OREANDA-NEWS. The United States imposed sanctions against Aslan Iraskhanov, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the city of Grozny in the Chechen Republic of Russia. According to the website of the US State Department, Washington accuses him of violating human rights.

The agency claims that there is evidence that, in his prior position as the commander of the A. A. Kadyrov police unit, Iraskhanov was responsible for the killing of 27 people. The State Department has expressed concern over ongoing human rights violations in Chechen Republic, which are expressed in “extrajudicial killings, torture, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary detention by government authorities.”

In July 2017, Novaya Gazeta newspaper, citing sources, reported a mass execution in Chechnya. According to the publication, 27 residents of the republic, detained at different times for various reasons, were killed on the night of January 26, 2017 in the territory of the deployment of the A. Kadyrov regiment. Journalists reported that during the alleged execution several high-ranking Chechen officials, including Iraskhanov, were there.

The Chechen Minister for National Policy, External Relations, Press and Information, Dzhambulat Umarov, called the publication a lie unsupported by evidence.

A Spokesman for the Russian President, Dmitry Peskov, commenting on the publication, said that he had taken note of both the data from the Novaya Gazeta and the statements made by the Chechen authorities. According to Tatyana Moskalkova, Russia’s Commissioner for Human Rights, in March 2017 she received information about executions in Chechnya from Novaya Gazeta, reported it to the president and sent a request to the Investigative Committee of Russia. The Committee refused to initiate criminal proceedings on the disappearance of 27 people.