The Israilov Case and Human Rights in Chechnya

On November 26, 2010, the first part of the trial concerning the murder of a Chechen refugee, Umar Israilov, ended in Vienna. Israilov was killed in January 2009 in what is claimed to have been a failed kidnapping by a group of Chechen exiles. The murder is allegedly politically motivated and instigated by the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov as a response to the victim’s complaint to the European Court of Human Rights. The complaint implicated Kadyrov and the Chechen leadership, as well as the Russian security forces, in massive human rights violations during and after the armed conflicts in the region.