Austrian national daily broadsheet newspaper “Der Standard” reported the fate of a Chechen man who had been deported from Austria to Russia at the end of 2012.

According to the information, 37 year old Chechen man Salman (Danial) Mamaev had been deported from Austria together with 13 Chechen asylum seekers on November 28, 2012. When the plane landed in Moscow, Russian police abducted Rasambek I immediately and a few days later Salman Mamaev. Since then it was known that Salman Mamaev is at a detention center and faced torture and illtreatment. A few days earlier, former Chechen asylum seeker Salman Mamaev was sentenced to 13 years at a concentration camp in Russia for “the creation of an illegal armed group” and “illegal possession of weapon” by a so-called Russian court.

Salman Mamaev had tried 4 times to get political asylum and always said that in Russia he would be severely punished for political reasons. On the other hand, he was married to a Chechen woman who already received the right to political asylum, has emphasized in the process of applying for asylum that he was facing trumped up charges and severe sentence back in Russia. A relative of Salman Mamaev was allegedly a courier of late Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov. Russian security services, in connection with the kinship, had brutally interrogated him, repeatedly, told the man in his application.

In October 2010, the senate on refugees refused to take him under protection because of “conflicting evidence” and at the same time decided to expel him. The senate pointed out that “there is no apparent reason to believe that back in Russia he could face prosecution for political reasons”.

Amnesty International has subjected Austria to criticism for disregarding the Geneva Convention on Refugees.