October 9, 2001
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In the village of Alkhazurovo, military personnel carrying out a “cleansing operation” entered the house of 67-year-old Isa Rasulovich Magomadov, who lived at 29 Beregovaya St. They checked the residents’ documents, searched the premises and left. The search was carried out without presentation of a warrant or participation of witnesses. At its end, no protocol was drawn up. However, the owner of the house said that the search went “normally”: only his electric razor was missing.
At 7 o'clock on October 10, when Isa Magomadov was still sleeping, the military (up to 50 people) arrived again. They cordoned off the house and began a search from the yard. However, as on the previous day, they did not present any documents. Witnesses were not invited either. There was no way to follow the military. The owner of the house tried to find out why they were so interested in him, but did not receive an answer to his question.
At approximately 8 o'clock, the military commandant of the Urus-Martan district, Major General Heydar Gadzhiev, who led the “cleansing” in the village, arrived. He didn’t like the fact that there was too much equipment in the yard. Reinforcements arrived after him. There were more military personnel, and, accordingly, their actions became more widespread.
Since 1988, Isa Magomadov was the founder and owner of the private enterprise “RIM”, which was assigned two stores, vehicles, and various equipment. In 1995, during the first war, his company suffered significant damage. The enterprise also suffered after the resumption of hostilities in 1999: shops, offices, and equipment were destroyed. Due to this, and also due to the lack of necessary funds, it was not re-registered on time. But all the documentation for the enterprise has been preserved, including for cars and trailers with refrigeration equipment.
The military who arrived for the search became interested in a model 710B trailer (a mobile refrigerator with expensive equipment designed to store 80 tons of vegetables or fruits). The owner showed the documents. However, Heydar Hajiyev, saying that the trailer “should serve for the benefit of the people,” announced its seizure. In addition to the trailer, Isa Magomadov was taken away with a new Japanese intercom (packed with documents), a two-cassette tape recorder, a security alarm, a reel of telephone wire, a Panasonic video camera (also in a package with documents), a hairdryer, an electric drill, a spotlight, dishes (tea sets and table dishes), a bucket of ghee, registration plates for ZIL-130, 1AZ-53 cars and trailers. The license plates were personally taken away by the district commandant in his car.
The military tried to put a tied ram in the back of their truck, but after the intervention of neighbor M.A. Temurkaev, they abandoned it.
In Isa Magomadov’s yard there was a trailer in which his sister Asma had previously lived with her children for some time. Her property also remained in it. Among other things, there was a refrigerator and a Japanese Samsung TV. The military tried to take them with them too. Louise, the wife of the owner of the house, tried to prevent this, but the military did not let her near the trailer. One of them first shouted threateningly: “Don’t come closer, bitch,” and then hit her in the lower back with the butt of a machine gun. All this happened in front of Heydar Gadzhiev and his deputy, Colonel Kuznetsov. The woman began to scream and cry, and the military, oddly enough, did not touch the refrigerator and TV.
Before confiscating any item, the military turned to the commandant or his deputy. Property was confiscated only after their permission.
A seizure report or search protocol indicating the seized items was not drawn up. In response to demands for at least some kind of document indicating that everything was being taken away legally, Colonel Kuznetsov wrote out a piece of paper that only mentioned a coil of wire and a signaling device.
Isa Magomadov could keep his property if he surrendered the machine gun. One of the military men suggested this to him, taking him aside. But he did not have a weapon, and, taking with them equipment, household appliances and household items, the military left.
***
At approximately 8-9 o'clock in the morning in the city of Argun, armed people in camouflage uniforms drove up to a house located at 19 Pervomaiskaya Street in cars (possibly accompanied by armored personnel carriers). They took Aslan Khalievich (according to other sources - Ruslan Khalitovich) Bachakov, born in 1974. He subsequently disappeared. According to witnesses, the kidnappers were not wearing masks. They did not show any documents; they spoke Russian without an accent.
His wife was in the house with Aslan Bachakov (they got married just a few months ago). In front of her eyes, unknown people beat her husband and took him away in an unknown direction. As of December 12, 2007, the whereabouts of the abducted person could not be established. Memorial Human Rights Center did not have any other data.
Aslan Bachakov was of average height, brown hair, brown eyes with squinting. On the fact of his abduction (Article 126 Part 2 Clause A of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) on March 1, 2002, criminal case No. 78026 was opened. According to Clause 3 of Article 195 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the RSFSR, two months later - May 1, 2002 - he was suspended .
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In Grozny, federal law enforcement officers took Shamil Magomedovich Isakov, born in 1982, from his apartment (1st Sadovaya St., 34/a, apt. 43).
The security forces arrived in two armored personnel carriers and a Ural truck. Getting out of the cars, the first thing they did was beat two young men who were playing backgammon at the entrance to the house. Then they broke into the above apartment. At this time, Shamil Isakov was in the bathroom. They twisted his arms, wrapped his head in a T-shirt and, without allowing him to get dressed, they dragged him to the exit. The mother, who was trying to find out the reason for what was happening, was told by the kidnappers to “shut up” and locked her in one of the rooms. Her daughter-in-law, her son's wife, was locked in another room. Shamil Isakov was taken outside, forcibly lifted into the back of a Ural, and driven away. The mother remembered the registration plates of the car: from 790 xx 95//rus.
The whereabouts of Shamil Isakov were established only on November 13. All this time he was in the temporary detention center of the Leninsky district of Grozny. On the same day, the parents hired a lawyer, but he was allowed to see Isakov only 10 days later, after formal charges were filed. According to relatives, the prosecutor’s office investigator Andrei Igorevich Mazin is to blame for this. Under various pretexts, often far-fetched, he did not allow the lawyer to see his client. Meanwhile, the investigation forced Shamil Isakov to sign a protocol in which he “admitted” to filming the explosion of an armored personnel carrier on a video camera. He subsequently retracted his testimony, saying that he gave it under torture. The fact of the use of violence was confirmed by the people who were detained with him and were later released. They said that Shamil Isakov is in a temporary detention center in a very serious condition: his ribs are broken, his nose is broken, his hands are numb from handcuffs, his legs, broken off with a metal rod, are very swollen, and there are traces of burns from cigarettes and lighters on his body.
On December 6, 2001, Magomed Mukhadinovich Isakov addressed the representative office of the Human Rights Center “Memorial” in Grozny with a request for assistance in the release of his son. He said that the lawyer was able to meet with his client only once. For a long time, the investigator responded to requests to provide him with such an opportunity with an invariable refusal. And this is despite the fact that back on November 13, Deputy Prosecutor of the Chechen Republic Alexander Nikitin, at a rally of students protesting against the arrests that took place in the building of the Chechen State University on November 12, firmly and publicly promised Shamil Isakov’s parents to provide a meeting with him.
From the book “People Live Here”, Usam Baysaev, Dmitry Grushkin, 2006.
