Forced kidnappings, torture and murders in Avtury, Argun, Grozny and Urus-Martan

June 9, 2001


***


At 2 o'clock in the morning, servicemen of the DON-2 VV of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, temporarily stationed in the Shali district, leaving their armored vehicles on the outskirts, entered the village of Avtury. Their faces were hidden by masks. Divided into three groups, they broke into the houses and detained the following local residents:
1. Umar Khalidovich Bekaev, born in 1941, with a sickly open form of tuberculosis, living at the address: Mamakaev St., 37;
2. Sharipa Magomedkhadzhievich Shovkhaev, born in 1941, a visually impaired person of the second group, who lived at 6 Shalinskaya Street;
3. his son Shamkhan Sharipovich Shovkhaev, born in 1981;
4. Isa Magomedovich Khasanov, born in 1975, patient with tuberculosis, 62 Mamakaev St.;
5. Movsar Magomedovich Khasanov, born in 1982


The detention of Umar Bekayev proceeded as follows. The military men who burst into it at first ended up in the room where the women were sleeping. Threatening to use weapons, they forbade them to get out of bed and make noise. Then they went into the adjacent room and took out the owner of the house. His hands were tied behind his back, and a bag was put on his head. The military ordered him to say goodbye to his wife and daughter, as they supposedly would not have to see each other again. Having locked the women in the basement, searched the premises and took the owner of the house with them, they left. Relatives unsuccessfully tried to establish the whereabouts of the detainee. His wife was categorically told at the commandant's office in Shali that they did not know anything about this abduction itself, or about who could be behind it. Not satisfied with this answer, she submitted applications to the republican and district prosecutor's offices, to the office of the special representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the observance of human and civil rights and freedoms in the Chechen Republic.


In August of the same year, the prosecutor's office announced that a criminal case had allegedly been initiated into the disappearance of Umar Bekaev. But for a long time nothing was known about the course of the investigation, or even about its number. Until December 2001, the wife had never been interrogated, although she and her daughter were the main and direct witnesses to the abduction.


Sharip Shovkhaev and his son Shamkhan also went missing. Another member of this family, Shamil Sharipovich Shovkhaev, born in 1977, disappeared on December 18, 2000. According to the stories of relatives, the VAZ-21099 car, in which he was traveling as a passenger to Shali, was stopped at about noon at a mobile Russian post installed between this city and the village of Avtury. People driving along the same road soon found a car with cut tires. The badly beaten owner was in the cabin. A little later, he went to the relatives of Shamil Shovkhaev and reported the incident. But where exactly the military took the young man and for what reason, he could not say. He also did not give his first and last name, but said that he lives in Gudermes.


The fate of Isa and Movsar Khasanov, who were detained that same night, turned out to be more successful. On the fourth day after the abduction, the military brought them to a field near the village of Germenchuk and threw them out there. The brothers were found by residents of this village, busy weeding beets. They dressed the men in women's dresses and, having led them through the checkpoint in this form, delivered them to their relatives. The people who arrived from Avtury were amazed at the sight of the liberated, who were not only severely beaten, but also tortured: traces of electric current were left on their bodies, one had a broken arm, another had a seriously injured eye.
Isa and Movsar Khasanov left Chechnya at the insistence of their relatives. Despite this, on the fact of their abduction, as well as the abduction of Umar Bekaev, Sharip and Shamkhan Shovkhaev (Article 126 part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), on January 21, 2002, the prosecutor's office of the Shali district opened criminal case No. 59039. According to Art. 195 part 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR on March 23, 2002, it was suspended.


***
At dawn, Vakha Elimkhanov, born in 1937, who lived at the address: Argun, Zavodskaya st., 18, was shot dead. Unknown people shot when he appeared in the window of the room where the light was on. After that, a car drove away from the house. Since everything happened during the “curfew”, the neighbors believe that only the Russian military could have committed the murder. They are inclined to this opinion by the fact that military patrols move around the city at night, including in cars.


***
At about 9 pm in Grozny, having rammed the gates with an armored personnel carrier, the Russian military broke into house 120 on Mayakovsky Street and took away two men from there - Albert Alkhazurovich Baitmurzaev, born in 1975, an employee of the department for combating economic crimes of the Oktyabrsky District Department of Internal Affairs of the city, student of the National Department of the Pedagogical Institute, and his relative, 60-year-old owner of the house (surname unknown). Albert Baitmurzaev's passport was found thrown out in the yard. The search for the detainees as of the beginning of July 2001 did not produce any positive results.

 

***

In the city of Urus-Martan, the Russian military, with the help of armored vehicles, completely destroyed the house that belonged to the Gazuev family. In previous days, they removed from it and took away the slate, doors, windows and all the wooden structures of the roof and interior decoration of the rooms. Eyewitnesses claim that a week before, an inscription appeared on the fence of the house warning of imminent demolition if the owners did not urgently return to Urus-Martan.

 

From the book "People Live Here", Usam Baisaev, Dmitry Grushkin, 2006

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