The operation was commanded by Basayev

The militants began preparing an explosion in the Government House back in September.

Representatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office for the Southern District announced that the terrorist attack in the Government House of Chechnya, which took place in Grozny on December 27 last year and claimed the lives of 72 people, has actually been resolved. According to them, four people who were directly involved in preparing the explosion were arrested, and the identities of all the perpetrators and organizers of the crime, who were put on the federal and international wanted list, were also established. According to investigators, the orders to develop sabotage and actually carry it out were given by Shamil Basayev, and the separatists began preparing an explosion in the Government House three months before the tragedy. However, although the Chechen prosecutor’s office confirmed this information, they noted that the investigation is still far from being completed.

As assistant deputy prosecutor general for the Southern District Vladimir Rudyak said, all four terrorists - their names are still kept secret - were detained by army special forces last week directly in Grozny. According to the investigation, from the very beginning they were part of Basayev’s detachment and, in the summer of 1995, they participated with him in the campaign against Budennovsk, and a year later in the capture of Grozny. After the first Chechen campaign, these militants worked in the special services of Ichkeria, and in the fall of 1999 they ended up in the detachment of a certain Magomed Khadzhimuratov, one of Basayev’s associates.

As those arrested showed during their first interrogations, last fall, specifically to undermine the Government House, Basayev ordered Khadzhimuratov to prepare and send a sabotage group to Grozny. Already in September last year, the militants settled in Grozny and began to adapt to peaceful life - they received passports, three of the terrorists registered with the employment service as unemployed, and another, through friends, even got a job at the city police department.

Specific sabotage work began in early December. Then, on the instructions of the commander, the militants found two cars - a KamAZ and a UAZ, loaded them with almost 5 tons of TNT and hid them on the outskirts of Grozny. At the same time, through his contacts, Khadzhimuratov gave the saboteurs an advance of $400, promising to pay a “bonus” after completing the task. However, according to the terrorists themselves, they were not given any more money. A few days later, Magomed Khadzhimuratov died in a shootout with federal forces near Achkhoy-Martan. And the messenger who came after that didn’t talk about “bonuses” anymore, but only said that now Basayev had personally taken over the leadership of the operation, and passed on detailed instructions from him. Carrying them out, four militants prepared a “cache” where they received and hid for several days two suicide bombers sent. According to the investigation, these were two young men, residents of Achkhoy-Martan, who had also fought in Khadzhimuratov’s detachment for a long time. As the arrested militants said, on the afternoon of December 27, they drove trucks and made sure that the suicide bombers changed into military uniforms and got into the cabs of the cars. According to the investigation, they already had counterfeit passes from the commandant’s office, which allowed them to safely bypass the checkpoints of the “special zone” and approach the complex of government buildings.

Alexander SASHIN