Is Journalism Worth Dying For?: Final Dispatches (26 page)

A telling detail: the Khanty-Mansiysk Militia Unit terrorised not only the citizens of Grozny but also the Grozny Prosecutor’s Office. When one of the militiamen involved in the Murdalov case was summoned by the Prosecutors, a militia brigade armed to the teeth surrounded the building for the duration of his questioning. They smashed furniture in the corridors, and kept grenade launchers targeted on the building, promising to burn it to a cinder if their comrade was not released. There was no reaction to this from General Headquarters in Khankala, as if this is just how soldiers of the Joint Military Command in the North Caucasus are expected to behave.

On January 7, the criminal investigators decided to arrest Investigator Zhuravlyov of the October Office, having established that he had tortured Zelimkhan. However, the Head of the Department, Colonel Valeriy Kondakov, hastily issued an order backdated to January 5, sending him home to Nizhnevartovsk. According to witnesses, Kondakov himself was implicated in what befell Zelimkhan, and had no wish for anyone to start talking to the Prosecutor’s Office. On January 18, the trick was repeated. An attempt to detain Lapin, “The Cadet,” was foiled when Kondakov hurriedly had him sent home; and on February 7, the entire Khanty-Mansiysk contingent, celebrating the end
of their 90-day tour of duty – the usual period for which Russian troops are sent to Chechnya – returned to Nizhnevartovsk.

There they became virtually inaccessible, either for questioning or for arrest, as if Nizhnevartovsk were not a Siberian city with a quarter of a million inhabitants but a far-off place in Latin America where war criminals could hide. On March 12, for example, the Grozny Prosecutor’s Office sent two of its officers to Nizhnevartovsk to detain The Cadet and return him under guard to Chechnya, where the alleged crime had been committed. On April 2 they returned with only a signed undertaking from him not to leave Nizhnevartovsk. On April 20 the investigation was informed that the Nizhnevartovsk Municipal Court had released him even from this undertaking. They also learned of statements by the Deputy Prosecutor of Nizhnevartovsk to the effect that he would not be handing over anybody from his city to face charges relating to the disappearance of a Chechen and that the case should be closed. Neither did he. The case faced stalemate. For the past eight months the collective might of Russia’s law enforcement agencies has proved insufficient to resolve the matter.

Murdalov’s crime, it transpired, had been only to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. On January 2, the militiamen had urgently needed a Chechen informer to falsely accuse a suspect so they could report a success to their superiors. The Khanty-Mansiysk detachment seized the first person they came across and tried to force him to collaborate, using their usual methods. It was as simple as that.

“Why?” That is the only question his mother Rukiyat wants answered, having lost her only son. Zelimkhan’s father, Astemir, has shed more than 20 kilograms in weight and admits he will never be able to forgive this crime.

Abdulkasim Zaurbekov from Novosadovaya Street in Grozny had just started work at the October District Office as a temporary crane operator. At 9:00 a.m. on October 17 last year he went into the building to collect his wages, signed a receipt for 2,400 roubles, and was never seen again. His 18-year-old son, Aindi, waited for his father at the security checkpoint until evening, but he never emerged from the office and to this day there has been no sign of him.

On August 27 last year, Mahomed Umarov was abducted at dawn from his home on Klyuchevaya Street in Staropromyslovsky District, Grozny, by men in combat fatigues. By 9:00 a.m. his parents, Ruslan and Leila, were able to identify several of his abductors as working in the District Commandant’s Office. They succeeded in having a criminal case opened by the Prosecutor’s Office, but at this point that particular contingent of soldiers returned home from Chechnya and there the matter ended.

Even the risk-averse Eva Khubalkova, an official working in the Council of Europe Mission in Znamenskoye, eventually provided a statistic showing that, of applications relating to the “disappeared” sent by the office of Vladimir Kalamanov, the President’s Special Representative, to the Prosecutor’s Office and other law enforcement agencies of Chechnya, 55 per cent receive no reply at all. For the 45 per cent that do, the overwhelming majority of responses are callous and casually dismissive. A blatant refusal by the law enforcement agencies to take action in abduction cases involving the Army is only too apparent.

One minute someone is there, and the next they are gone. In Chechnya any encounter with a militiaman can prove fatal. He might be The Cadet. This is a time of shameful depravity in the Army and militia, when everything that should be stamped on is allowed. For the present that applies only in Chechnya, but this state of affairs has the tacit consent of our most senior state leaders. What next?

FROM THE EDITORS

September 24, 2001

We are fairly used to threats of various kinds, from officious fists banged on the table to fussy whispers over the telephone or online, warning us anonymously that it would be “inadvisable” to run a particular piece. We take these in our stride because we have found an antidote. We put any little plots or obscure hints into print, because we want no part in them. Ours is a different profession, and that is the rule we are following now.

In
Novaya gazeta
, No. 65 we published Anna Politkovskaya’s report “The Disappeared,” a journalistic investigation based on materials from the Prosecutor’s Office and witness statements. It included lines referring to specific officers of the Khanty-Mansiysk Combined Militia Unit, including Sergey Lapin who uses the alias of “The Cadet.” We quote: “A later inquiry established that it was they [that is, The Cadet and a number of other officers] who personally presided over and took part in the torturing of Zelimkhan.” The criminal case against The Cadet has come to a standstill. The local municipal court even released him from his undertaking not to leave Nizhnevartovsk and it is apparently this circumstance that he has decided to take advantage of.

Last week a letter arrived in the electronic mailbox of
Novaya gazeta
’s investigations department:

There is reliable information that an officer of the Criminal Investigation Department who has served in the Chechen Republic and uses the personal code name (not alias) of “The Cadet,” has received special training from the Federal Security Bureau in sabotage, sniper fire, and also has skills for survival in extreme conditions while conducting combat operations. His current whereabouts are unknown, but there are indications that he is in possession of firearms and has the intention of visiting Moscow. Can you shed any light on why this disgraced member of the Interior Ministry Office might be coming to Moscow?

The e-mail’s subject heading is “The Disappeared,” and the sender is [email protected].

We do not intend to check whether this is a malicious joke, a hoax, a serious warning or a threat. That is not the function of journalists. Our duty is simply to inform our readers and the authorities of what we have learned and trust that the law enforcement agencies will take effective action. It is their professional obligation to trace the author of this message and establish his motives for writing to our newspaper.

Meanwhile, we continue to fulfil our obligations by publishing another report from Grozny by Anna Politkovskaya.

[After the appearance of the article of September 10, 2001, threatening letters addressed to Anna Politkovskaya began arriving at the newspaper’s offices.]

THERE WILL BE NO RETRACTION

Novaya gazeta
, October 15, 2001

This is the second e-mail message we have received:

Forgive my troubling you, but you have just 10 days to publish a retraction of your article “The Disappeared,” otherwise the militia officer you have hired will be unable to protect you. Yours sincerely, The Cadet.

We immediately sent an inquiry to the Interior Ministry Directorate in Khanty-Mansiysk, where the putative source of these threats works, in order to find out whether the special operations agent code-named “The Cadet” had any connection with them. We still do not exclude the possibility that this whole business is a hoax. At the time of going to press we have received no reply.

Let no one be in any doubt that we will take all necessary measures to protect our colleague.

And incidentally,
Novaya gazeta
does not respond to ultimatums.

To the Interior Minister of the Russian Federation, B.V. Gryzlov

Dear Boris Vyacheslavovich,

In
Novaya gazeta
, No. 65 we published Anna Politkovskaya’s article “The Disappeared,” which describes atrocities committed by certain members of the militia in Chechnya. Following publication, threats, signed in the name of one of those featured in the article, began arriving at
Novaya gazeta
by e-mail.

Journalists working for
Novaya gazeta
are increasingly being subjected to criminal violence: in May 2000, Igor
Domnikov was murdered; and in December 2000, Oleg Luriye was brutally attacked. The perpetrators remain at large. This persuades me that these threats should be taken seriously and might be carried out. In my view, the life and well-being of Anna Politkovskaya are seriously at risk.

I request that you take all the measures required by law to identify and detain the guilty parties and to prevent the committing of a crime against a journalist.

Yours sincerely,

Yu.P. Shchekochikhin

Deputy Chairman,

Security Committee of the State Duma

[Deputy Editor of
Novaya gazeta
]

October 15, 2001

Enclosures: 5 pages

SILENCING THE WITNESSES: WHY THE KHANTY-MANSIYSK COMBINED MILITIA UNIT IS RETURNING TO CHECHNYA

March 11, 2002

In this issue of
Novaya gazeta
we should have been publishing an entirely different report from Chechnya, continuing the chronicle of one of the most appalling security sweeps of 2002 in Starye Atagi. We are obliged to postpone it until next Monday, in order today to describe events which, if we were to delay reporting them, might lead to fatalities.

As time passes one has the ever more insistent impression that there are several parallel states functioning simultaneously within Russia, and that they are at loggerheads. Moreover, even within the bounds of a single security ministry we find different state systems coexisting which not only have different tasks and aims, but completely dissimilar constitutions. The result is one tragedy after another when one system protects a person, while another, in retaliation, sets about him.

You will recall that more than a year ago the Khanties were on the rampage in Grozny. That is how the soldiers of the Khanty-Mansiysk
Combined Militia Unit were known, many of whom served in the October District Temporary Interior Ministry Office in Grozny. Today these temporary district offices are a real thorn in the flesh of Chechnya. The permanent district offices are staffed by local militiamen, but those in the Temporary Office have been seconded to Chechnya from all parts of the country, usually for a 90-day tour of duty in accordance with a plan drawn up in Moscow.

For a long time the October Temporary Office was one of the most feared places in Grozny, and it has featured in
Novaya gazeta
on more than one occasion. Were there any men in charge of the Interior Ministry groups in Chechnya with the courage to try to stop the criminal brutality of the Khanties? Some fatherly commander sitting in Khankala with responsibility for restoring the system of law enforcement in the Republic, part of which, according to the plan, was the October District Office?

No. Not one. There were plenty of generals, but no courageous men of that kind. Even the Prosecutors were reluctant to investigate the goings-on at the October District Office, fearing the Khanties just as much as anyone else living in Chechnya.

March 6, 2002, Grozny. The spring is unseasonably warm. Even the lilac buds have opened and smile out at the people of Grozny who have shivered through the winter. Yet Rukiyat Murdalova weeps quietly in despair. We are driving through Minutka, the square in the center of this ruined city where, on January 2, 2001, the Khanties seized Zelimkhan, Rukiyat’s 26-year-old son, bundled him into a car, in the process brutally beating up two women (one of them a 73-year-old grandmother), who tried to protect a boy who was simply walking down the street. Both women are today witnesses against the Khanties, and this is an important detail in our story.

Zelimkhan was taken to the October Temporary Office. As has now been proven by the investigation team, his torture was directed and participated in by Major Prilepin (alias “Alex”), Major Lapin (alias “The Cadet”), and Investigator Zhuravlyov. The torture was truly inquisitorial, so brutal and pathological that I will not describe it, although
I know all about the monstrous, feral acts perpetrated that night of January 2, 2001 by these Interior Ministry officers.

Were there witnesses? There were, and it is they who are today the issue. There were witnesses who survived and have given evidence about the state in which The Cadet dragged Zelimkhan into the October Office’s temporary holding cell. They have told how and by whom, on the morning of January 3, the dying man was dragged out of that cell, after which he vanished without trace.

Rukiyat weeps, “Where is Zelim? Where is my son? Has Lapin said anything? Tell me …” It is already a year and two months later. We are standing by the fence of the offices on Garazhnaya Street of the Prosecutor of the Chechen Republic. We are not being allowed in and the security guards laugh at us and deride us. They make no secret of the fact that they are acting on instructions. We stand directly opposite the windows of Vsevolod Chernov, Prosecutor of Chechnya, and from time to time the cream venetian blinds are moved slightly to one side. The Prosecutor is peeping, wondering what this is all about.