100 Europe and Central Asia Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Region, January – June 2007 would again be denied a fair trial and imprisoned, he left Uzbekistan for Russia in February, and in June he sought advice from a Russian NGO on achieving refugee status. Before he could approach the authorities to seek international protection as a refugee, he was reportedly detained by what seem to have been members of the Uzbekistani Security Service on 13 June outside his apartment in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Region, who handed him over to the local police department. While in detention, he filled in an application form for refugee status with the UNHCR but the police refused to hand over his application to the UNHCR. On 26 June the city court in Krasnogorsk ordered his detention to continue, pending his extradition to Uzbekistan. On 27 June he was transferred to a pre-trial detention centre in the town of Mozhaisk, in Moscow Region, from where he was able to apply for asylum in the Russian Federation. AI considered that Mukhamadsolikh Abutov would be at high risk of torture and other serious human rights violations, should he be forcibly returned to Uzbekistan. Abdulaziz Boimatov AI wrote to the Russian authorities to express grave concern about the apparent forcible return of Uzbekistani national Abdulaziz Boimatov from Sverdlovsk Region in Russia to Uzbekistan in April. Abdulaziz Boimatov was feared to have been forcibly returned to Uzbekistan despite his application for refugee status still pending at the Sverdlovsk Regional Directorate of the FMS. AI was concerned that Abdulaziz Boimatov, accused of anti-constitutional activities in Uzbekistan, was at risk of being subjected in Uzbekistan to arbitrary and incommunicado detention, torture and illtreatment and long-term imprisonment following an unfair trial. North Caucasus Serious human rights violations, including enforced disappearances and abductions, Amnesty International arbitrary detention, torture including in unofficial places of detention, and extrajudicial executions, were reported in the Chechen Republic, Ingushetia, Dagestan and North Ossetia. Reports indicated that members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and law enforcement organs were increasingly the target for attacks by armed groups in Ingushetia. Those involved in Islamic education institutions also seemed to have been targeted by armed groups. Akhmed Makhmudovich Kartoev was reported to be an Islamic scholar who was abducted from his car on 22 May, by armed men wearing masks. On 3 June a bomb exploded at the house of the vice-chancellor of the Islamic Institute, Magomed Bashir Aushev. Arbitrary detentions, abductions and extrajudicial executions were also reported in Ingushetia during the period under review. Two men were shot dead in February in Nazran by law enforcement officers; witnesses attested that they had not put up any resistance to being detained. On 29 June protestors blocked the federal highway near Nazran to call for a halt to arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and killings by law enforcement structures in Ingushetia. Similarly in Dagestan, law enforcement personnel were the targets of violent attacks by armed groups. For example, on 1 April an official from the Republic’s prosecutor’s office, Abdul Basyr Omarov, and another man were found shot dead in a house near the capital of Dagestan, Makhachkala. The Chechen Republic On 5 April, Ramzan Kadyrov was sworn in as President of the Chechen Republic, following the almost unanimous approval of his candidacy by the Chechen parliament on 2 March. Shortly after his appointment, on 13 March, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) issued an AI Index: EUR 01/010/2007