Is Journalism Worth Dying For?: Final Dispatches (27 page)

Criminal Case No. 15004 has been opened by the Grozny Prosecutor’s Office only because Zelimkhan’s parents, Rukiyat and Astemir Murdalov, have achieved something seemingly impossible in current Chechen circumstances, in which the law and the law enforcement agencies, including the Prosecutor’s Office, have virtually ceased to function where war crimes are concerned for fear of incurring the wrath of soldiers who have run amok. Rukiyat and Astemir are neither lawyers nor investigators, but they have stood in for the Republic’s entire law enforcement system, selling all their possessions in order to conduct their own investigation and visit all the prisons and pre-trial detention centers of the North Caucasus. Their first priority was to look for their son, alive or dead, but they are also determined that those who took him from them on January 2, 2001 should answer in accordance with the law. In their place, would you want any less?

Alas, it has been precisely with the law enforcement agencies that they have had the greatest difficulty. The Khanties’ immediate superior, Colonel Valeriy Kondakov, the Commanding Officer of the
Combined Militia Unit, did his utmost to ensure that his “colleagues” under investigation should be able quietly to slip away from Chechnya back to Siberia. And then what? Then nothing. Although the investigators of the Prosecutor’s Office went to Nizhnevartovsk to arrest the suspects, the Khanties spat in their faces, and the Prosecutor’s Office of Nizhnevartovsk and the senior officials of the provincial militia leaped to the defence of The Cadet and his accomplices. The investigators wiped their faces and left. People who had committed the most heinous crimes continued not merely to enjoy their freedom but even to be employed as officers of the Interior Ministry, as “guardians of the law” on behalf of the state. This continued for one month, a second, a third, six months. One had to wonder whether Russia has a functioning Interior Ministry or some virtual surrogate. A Prosecutor General’s Office? A President? Or were they good only for appearing on television to talk hard-line nonsense?

On September 10, 2001
Novaya gazeta
published an article, “The Disappeared,” about the main issue in Chechnya today, the thousands who, having been taken away by the federals, disappear without trace. We told, among others, the story of Zelimkhan Murdalov, and received a prompt reply. It was very much in keeping with a state in which where there are many states. It came not from the Interior Ministry, the Prosecutor-General’s Office or the President, but from The Cadet himself, who clearly considered himself a lord of life. The Cadet was so indignant that he sent threats to the newspaper: a first, then another, giving us 10 days to retract our accusation, otherwise the author of the article, who is the author also of this article, would be killed. There followed a succession of official requests from the editors to the Interior Minister of Russia, Boris Gryzlov, for protection, and also dozens of publications in the mass media of the whole world about what is going on in Russia with officers who have served in Chechnya. The result was that in late January this year The Cadet was arrested and sent under guard to Grozny, in accordance with the law, to the place where the crime was committed.

Finally something had happened which is still exceptionally rare in
Chechnya, where most soldiers, with the connivance of their superiors, have created total mayhem, and where the Prosecutor, timidly slinking past them, is a figure of fun.

With The Cadet now in a cell, it seemed to us that, largely thanks to the persistence of
Novaya gazeta
, the law would take its course. The case was being taken care of at the highest level.

We were wrong. On February 28 the author of these lines was summoned to Grozny, to the Office of the Prosecutor of the Chechen Republic, to “assist investigations related to Case No. 15004,” to be questioned as someone who had been wronged.
Novaya gazeta
naturally felt duty bound to comply, firmly believing that it had helped the Prosecutor’s Office to restore law and order and should continue to do so.

Things began to go wrong the moment I arrived in Chechnya. Vladimir Ignatenko, the Investigating Officer, behaved so inappropriately that from time to time one had the uneasy feeling that his main objective was not to keep all the witnesses in this case on board but rather to demoralise them, to coerce them into refusing to testify and thereby to torpedo the case. At one point Ignatenko ordered the security guards to take me outside the confines of the Prosecutor’s Office late at night, having deliberately dragged out the questioning until it was pitch dark and the curfew was in force. In Grozny that is tantamount to – well, obviously it is tantamount to what The Cadet had promised in September. On another occasion he forced me to stand under guard for several hours by “the kiosks,” a patch of ground not far from the Prosecutor’s Office, visible from it but not on its territory or under its control. Cold and hungry, I was refused permission to use the toilet, or the telephone to tell the newspaper what was going on. I was given water only infrequently, again under guard. Members of the Prosecutor’s Office staff joked sympathetically, “Consider yourself under administrative arrest.” Thank you very much.

I will omit details of the campaign of humiliation which went on for many days. It was so discourteous as to leave me without a shred of respect for those wearing combat fatigues and styled “Civil Prosecutors” in Chechnya. All attempts to get through to Chernov, the Prosecutor of Chechnya, to find out what was going on, failed. He was
too busy. On one occasion he was in the bathhouse, another time having lunch, another time having dinner. Or so, at least, his security people said.

All this, however, is not what really matters. What matters is the witnesses, without whom the case will fall apart in court and The Cadet will walk off into history as if nothing had happened, and even, in the eyes of his ilk, wearing the halo of a martyr.

Ignatenko assured me that representatives of the Memorial Human Rights Center, who are well acquainted with the witnesses from Grozny, had supposedly refused to assist the investigation unless they were paid. This was a ludicrous assertion. I have known these people very well throughout the course of the Second Chechen War, risking their lives to get accurate information about what is going on, selflessly doing work which, incidentally, is the responsibility of the Prosecutor’s Office. I did not believe Ignatenko and, of course, set out to check his claims.

Here is what I learned. The witnesses really are terrified of giving evidence. They are moving round the city, trying to stay alive and to protect their families. Their chances of doing so have just been markedly reduced because the Khanties are coming back: the Khanty-Mansiysk Combined Militia Unit is returning for another tour of duty in Grozny in accordance with a decision taken by the central administration of the Interior Ministry.

So it seems that the right hand of the Interior Ministry, controlled by Minister Boris Gryzlov, is doing all it can to bring this unit’s crimes to court, while the left hand is simultaneously doing everything to ensure the opposite: to make it easy for those who have dared to raise their voices against a war criminal to be dealt with by their oppressors.

And what about the Grozny Prosecutor’s Office, what about Ignatenko? They are shaking with fear.

A crucial detail: nobody, neither the witnesses, nor those in the Prosecutor’s Office building the case against The Cadet, doubts for a moment that the reason the Khanties are so keen to get back to Grozny is to take revenge and to help The Cadet. The one way they can do that is by silencing the witnesses and by shooting it out with the investigators. Such things have happened in Chechnya before, and
it is well known that the Russian law enforcement system has consistently failed to protect the witnesses of war crimes in Chechnya, or even to see through to its conclusion a case involving the murder of their own colleagues, members of the Prosecutor’s Office.

When the witnesses appealed to Ignatenko for protection, to ask where they should send their children and where they could find safety themselves, he just tried to laugh it off because, of course, he is himself terrified of the consequences. In Chechnya they call this “the Chechen fear,” and everybody understands that what is meant is fear of the Army. It prevents Ignatenko from raising a finger to help himself or to help people who, through no fault of their own, have been grievously wronged but have had the courage to fight back.

As if the news of the Khanty-Mansiysk Unit’s imminent arrival was not enough, the Chechen Prosecutor’s Office came under intense pressure from the Prosecutor-General’s Office in Moscow. I do not believe in coincidences or chance. Investigator Ignatenko was subjected to extraordinary pressure, as in the end he himself admitted to me. He buckled. He was frightened and gave in, transferring that pressure to the already completely defenceless witnesses, and also, of course, to me, amongst others.

Is Ignatenko capable of fighting, even though he wears the medal For Courage from the First Chechen War, even though he is a lieutenant-colonel? No, he isn’t, and that is a great pity. Regrettably this conclusion is supported by the way he has conducted other cases since he came to work in the Chechen Prosecutor’s Office. There was the case when doctors of the Ministry for Emergency Situations were murdered, which collapsed when Ignatenko chose not to dig deeper. As a result, a man who had an alibi is now in jail while the killers have walked free. Why did Ignatenko let that happen? Because he wanted to hold on to his job. He wanted to avoid “personal problems.” He was pressured by superiors who wanted the case closed and he lived up to their expectations. Chechen human rights activists characterise Ignatenko as an expert in shooting down cases brought against the Army.

Will so demonstrably tractable an investigator prove capable of conducting such a difficult case as that against the Khanties, a case
which calls for great personal courage? Can we assume everything will go smoothly now The Cadet has finally been arrested, and hope that this time at least justice is going to be done? Let’s not kid ourselves.

We insist that the Khanty-Mansiysk Unit be sent back home without delay. We consider that this should have been the first priority of Investigator Ignatenko and the Chechen Prosecutor, Chernov. Always assuming, of course, they do still aspire to see the law triumph over the right of the strong to mete out their private version of justice.

We firmly believe that the Khanties have no business showing their faces in Chechnya again. They are
personae non gratae
for the rest of time. We are in no doubt that the witnesses in The Cadet case need to be protected by the institutions of the state. Otherwise it will be clear that the state is not doing its job and intervenes only in order to encourage criminal behaviour by the Army.

We insist that there should at the very least be an internal inquiry focusing on the conduct of the generals at the Interior Ministry headquarters who decided to send the Khanties back to Chechnya. These generals are facilitating the ongoing committing of war crimes in Chechnya and their decision is tantamount to obstructing the course of justice. If this was simply the result of incompetence, we trust that an explanation to that effect will be forthcoming from the agencies whose job it is to plan deployments in Chechnya, together with an apology for their carelessness and for failing to appreciate the situation. Let it, nevertheless, be clear that this carelessness is criminal. Whoever was guilty of it, whether deliberately or not, is impeding investigation of the crimes of the Khanty-Mansiysk Combined Militia Unit.

MATERIAL EVIDENCE IS IN THE TRUSTWORTHY HANDS OF THE SUSPECTS

April 8, 2002

On March 11 we published a report, “Silencing the Witnesses,” about the ambiguous situation developing around Criminal Case No. 15004 in which one of the Khanties, Major Lapin, alias The Cadet, is charged
with the torture and murder in January 2001 of a 26-year-old Grozny man, Zelimkhan Murdalov.

On March 11 we called upon the Interior Ministry immediately to withdraw the Khanty-Mansiysk Combined Militia Unit from Grozny and demanded that the witnesses in the case should be afforded protection by the state. Finally, we called for an inquiry into the conduct of those highly placed officials at Interior Ministry Headquarters who plan tours of duty in Chechnya.

On March 19, without unduly high hopes that the relevant issues of
Novaya gazeta
would have been read at Interior Ministry headquarters, the editors forwarded by hand a formal request to Boris Gryzlov, Interior Minister of Russia. The Memorial Human Rights Center also addressed the same demands to the country’s political leaders.

Unfortunately, Moscow is a long way from Grozny and that same week, between March 11 and 19, part of the Khanty-Mansiysk Militia was deployed without a hitch to Grozny. They moved faster than we did. While we were writing heartfelt appeals, trying to track down ministers and hand them indignant letters, and waiting anxiously for them to make some response at least, hoping that the next phone call would be from the office of Boris Gryzlov, on March 15 the Khanties paid a visit to the makeshift accommodation in Grozny where Zelimkhan Murdalov’s parents were living.

Only his mother, Rukiyat, was at home. Masked individuals drove up in a vehicle without registration markings (a trivial matter in Chechnya, no matter how often General Moltenskoy, the Commanding Officer of the Joint Military Command, pronounces on this issue), and warned Rukiyat to be more careful because the Khanties were back in town. They then left. What state is Rukiyat in? One is reluctant even to talk about it. You can imagine for yourself how it is living in the midst of ruins, in a lawless place where, if someone decides to kill you, no one will hear your cries for help.

There were reasons for the visit from the Khanties. Newly returned to the October District Interior Affairs Temporary Office, they observed their colleague The Cadet, now in custody in Grozny, starting to grass on his pals.