Gay men are 'murdered by their ashamed families after being released from Nazi-style concentration camps in Chechnya where they were tortured, beaten and humiliated'

• Chechnyans are reportedly being encouraged to snitch on their gay relatives 
• Gay men are allegedly imprisoned, beaten up and tortured in 'Hitler-style' jails 
• Gay 'inmates' have told how they were humiliated in front of non-gay prisoners 
• Distressing photos shows inmates apparently covered in bruises from beatings 
• One man, known only as Adam, says he was tortured daily during his sentence
• Says he was electrocuted and beaten while men shouted anti-gay slurs at him

Chechnyans are being ordered to murder their gay relatives after they are released from sinister Nazi-style concentration camps, according to new evidence.

Failure to do so will heap 'shame' and 'disgrace' on their families in Chechnya, part of Vladimir Putin's empire, they are told. 

Details of these so-called 'honour killings' come as former gay inmates tell of the abuse they suffered inside 'unofficial' detention centres. 

Distressing photos show former prisoners covered in bruises where they were beaten on their legs and backsides while an unverified video shows the moment two men were apparently questioned for having sex in private - though its veracity is unclear.

In one secret jail in Argun, near a nursery called Fairytale Kindergarten Number 8, gay men are ordered to 'sit on bottles' as punishment. 

 The guards in these allegedly unofficial jails are accused of releasing them to their relatives if the family promises to kill them, an investigation by Radio Svoboda claimed.

Journalists were told about 'at least two similar cases that ended with the death of men, but there is no chance to check this information because in the case of such "honour killings".' 

A victim known as Said who fled to Europe claimed his friend was freed from a camp 'by military men on the condition that his family would kill him', adding: 'His uncle killed him, I know for sure. He was 20 or 21.'

A gay man who claimed to know former inmates said: 'Some of them were half dead after the beatings and were returned to relatives like a bag with bones. I know for sure about two dead victims.

'If you were kidnapped, there were three ways to get out: To pay a lot of money - I heard about 1.5 million roubles (£21,100) - to betray others, or they give you back to relatives and order them "to sort it out".'

Chechnya, which has come under fire from LGBT groups for its institutional homophobia, is run by Ramzan Kadyrov, a father-of-ten who has been accused of ordering extra-judicial killings. 

The latest evidence indicates that his police and security thugs act as jailers and demand families slaughter their own gay relatives.

It was feared that he is sanctioning the killings of homosexuals after his spokesman after Alvi Karimov denied there were any gays in Chechnya at all.

Karimov added: 'You can't detain and harass someone who doesn't exist in the republic.

'If there were such people in the Chechen republic, law enforcement wouldn't have a problem with them because their relatives would send them to a place of no return.'

The Kremlin has expressed scant concern over the revelations, showing no inclination to demand explanations from Kadyrov. 

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: 'We don't know how much of it is true....I'm not an expert in the field of non-traditional sexual orientation.'

Heda Saratova, Kadyrov's 'human rights' advisor, compared being gay to terrorists and trespassers before going on to apparently condone the 'honour killings'.

One Chechen man and former inmate has bravely revealed the abuse he suffered while locked up as part of Kadyrov's anti-gay purge.

The man, known only as Adam, said metal clamps were attached to his fingers and toes before shockwaves were sent through his body, as part of a campaign of torture at an informal detention facility in Chechnya.

Adam also told how he was beaten with wooden sticks or metal rods as his torturers shouted abuse at him and demanded to know the names of other gay men. 

He told the Guardian: 'Sometimes they were trying to get information from me; other times they were just amusing themselves.

'They woke us up at 5am and let us sleep at 1am. Different people would come in and take turns to beat us. Sometimes they brought in other prisoners, who were told we were gay and were also ordered to beat us.

'They called us animals, non-humans, said we were going to die there.' 

He said he was arrested after being called by a long-time gay friend who suggested that they meet up.

But when he arrived he was met by thugs who detained him, accused him of being gay, and then showed him messages he had sent to other men. 

Forced into a confession, he was then taken to the camp where the torture started.

Adam claims that he was held alongside more than a dozen homosexual men, who were subjected to a similar ordeal.

His story backs up earlier reports in Russian newspaper Novoya Gazeta that more than 100 gay men have been detained as part of a purge being carried out by leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a staunch Putin ally.

Journalists claim to have concrete evidence that at least three people have been killed as part of the purge so far.

Images of people who claim to have been detained at the camps show them with large bruises on their legs, and what appears to be burns on their backside. 

One of those who escaped told the newspaper that prisoners were beaten to force them to reveal other members of the gay community.

Another prisoner who fled said that before being incarcerated in one of the camps, he had been forced to pay bribes to Chechen police of thousands of rubles every month in order to survive. 

Now the regime had taken another step against gays by creating these camps, the survivor said. 

Asked about reports of the arrests, Kadyrov spokesman Alvi Karimov called them 'absolute lies and disinformation.'

In a shocking assertion, Karimov added that it was impossible to persecute gays in Chechnya, because there are none.