December 24, 2001
***
On the night of December 24, the village of Chechen-Aul was blocked by the Russian military. In the morning, a “cleansing operation” began there, in which a large number of military personnel and military equipment took part (the license plates on the vehicles were covered with mud). The commander of the special operation, General Nikolai Bogdanovsky, approached the village administration with a proposal that in each of the 14 units that are part of his formation, one of the young people should be placed on one of the armored personnel carriers to monitor the progress of the operation. In turn, the head of the administration suggested old men from the council of elders instead of young men. The general agreed with this proposal. Local police officers were not only not allowed to monitor the special operation, but some of them were even subjected to unjustified detention. The elders actually had the opportunity to observe everything that was happening, but could not influence the course of the operation, in particular, prevent detentions and beatings.
Representatives of the prosecutor's office were not present in the locality during this special operation; the officials in charge of the “cleansing” did not interact with the head of the local administration, the acting order was ignored. commander of the OGV(s) No. 145 and order of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation No. 46 on the procedure for carrying out such operations.
During the “cleansing”, the military was engaged in robbery. They took everything they wanted, from video equipment to kitchen utensils and food. School No. 2 was also damaged: soldiers broke into the front door, office doors, and took away gifts prepared for children for the New Year.
In the house where a mentally disabled person lived, the military, seeing a lot of dirty dishes, began to beat him, trying to find out who he had.
During the “cleansing” operation, at least a hundred people were detained and taken outside the outskirts to the field where the operation headquarters was located.
Many residents, however, managed to pay off the military. But several groups of inspectors sequentially entered the same houses; obviously, there was no agreement between them, and therefore, often men who had already been “checked” were taken away by another group. One young man was taken from his home, kept until the evening and released. The next day he went to the funeral of a relative, where the military again tried to detain him, but his mother paid them off for 2,000 rubles. After some time, the third group of servicemen drew attention to this young man, and he was finally detained.
On December 25, about fifty detainees were taken to the territory of a former poultry farm near the village of Starye Atagi (where “cleansing” also began the next day). The village mullah was also taken there. He, like other people, was kept in the poultry house for almost two days without any reason. They spent the night outside in sub-zero temperatures.
Three of those detained during the “cleansing operation” were not released with everyone. These are: Umalt Ayubovich Abaev, born in 1978, Salekh Amalkhanovich Astamirov and Ramzan Said-Khasanovich Rasaev, born in 1965. Their fates turned out differently.
1. Umalt Abaev permanently resided in Khasavyurt. He arrived in Chechen-Aul for his uncle’s funeral shortly before the “cleansing” and stayed with his mother Taus Musaeva (Partizanskaya St., 29). He had in his hands a confirming document issued by the local administration. Nevertheless, he was taken to a poultry house near the village of Starye Atagi, and from there he was transported to a temporary detention facility at the Grozny District VOVD in the village of Goryachevodskaya. He was released ten days later, having been given a certificate stating that he was “not suspected of anything” and “nothing was registered against him.”
He was detained again on October 24, 2002. Together with several other residents of Chechen-Aul and visiting natives of other settlements, Umalt Abaev was taken to an unknown direction and killed after torture. On November 7 of the same year, the corpses of five of the detainees were discovered near the village of Braguny. Employees of the Grozny District Department of Internal Affairs brought them to Chechen-Aul and, unloading them at the local cemetery, notified local residents about what had happened. The funeral of Umalt Abaev took place on November 9, 2002. The following were killed along with him: Islam Yaragievich Umarov, born in 1975, Magomed Vakhitovich Shakhgiriev, born in 1980, Adlan Zubkhadzhiev and Ali Baudinovich Magomadov, born in 1966.
Based on the fact of the kidnapping of Umalt Abaev, the relatives contacted the prosecutor's office, and on January 26, 2002, criminal case No. 56014 was opened, which was suspended according to the standard wording on March 26, 2002. Subsequently, the relatives appealed to the European Court of Human Rights.
2. Ramzan Rasayev lived in the village at 21 Kalinina Street. He was detained on December 25 at about 1 p.m. His daughter-in-law Khava Rasaeva tells how this happened: “Ramzan was entering the house from the street when, apparently, he was called out by servicemen walking along it. Without hearing their shout (he was deaf in one ear), Ramzan entered the house. Following him, a few minutes later, the military burst in along with a shepherd dog, asking for the man who had hidden from them. When we began to explain that Ramzan had no need to hide, that he was deaf, the servicemen, without listening to us, detained him. They beat me on the legs with the butt of a machine gun, then took me to a temporary filtration point. But then we found out that he wasn’t even registered there.”
The whereabouts of Ramzan Rasayev could not be established even after the end of the “cleansing” operation. It is only known that he was kidnapped by military personnel (without masks) driving BGRs and UAZs without license plates. The ethnicity of the kidnappers is Russian. After Rasayev’s “disappearance,” his relatives contacted the Department of Internal Affairs and the FSB, the Secretary of the Security Council of the Chechen Republic, the military prosecutor of military unit 20102, the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, the prosecutor of the Grozny district, and many other authorities. The only result was the opening of an investigation into the abduction. On January 26, 2002, criminal case No. 56014 was opened. Together with Ramzan Rasayev, Umalt Abaev was also involved as a victim. Two months later, the criminal case was suspended. Rasayev's relatives went to court, complaining about the inaction of the prosecutor's office, but this did not in any way affect the investigation and establishment of the further fate of Ramzan Rasayev. Realizing how futile it was to seek justice through the Russian judicial-investigative system, Ramzan Rasayev’s relatives sent a complaint to the ECHR. On October 2, 2008, the court in the case of Rasaeva and Chankaeva v. Russia ruled in favor of the applicants and ordered them to pay 35,000 euros in compensation for moral damages.
3. Salekh Astamirov, a patient with an open form of tuberculosis, was taken straight from his bed by the military in his house (Partizanskaya St., 12). Everything happened in front of his mother. Some of the kidnappers were wearing masks and did not show any documents. They arrived in armored personnel carriers and Urals with blacked-out license plates. They spoke only Russian. They insulted and beat Salekh Astamirov.
This is not his first arrest. During the first war in 1995, he was kept for a long time in a filtration point equipped by the military in Grozny on the territory of PAP-1. There his ribs were broken and his kidneys were knocked out. The abuse continued this time: despite his illness, he was kept half-naked in the cold for two days. Hoping for a quick death, Salekh Astamirov swore. But they did not kill him, but transported him to the temporary detention center of the Grozny District VOVD and two weeks later he was released with sharply deteriorating health.
On December 26, the Russian military left Chechen-Aul and went towards the village of Starye Atagi. As they said goodbye, some of the participants in the operation shouted to local residents: “We will celebrate the New Year together!” Those who had such an opportunity sent men and young men to Ingushetia, just in case.
From the book “People Live Here”, Usam Baysaev, Dmitry Grushkin, 2006.
