Anna Politkovskaya was killed on 7 October 2006. Her articles, written from behind Chechnya’s blood-soaked information wall and barbed wire, became a voice of truth — the truth about what residents of the republic were experiencing as they became a convenient and powerless collective victim of the global “fight against international terrorism”.

She was interested in what happened to people after Russian troops entered settlements, after arrests and searches, at filtration points and police stations. She returned to stories that had already been published, sought out new witnesses, compared accounts and followed what happened to criminal cases.

In this way, individual reports gradually became a chronicle of a system in which a person’s disappearance ceased to be an isolated crime and became part of the everyday reality of war.

Today, we recall several of Politkovskaya’s most important reports on the second war in Chechnya — on enforced disappearances, “sweeps”, torture and the fate of those caught up in them.

Alkhan-Yurt: “Does a treaty on war change a treaty on peace?”

In December 1999, Politkovskaya travelled to Alkhan-Yurt after Russian troops entered the village. She began her report with the story of 22-year-old student Mubarik Avkhadova. On 1 December, Mubarik and her mother tried to leave the village in a car that already had other people inside. A white scarf had been placed on the vehicle. On the road to Goyty, the car, the journalist wrote, came under pursuit by an aircraft and was fired on. Two women were killed and Mubarik suffered 11 gunshot wounds. Her sister later managed to take her to Ingushetia, paying money at checkpoints. That same day, Russian television reported that aircraft had destroyed a Zhiguli car carrying militants.

Politkovskaya then visited Alkhan-Yurt. She published a list of 23 village residents killed between 1 and 8 December, citing Human Rights Watch data. According to her, three were killed in bombardments and the rest during checks of their “passport regime”. The list included men, women and a child.

The journalist described destroyed homes and a mosque and quoted an order from the military command stating that civilians could leave their basements only between 11am and 1pm, while holding a white flag.

“Unanswered questions of fundamental importance are the main feature of this war,” Politkovskaya wrote.

“Disappearing people”

In January 2001, 26-year-old Zelimkhan Murdalov was detained in central Grozny. He was taken away by officers from the Khanty-Mansiysk consolidated police unit. Witnesses saw him thrown into a temporary detention cell after being tortured. Murdalov then disappeared.

His story became the basis for the “Disappearing People” column, which Politkovskaya began writing for Novaya Gazeta in autumn 2001. In the articles, she collected the stories of Chechens who disappeared after encounters with federal servicemen — during “sweeps”, at checkpoints and during raids on streets and markets.

Politkovskaya listed the names of those who had disappeared, told the stories of their families and reconstructed the circumstances of their last detentions. The focus was not only on the disappearances themselves, but also on what happened afterwards: relatives’ appeals to the police and prosecutors, criminal investigations being opened, searches for witnesses and the absence of answers about the fate of the missing.

In one of the articles, she described the purpose of the column as follows:

“We intend to publish lists, photographs, memories and circumstances. And most importantly, to demand an answer from the authorities: where are these people?”

Murdalov’s story was continued in an article entitled “Turned to Dust?”. By July 2002, the “Disappearing People” column had been running for almost a year. Politkovskaya was already writing about thousands of Russian citizens who had once crossed the path of federal servicemen in Chechnya and subsequently disappeared without a trace. Dozens of criminal cases into abductions had been opened following Novaya Gazeta reports, but most of those who disappeared were never found.

Aizan Gazuyeva and General Gadzhiev

“Death of a military commandant. Why did General Gadzhiev die?” — 2002

On 14 January 2002, Novaya Gazeta published Anna Politkovskaya’s article “Death of a Military Commandant. Why Did General Gadzhiev Die?”. Its subtitle was: “The backstory to one of the most high-profile killings of the previous year in Chechnya”.

In the winter of 2002, Politkovskaya travelled to Urus-Martan. On the desk in the office of district administration head Shirvani Yasaev lay a list of people abducted during sweeps — 109 residents of the district.

“And that means 109 families who know nothing about their relatives: not a word, not a funeral,” the journalist wrote.

Reports of new cases of violence were coming from Gekhi, Alkhan-Yurt, Goyty and other nearby villages. In Goyty, soldiers in armoured personnel carriers burst into the home of Taus Osmaev, one of the village’s most respected residents. The women and children were beaten, while Osmaev himself was dragged outside naked, beaten and humiliated.

Geidar Gadzhiev arrived from Makhachkala in the summer of 2000 and became military commandant of the Urus-Martan district.

“It quickly became clear” that he knew no other methods of dealing with the population than “shouting, punching and insults”. In the mornings, he could be seen at the central market, smashing traders’ stalls if he believed their goods had been laid out in the wrong place.

Gadzhiev personally led sweeps and directed them “in the most brutal direction”. He travelled to inspect field “filtration points”, which Politkovskaya described as mobile torture chambers where detainees were forced to confess to being militants.

“Not to mention robbery and the trade in detainees,” she wrote, commandant Gadzhiev “did not shy away from the usual military ‘exercises’ in Chechnya”.

A special place was occupied by his “creative work” — the scripts for sweeps: “who to go after, whom to catch, whom to eliminate”. For this, Gadzhiev consulted the Urus-Martan administration.

“And they advised him.”

In autumn 2001, he was promoted to the rank of major general.

In late summer 2000, two sons of Aminat Musayeva — Ali and Umar — disappeared during a sweep in Gekhi. Aminat immediately went to Gadzhiev and told him that she had seen her sons being taken away in APC No. 108 by a group of Penza police officers led by Major Silantyev. The soldiers also took the family’s car.

When Aminat went to Gadzhiev, the car was standing in the commandant’s office yard. His subordinates later sold it. There, the woman also saw the major whom she recognised as the man who had taken her sons away. She grabbed Gadzhiev by the sleeve:

“There he is! I recognised him!”

Gadzhiev responded to the woman’s tears:

“You won’t move me to tears.”

And when she pointed to the major, he said:

“Where? Who? I don’t see anyone,”

and laughed.

Ali and Umar never returned.

On 12 June 2001, soldiers abducted Artur Berpsukaev in Urus-Martan. His mother ran to Gadzhiev — “who else could she go to?” The commandant had his own detention facility. Gadzhiev told Artur’s mother that he had personally organised her son’s capture and would not help her.

“Fine,” the mother sobbed, “but just tell me where my son is being held, what he is accused of and when his trial will be?”

“A trial! Oh, a trial!” the commandant laughed.

Six months passed.

“There is no news of Artur. There is no Artur. And there is no body of Artur. Nothing remains of Artur,” Politkovskaya wrote.

During that time, commandant Gadzhiev was promoted to general.

Eighteen-year-old Aizan Gazuyeva lost her husband, uncle and two brothers during the second Russian-Chechen war.

“Under different circumstances,” Politkovskaya уточнила. But one thing was common to all these deaths:

“none of those who have now consolidated their positions in power even considered it necessary to explain why they had disappeared”.

“Aizan went to Gadzhiev, like many others, but received nothing in response except insults.”

On 29 November 2001, Aizan Gazuyeva approached Major General Geidar Gadzhiev, who was standing in a square in Urus-Martan, and asked:

— Do you recognise me?

The commandant, “as unfriendly as usual”, barked:

— Go away! I don’t have time to talk to you!

“And then there was an explosion”: Aizan detonated a device concealed on her body.

“Vigilante justice had been carried out. Exactly the same kind as General Gadzhiev had been engaged in. And as Shirvani Yasaev is engaged in today,” Politkovskaya wrote.

Starye Atagi: “Sweep No. 20”

From 28 January to 5 February 2002, an eight-day “sweep” took place in Starye Atagi — the twentieth since the beginning of the second Russian-Chechen war and the second since the start of the year. In the village, home to around 15,000 people, the military established several rings of armoured vehicles and blocked the streets and houses.

In “Children of the Chechen ‘Special Operations’”, Politkovskaya wrote about 16-year-old tenth-grader Magomed Idigov, who was taken to be executed during the operation. In “Starye Atagi. Sweep No. 20”, she described in detail a temporary filtration point set up at an abandoned poultry farm that residents called the “poultry house”.

Detainees were taken there, beaten and interrogated. Policeman Ramzan Sagipov described how men were forced to run a gauntlet: they were thrown from KamAZ lorries at the feet of soldiers, who beat the detainees. Said-Emin Apaev said people were kept for hours against a wall with their hands raised and beaten for any movement.

“I never understood: why did they ‘filter’ people? They only beat and tortured them…” he said.

During the sweep, residents paid money to prevent relatives from being taken to the “filter”. Politkovskaya gave figures ranging from 500 roubles to 3,000–4,000 roubles. Money and jewellery were also handed over to avoid sexual violence. One family had to pay 300 roubles to prevent a young woman from being raped, another paid 500; earrings and chains were also accepted as payment.

The soldiers took money, gold, clothes and crockery from homes. People were held at the “poultry house”, beaten and tortured. After the troops left on 5 February, residents found the number E 403 on an armoured personnel carrier. Before leaving, the soldiers entered an empty house and removed belongings.

Mesker-Yurt: “Two bandits among 36 dead”

On 21 May 2002, federal forces surrounded Mesker-Yurt. All roads, streets and lanes in the village were blocked. Soldiers herded people into houses and yards and did not allow them to leave. The operation and the blockade that followed lasted three weeks.

In the report “Two Bandits among 36 Dead”, published on 1 July 2002, Politkovskaya compared the official results of the operation with its consequences for local residents. In the end, she wrote, two people described as militants had been detained, while 36 people had been killed.

“Two bandits — and a ‘field of death’ forever on the outskirts… Two bandits — and a school and clinic ransacked, total looting in homes.”

Several weeks later, Politkovskaya returned to the issue of disappearances in the article “Turned to Dust?”. It dealt with thousands of people who had once crossed the path of federal servicemen in Chechnya and subsequently disappeared without a trace. Among them was Zelimkhan Murdalov; Politkovskaya returned to his story and to the fate of other missing people.

“The main thing: the people are still gone… Neither alive nor dead,” she wrote.

The “Cadet” case

Zelimkhan Murdalov’s story continued in the case of Sergei Lapin, a member of the Khanty-Mansiysk consolidated police unit known by the call sign “Cadet”.

On 2 January 2001, Lapin detained 26-year-old Murdalov. According to the case materials, he was beaten and tortured before being taken to a temporary detention facility. Murdalov disappeared. Politkovskaya repeatedly returned to his story and followed the investigation and trial.

After Novaya Gazeta published articles about the case, the editorial office began receiving threats signed “Cadet”. In one letter, Politkovskaya was given ten days to publish a retraction and threatened with death. A criminal case was opened over the threats.

In October 2003, Lapin’s trial began in Grozny. Politkovskaya continued to follow the proceedings, writing about attempts to delay the hearings and how the defendant’s own circumstances changed.

On 29 March 2005, Grozny’s Oktyabrsky District Court found Lapin guilty of abuse of office, causing serious bodily harm and official forgery and sentenced him to 11 years in prison.