it is a typical Dublin case and as soon as possible they would send the family back to Poland. During their stay, the family saw that some of the Chechen asylum seekers were being deported to Russia where these men were put into prison and tortured. Arslan greatly feared being deported to Russia. He openly spoke about his distrust of the Austrian police. After a while he learned that his application for asylum had been rejected, but he re-applied. His appeal was rejected again. He tried to find a way to gain asylum but all of the organizations which he appealed to for help, turned him away and claimed that “It is useless, all of your family will be deported to Russia”. Arslan did not give up though, and he applied for asylum in Austria a third time. On August 8 2010, he was rejected once again. He should have recieved serious psychological treatment after his time in prison and the latest events depressed him even more. In his last days, when he saw the police, Arslan was behaving fearfully and saying, “The police came for us” and “They will take us, that’s over”. Since the beginning he repeatedly said that he could not bear to be tortured again in the Russian prisons, and now he could not manage his fear anymore. He found a rope and hanged himself in his room. He chose to die rather than to be delivered back into the Russian bandit’s hands.

*Text was translated by Waynakh Online and edited by Michael Capobianco