Father of Stavropol resident killed by police considers law enforcers’ apology belated

The apology for the death of Stavropol resident Khalit Mustafaev during a chase is four years late, his father emphasizes. The man demands the authorities to bring to justice the police inspector, one of whom participate in the special military operation (SMO), and the other is involved in the criminal case only as a witness.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that the chief of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) Interior Department in Lermontov apologized for the death of Khalit Mustafaev, who was shot dead by a police inspector during a chase in 2020. A case on abuse of power was instituted against the law enforcer, but the proceedings were suspended, since the accused police inspector went to the special military operation (SMO) zone.

Bakir Mustafaev, the father of the killed man, states that his son Khalit was a lawyer and worked as an assistant lawyer. “We were planning his marriage, which was to take place several months later, in the winter. He was supposed to get married, but he did not have time for that. On October 1, 2020, he was shot and killed,” the Khalit Mustafaev’s father explained.

The father expressed a negative reaction to the apology from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). “Do I need their apology after four years passed? Who will return my child?.. If they wanted to, they would have come to me on the first day of the tragedy and asked for forgiveness, but after four years … What should I think about the apology?” Bakir Mustafaev said.

The family is going through a very hard time losing their son.

The court had no legal grounds to suspend the case due to the defendant’s departure to the SMO zone, explains a lawyer from the “Team Against Torture”*.

Cases where the law enforcement bodies apologize after abuse of power happen occasionally, but they do happen, notes Oleg Orlov**, the co-chairman of the “Memorial” Centre for Human Rights Defence (CHRD)***. “However, I have never heard of any cases like that in Northern Caucasus,” Oleg Orlov added.

The human rights defender believes taking into account the fact that no one was convicted for the Khalit Mustafaev’s killing, the apologies from the law enforcement bodies look more like mockery of his relatives. At the same time, the human rights defender believes that the Khalit Mustafaev’s relatives should continue their fight to bring the policemen to justice.

*The “Team against Torture” (TaT, formerly the “Committee against Torture” – CaT) was created by the lawyers who had earlier worked for the CaT, which was included into the register of the NCOs performing the functions of foreign agents.

**Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.

***As reported on the website of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the reason for including on March 1, 2024, the unregistered “Memorial” Centre for Human Rights Defence (CHRD) into the register of foreign agents was the spread of “inaccurate information aimed at creating a negative image of the Russian Federation, as well as the Russian Armed Forces.”