[JURIST] The president-elect of Russia's Chechen Republic [official website, in Russian] accused Russian authorities Friday of torturing Chechen detainees. The allegations by Ramzan Kadyrov [BBC profile] came just days after the Council of Europe's European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) [official website] released a report [text] calling on Russia to address claims of human rights violations [JURIST report] in Chechnya [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive].

The CPT report detailed the activities of a Russian Ministry of the Interior [official website] unit, called ORB-2 [Amnesty International backgrounder], which controlled a detention facility in Chechnya where detainees were "systematically subjected to torture." Kadyrov vowed to open an investigation into the ORB-2 torture allegations. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry's southern federal district said there would be no official comment on the allegations until at least Saturday. AP has more.