September 6, 2001

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On the night of September 6, in the village of Serzhen-Yurt, the Russian military carried out a “targeted sweep.” Three civilians of retirement age were detained.
Late in the evening, the village unexpectedly came under fire. Several houses were damaged, and local residents were injured.

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In Grozny, Ruslan Girikhanovich Toldiev (Taldiev), born in 1972, was detained, who arrived a few days earlier from the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya, where he had lived with his family since the beginning of the war (permanent registration address: Grozny, Mayakovsky town, 100 ). In the building of the Zavodsky district police department, he handed over the house register and began to wait his turn to receive a passport. Suddenly, the military approached him and took him away.

The detainee's parents and wife learned about what happened five days later from a friend: none of the authorities notified them about it. They immediately went to Grozny and contacted the FSB. The fact that Ruslan Toldiev (Taldiev) is being held in this department was already known.

An investigator who identified himself as Sergei Anatolyevich Silantiev, in a conversation with the young man’s father, 54-year-old Girikhan Akhmedovich Toldiyev (Taldiev), said that he was accused of organizing an explosion on Staropromyslovskoe Highway. The relatives were at a loss. In response to their surprised questions about how he could do this if he suffered from mental disability, did not speak or understand Russian, lived for a long time in Ingushetia, due to which he hardly had any connection with the militants, the investigator only named the name of the appointed lawyer and advised me to talk to him. For four days Girikhan Toldiev (Taldiev) searched for lawyer Magomed Zakarayev. He was not at home or at work all this time. The father of the detainee expressed his indignation to the city prosecutor and only then was a lawyer found. It turned out that he had not done anything for the defendant yet.

During interrogations, trying to prove his innocence, Ruslan Toldiev (Taldiev) told the investigator that at the time of the explosion attributed to him, he was several blocks away from him, carrying water home. He named his neighbors as witnesses, including a student of the 10th grade of secondary school No. 44, Rustam Anzorovich Mindaev, born in 1982, living at the address: Grozny, Mayakovsky town, 107, apt. 38. He was detained on September 7 in the school yard. This was done by employees of the Zavodsky District Department of Internal Affairs and, according to the testimony of Rustam’s friend Salavdi, who insisted on going with them, they severely beat him and handed him over to the FSB.

Rustam Mindaev told his lawyer that the “counterintelligence agents” continued beating him and subjected him to electric shock, forcing him to confess to participating in the preparation and execution of the explosion. Having learned about this, his mother, Zura Mindaeva, born in 1955, complained to the head of the temporary detention facility and began preparing a complaint to the prosecutor's office about ill-treatment of her son. She was threatened that they would kill him “while trying to escape.”

For three days, teachers and students of school No. 44 rallied at the FSB. After it became known that Rustam Mindaev was being tortured with electric shock, they moved to the prosecutor’s office building, summoned his leadership and demanded to stop the illegal actions. It turns out that no one made sure that the interrogation of the student was carried out, as required by law, in the presence of teachers or parents. On October 2, the father of Ruslan Toldiev (Taldieva) and the mother of Rustam Mindaev submitted statements to the Memorial Human Rights Center with a request for help. At that time, the detained young people had not yet been released.

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At 15:00 in the village of Chiri-Yurt, Russian soldiers from the local commandant’s office detained two teenagers: Ruslan Munaev, born in 1980, a native of the Shatoi district, and Islam Takhtarov, born in 1983, a local resident. The first of them was released after checking his documents. A bag of marijuana was planted on Islam Takhtarov and he was accused of illegal possession of drugs. For the release of the teenager, the military demanded a ransom from the relatives - a machine gun.

From the book “People Live Here”, Usam Baysaev, Dmitry Grushkin, 2006.