Is Journalism Worth Dying For?: Final Dispatches (30 page)

Alaudin Sadykov, a 53-year-old former physical education teacher, is also in the courtroom. The Khanties picked him off the street on March 25, 2000, tortured him, and cut off his left ear. Afterwards, one of them, Igor Vanin, who is in charge of the holding cells at the October District Office, paraded around flaunting Alaudin’s dried ear on his chest like an amulet. Alaudin miraculously survived and now his case is being conducted by Investigator Krivorotov.

“I asked Krivorotov to find them, but he said, ‘They just cut off some flesh you don’t really need. My rank doesn’t allow me to question the person who cut your ear off. You need to appreciate my situation.’ Now I can’t hear. I am half-deaf.”

Judge Mezhidov bustles back into court and rattles off his ruling: “…  be compelled to appear.” Not a word about the measures Prosecutor Zhuravlyova was demanding, no response to the behaviour of Lapin’s lawyer. From Mezhidov’s tone you would think he was dealing with a naughty schoolboy.

Grozny is in the grip of a fear which paralyses civic action and breeds apathy. The next hearing of the Lapin case is set for October 24. Perhaps at least Chechnya’s journalists, of whom only one was in court at this precedent-setting case, will overcome their fear. After them, who knows, perhaps the judicial authorities will square their shoulders and give hope to those living in Chechnya that all is not lost and that it is still possible to get at the truth.

TOTAL CADETOPHILIA ON THE PART OF THE PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE

November 3, 2003

On October 30 the trial of The Cadet in Grozny was postponed indefinitely at the insistence of the Prosecutor’s Office.

The trial was scheduled to start at 10:00 a.m. but Judge Mezhidov conspicuously failed to appear. By midday the public were becoming restless. Had he been taken ill? The security guards told me in confidence that the judge had left the court building.

What was going on? Those in the know explained that early that morning the telephone had been disconnected in the court on Popovich Street. This left the judge isolated, without any telephone down which he could be given instructions. At this point the Prosecutor’s Office got up to another of its tricks: at 10.10 Antonina Zhuravlyova appeared in Mezhidov’s office. She is an imposing, elegantly dressed blonde from Stavropol who is both the Prosecutor and Prosecuting Official in The Cadet’s trial. She informed Mezhidov that the Prosecutor’s Office was outraged by his actions and had lodged a supervisory appeal against him with the Chechen Supreme Court for his misconduct at the previous hearing when Mezhidov had dared to reject The Cadet’s demand that the trial be moved far away from Chechnya, to somewhere in Russia where he would feel less at risk. Zhuravlyova continued to berate the judge, warning him not even to think of ruling today that The Cadet should be arrested. One has to admire her foresight, since this was precisely the ruling everyone was expecting.

Mezhidov went to pieces. He couldn’t even use the telephone. He
hastily absented himself and went to consult his superiors in the Chechen Supreme Court. What was he to do now about The Cadet, with the Prosecutor’s Office on the warpath?

At 12.13 word spread that he was back, and a few minutes later Mezhidov began the hearing. Stanislav Markelov, representing the plaintiffs, immediately demanded the arrest of the insolent accused. He presented the court with the opinion of Yury Savenko, President of the Independent Psychiatric Association of Russia, a consultant with the highest professional qualifications and 42 years of service. This related to whether The Cadet was unfit to attend the court because of “problems of adaptation,” which he had given as the reason for his absence.

“According to current understanding, as registered in the international classification of illnesses, adaptational dysfunction is a state of protracted discomfort caused by local or prolonged stress. It is accompanied by reduced productivity in normal activity and is regarded as being on the borderline between normal reaction to stress or grief, and minor mental disorder. In the spectrum of mental disorders this is one of the least serious diagnoses, and is not dangerous. It cannot be used to justify non-appearance at a court hearing. Neither is it usually regarded as sufficient basis for issuing a medical certificate of inability to work. Indeed, one of the commonest causes of adaptational dysfunction is an indefinite situation or the expectation of unpleasant events, like an imminent court hearing. From the point of view of psychotherapeutic practice in such cases, precipitation of such events is indicated, rather than avoidance of them.”

The judge attaches this opinion to the case file, and the floor is given to Mme Zhuravlyova. Her speech is halting and illogical – she is not much of an orator – but her drift is unmistakable. It is a typical lawyer’s speech. She is looking for any conceivable excuse not to upset The Cadet by arresting him, thereby deliberately ignoring his unforgivable flouting of the laws of Russia.

“Yes, of course, the accused is not here. But was the doctor who issued Lapin’s certificate warned of his liability for giving false evidence?” (Well who was supposed to warn him? The Cadet? Was that not the job of the Prosecutor’s Office?) “I have another request. You rejected Lapin’s request
for a collegiate hearing.” (On October 24 The Cadet demanded that the case should not be heard by a single judge.) “However, you gave a contradictory ruling in July. The Prosecutor’s Office has lodged an appeal and the trial must be postponed until this issue has been examined.”

But the issue to be examined is not why The Cadet has so blatantly shown his contempt for the court. On the contrary, it is the acts of Judge Mezhidov which must be scrutinised in daring to demand that “S.V. Lapin should without fail appear in court on October 30.” It is an example of the topsy-turvy world of distorting mirrors of the Russian Prosecutor’s Office. We live in times when the Prosecutor’s Office is truly independent: independent of the law, of logic, of decency and of conscience. At the same time what the Prosecutors are totally dependent on is instructions from above, the Party and government line as formulated on Kremlin Hill. The institution making such efforts to ease conditions for a killer and abductor is the Prosecutor’s Office of the Southern Federal Region, headed by Sergey Fridinsky, the Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia. According to the law it should be doing the exact opposite, namely ensuring compliance with the law and respect for the interests of the victims.

Judge Mezhidov rushes out of the court. It is painful to look at Astemir Murdalov, the father of The Cadet’s victim. He clasps his hands round his bowed head as if it will explode. Mme Zhuravlyova ostentatiously opens a detective novel by Marinina. The judge is soon back: “The hearing is postponed indefinitely …” Mezhidov has been steamrollered: the Chechen Supreme Court has evidently advised him just to put up with it. Satisfied with her tour de force, Zhuravlyova immediately leaves the court with a spring in her step. The Cadet has once again been let off the hook. Astemir Murdalov exclaims loudly in despair. The public stand silently, looking as if they have been spat on, or punished. And indeed, how in Chechnya today are you to get the law to act, and an end to be put to the abductions and extra-judicial executions if even the court and the Prosecutor’s Office, the main legal forces in this territory ravaged by unidentifiable gangs, are against it?

The shrapnel-scarred building of the October District Court is adorned with fresh graffiti proclaiming, “Wolves of Jihad!” How
eloquent. What the Prosecutor’s Office and court in Chechnya are doing is playing directly into the hands of those who painted that slogan. The Prosecutors, like the whole rotten apparatus of the so-called “war on terror in the North Caucasus,” are the real support group of terrorism.

THE COURT IS CORDONED OFF, BY THE ACCUSED’S BODYGUARDS

November 29, 2004

In Grozny the first court proceedings in the history of the “anti-terrorist operation” to be brought against a federal officer, militiaman Sergey Lapin, continue.

In the October District Court, with Maierbek Mezhidov presiding, the legal investigation has been under way for one and a half years, but only now, during a number of hearings in late November 2004, has it proved possible to move the trial forward. Consideration has begun of charges against The Cadet under Article 286 of the Criminal Code, Part 3, “Exceeding official powers;” Article 111, “Intentionally causing grievous bodily harm;” and Article 292, “Forgery by an official.”

Until now this “warrior against terrorism” has openly defied the court and got on with his life. Despite the gravity of the crimes of which The Cadet stands accused, our own dear Interior Ministry quietly, without attracting unwelcome publicity, reinstated the accused as a militia officer, and now, while under bail conditions not to leave Nizhnevartovsk, he is once again working in the Criminal Investigation Department of the Nizhnevartovsk City Interior Affairs Office.

Despite this, at the November hearings The Cadet behaved like a seasoned old lag, insolently changing his story for the sixth time, utterly refusing to admit his guilt, and trying to blame everything on colleagues in the “anti-terrorist operation” who have since been killed. Very manly behaviour, don’t you think?

Maierbek Mezhidov is the Chairman of the October District Court in Grozny, and presides in the half-ruined building of the former Department of State Security of Ichkeria on Popovich Street. From the front this box-like building looks like an apartment block, but from the back you see it is little more than a façade. Less than half, on the ground floor, has been crudely repaired for the exercise of justice. Inside it is as cold as a refrigerator, and the sparse Soviet-era lightbulbs provide such meagre light that the reading Judge Mezhidov – already well on in years – has to do of reports, interrogation records and the like is a truly heroic feat in the cause of justice.

Another heroic feat is dispensing justice at all in a building which has been surrounded. Where else would you find anything like this? This morning, individuals in combat fatigues, with shaven heads and festooned with rifles, drove up to the court building in armoured personnel carriers and military trucks, and pointed their weapons at anybody entering or leaving the court. Some of us also got shouted at in colorful language.

These are bodyguards escorting the accused. The Cadet arrives with them and he departs with them. Even when he goes out for a smoke during the breaks, members of the brigade shield him with their bodies. The Commanding Officer of this Interior Ministry unit introduced himself as Oleg. He looks totally villainous, and cradles a huge rifle or grenade launcher in his arms. He explains that he is acting under verbal orders from the commander of the Interior Ministry troops in Chechnya to protect Lapin.

“Who from?”

“You know yourself,” Oleg spits out.

From Chechens, presumably.

From Aleta, the aunt of Zelimkhan Murdalov whom The Cadet tortured to death, who became ill when the court started reading out how and what the Khanties did to her nephew on January 2–3, 2001; from Astemir Murdalov, Zelimkhan’s father, who clutches the grey hair on his lowered head; from those victims of the Khanties who survived by a miracle and emerged from the torture chambers of the Interior Ministry’s Temporary Office in the October District of Grozny; from
the wives and mothers of those the Khanties abducted, who are listening now to every word the judge or The Cadet say in the hope that some clue will slip out about the fate of their husband, son or brother.

All these Chechen men and women are huddled over to one side of the courtroom. Lapin’s personal brigade smirk in blatant self-satisfaction; it is a monstrous tableau of a state which encourages criminals in uniform.

The hearing finally begins. Only the breath of those present in the cold courtroom will gradually take the chill from it. It becomes warmer, but people are still shivering from the damp atmosphere when The Cadet demands to be allowed to speak. He sounds a complete gangster, and now denies all his previous testimony.

Judge:
Then why did you say it?

The Cadet:
I was afraid. I was tortured. I was tortured for a month in the Chechen Directorate for Combating Organised Crime.

Judge:
Who tortured you?

The Cadet:
Investigator Baitayev. I would have admitted assassinating President Kennedy. I had no choice. I had to say something.

The Cadet adopts a tearful tone. His claim that he was tortured during the preliminary investigation will be repeated many more times. The following picture emerges: whenever Baitayev, or Moroz (the Acting Prosecutor of Grozny at the time), or Ignatenko (an investigator in the Chechen Prosecutor’s Office) questioned The Cadet, he was being subjected to intolerable psychological or physical pressure. “Confess your guilt,” they said, “or we’ll send you to jail.”

“I didn’t want to go to the holding cells, so I confessed,” The Cadet says.

“But this was all taking place in the presence of a lawyer,” the judge reminds him.

“What lawyer? Abalayeva said people like me should have their throats slit.”

Vladimir Rozetov
(Prosecutor of the October District and the
Prosecuting Officer at this trial): Did you sustain any physical injuries while you were in custody in the holding cells of the Directorate for Combating Organised Crime?

The Cadet:
“Yes, and I was detained without a toothbrush and toothpaste. Can you imagine?”

Attorney Stanislav Markelov
(a Moscow lawyer for the plaintiff, Astemir Murdalov): “Why is there no statement from you in the file about your having been subjected to duress?”

Attorney Grigoriy Degtyarev (a lawyer from Nizhnevartovsk defending The Cadet) immediately raises his voice almost to a scream. He has a very odd manner which even infects the judge: “My defendant has been mentally traumatised. He has symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder! You have no right …!”