September 21, 2001

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At 9 o'clock in Grozny on Montazhnaya Street (RTS district), 28-year-old Leila Ismailova, a native of the village of Chiri-Yurt, died due to indiscriminate shooting opened by the Russian military (sappers). The girl's mother, Belita Ismailova, was wounded.

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At 17.30, the southern part of the city of Shali and the roads leading towards the village of Avtury and the village of Serzhen-Yurt were blocked by the Russian military. Residents of these settlements and the regional center of Vedeno returning home were forced to spend two days, sometimes spending the night with complete strangers, in a foreign city. From September 21 to 23, not a single car was allowed to pass along the Shali-Avtury highway. Even ambulances with the sick and wounded stood at checkpoints for two or more hours, waiting for the military to contact the command and receive permission for their passage.

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The Russian military carried out a “clean-up” of the village of Isti-Su. The reason for the operation was the death of two local residents, Sultaev and Akhmadov, in battles in the city of Gudermes. The neighborhoods where their relatives lived were subjected to especially thorough inspection. The military took all the young people to the outskirts of the village and here, in the field, searched them and checked them against a computer database. The brothers of the deceased members of the VF ChRI were beaten. The military detained and took 16 residents of Isti-Su to Gudermes. Within a few days they were all released. No criminal cases were initiated

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An anti-war rally took place not far from the village of Starye Atagi on the Grozny-Shatoi highway. More than 500 people took part in it. The protesters demanded an end to hostilities in the republic and the start of peace negotiations with the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichryssia, Aslan Maskhadov.

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Over the past two months, in the Kurchaloevsky district, the Russian military has been systematically extorting money from the local population driving along the roads. Vehicles that had not paid the “tribute” were not allowed through checkpoints located between Tsotsin-Yurt and Geldagan, Geldagan and Kurchaloy, Kurchaloy and Ilaskhan-Yurt, as well as Kurchaloy and Mayrtup. Residents of these villages were often forced to walk. However, there have been cases where money was taken from them as well. Between Tsotsin-Yurt and Geldagan, for example, the military offered the men to “come to an agreement,” otherwise refusing to pass through “their” checkpoint.

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Residents of the village of Alkhan-Kala Ali Abuezitovich Karimov and Aslan Emilkhanovich Elmurzaev, born in 1984, were detained and went missing. At about 4 p.m., after visiting relatives in the village of Kulary, the young people were returning home when they were stopped by the head of the administration of this village, Arbi Ibragimov, and his employees. Taking advantage of the fact that Aslan Elmurzaev did not have an identification document with him, they took both of them into custody.

Subsequently, the young people were handed over to a certain Akhmadov, a captain from the regional FSB department. After interrogating them, he handed them over to his immediate superior, Major Sergei Maltsev. After verification, the detainees were to be released within ten days.

After this time, the seriously concerned relatives of the young people decided to turn to Sergei Maltsev. But instead of indicating the place where they should have been, they were given a paper that stated that the head of the FSB of the Grozny district, Lieutenant Colonel A.P. Turunkin, took both of them to Grozny on September 23 and released them about 18 o’clock on the street. Mayakovsky at the “northern market”.

It was not possible to find out anything more about the further fate of Ali Karimov and Aslan Elmurzaev. They disappeared without a trace. Lieutenant Colonel A. Turunkin, the only one who could somehow clarify the picture of what happened to them, left his post on September 24, and at the same time the borders of the Chechen Republic. On October 5, 2001, the prosecutor’s office of the Grozny district opened criminal case No. 19159 on the fact of illegal detention (part 2 of article 127, paragraph “a, d, g”). Its motivation part states that Ali Karimov and Aslan Elmurzaev were stopped by FSB officers and taken away in an unknown direction. The criminal case was then sent to the military prosecutor's office (military unit 20102), located on the territory of a military base in the village of Khankala. Nothing is known about the progress of the further investigation of the Human Rights Center “Memorial”.

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