| Criminal cases have been opened regarding the kidnapping of Aslan Maskhadov’s relatives Rumors about the abduction or detention of Aslan Maskhadov's relatives, which appeared at the end of last year and have recently been refuted by officials both in Chechnya itself and in Moscow, received documentary confirmation yesterday. As it turned out, on Thursday the prosecutor's office of Chechnya opened three criminal cases into the kidnapping of eight people from the relatives of the ex-president of “independent Ichkeria” on the territory of the republic.
As the prosecutor's office noted, before the start of the criminal investigation, relatives of the missing people did not contact government authorities. But after a series of publications in the media, the prosecutor’s office took the initiative and independently decided to check the “rumors.” As a result, it was established that at different times on December 3, Maskhadov’s 67-year-old sister Buchu Abdulkadyrova, his two brothers Lecha Maskhadov and Lema Maskhadov, his nephew (the son of one of Maskhadov’s sisters) Ikhvan Magomedov, and also a distant relative of the ex-president, 54-year-old disabled person Adam Rashiev. According to witnesses, the kidnappers acted according to one scenario: they drove into the courtyards in 10-12 UAZ and Zhiguli cars, without any explanation they ordered the owners to get dressed, put them in one of the cars and left. When asked by family members to say where their relatives were being taken, armed people in camouflage reported that they would take the detainees to the police department. However, as it later turned out, neither the police nor the prosecutor’s office knew anything about what had happened. Three more members of Maskhadov's family - niece Khadizhat Satuyeva and sons-in-law Usman Satuyev and Movladi Satuyev - disappeared on December 28. Only after prosecutors began an investigation and went to the sites of the alleged emergency situations did the relatives of the missing write three statements. Based on them, on December 27, cases were opened regarding the abduction of eight people. True, there are no specific defendants yet. And it is unknown where the abducted people are.
It is worth noting that human rights organizations (in particular Memorial and the Moscow Helsinki Group) started talking about the kidnapping of Aslan Maskhadov’s relatives back in December and even sent an appeal on this issue to the President of Russia, the Prosecutor General and the State Duma, demanding the release of the “hostages.” They placed responsibility for this on the Chechen security forces, namely on people from Ramzan Kadyrov’s entourage, who allegedly gave the order to capture Maskhadov’s relatives. Human rights activists made similar conclusions, citing Kadyrov’s public statement that he was preparing a draft law that would give security forces the right to detain close relatives of Chechens who are involved in hostilities against federal forces. In addition, on the same days, Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov made a similar wish in the State Duma, saying that “at a time when terrorists are capturing people, one cannot talk about any diplomacy.” However, the initiative of the Prosecutor General was condemned by UN experts, considering it to be contrary to all norms of international law.
It is worth noting that so far the prosecutor's office has verified and confirmed only part of the “rumors” that human rights activists spread - only about the kidnapping of Aslan Maskhadov’s relatives. Meanwhile, from the very beginning they talked about where these people could have disappeared to. Human rights activists believed that Maskhadov’s relatives could be in the home village of the “Kadyrov clan” Tsentoroe (Jose-Yurt) in the Gudermes region. However, the prosecutor's office has not yet confirmed this information. Tatiana GRITSENKO |
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