The murder of a mentally ill resident of Samashki and videotaping of a staged fight

November 26, 2001

***
On the western outskirts of the village of Samashki, soldiers from checkpoint No. 13 killed local resident Isa Musaevich Daduev. He was disabled, mentally retarded from birth. Together with his father, a state farm worker, he went to the fields and drove cattle away from the winter wheat crops. At the same time, I repeatedly encountered military personnel and POM employees who were patrolling the outskirts of the settlement. There were no complaints against him.

But on this day, according to eyewitnesses - residents of houses on the outskirts of the village of Samashki - for some reason Russian soldiers drove up to Isa Daduev in an armored personnel carrier. After a short conversation, they began to beat him with rifle butts and kicks. When he fell to the ground and lay motionless, one of the soldiers shot him. Village residents saw how the military placed a machine gun next to the dead man and filmed the “battle scene” on a video camera. People began to approach the scene, and the killers hastened to escape.

When examining the corpse of Isa Daduev, it was found that he had several broken ribs and a jaw, there were multiple bruises on his head and body, and a bullet hole in the neck area. Having taken the body, local residents went to the POM in the premises of the Zagotzerno association: they began to throw stones at the department’s guards. When a Russian officer came out to them, the indignant residents of Samashki turned to him with a demand to find and punish the killers of the weak-minded man.

According to available information, the corpse of Isa Musaevich Daduev, surrounded by weapons, was soon shown on one of the Russian television channels. The commentary on the story said that this was the corpse of an Arab mercenary.


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

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