Treatment and punishment

For helping the investigation, Barayev's accomplice was deducted three years in prison

The Moscow City Court yesterday sentenced one of Shamil Basayev's associates, terrorist Aslanbek Khaskhanov, to 22 years of strict regime. He was found guilty of a series of grave and especially grave crimes - organizing and facilitating a series of terrorist attacks in Moscow and taking hostages at the Dubrovka Theater Center in October 2002. All these crimes, according to the court verdict, were committed by Khaskhanov and his accomplices on the orders of Basayev in order to put pressure on the Russian authorities.

32-year-old Aslanbek Khaskhanov was convicted following the accomplices he recruited. In April 2004, the Moscow City Court sentenced four Chechens - Alikhan and Akhyad Mezhiev, Aslan Murdalov and Khampasha Sobraliev - to 22, 20, 18 and 15 years in prison, respectively. Khaskhanov then managed to avoid trial and sentence, since from the very beginning of the trial he behaved inappropriately: he shouted that he did not want to sit “under the American flag” and spoke unflatteringly about the judge. As Judge Valery Novikov noted in yesterday’s verdict, the defendant suffered “temporary psychological trauma caused by the judicial-investigative situation,” and he was sent for compulsory treatment to the Smolensk psychiatric clinic. There he remained under the supervision of doctors until he came out of the “depressive-manic state” and his mood took on an “even background”, and a month ago, on June 20, the Moscow City Court again began to consider his case.

The Moscow prosecutor's office accused Khakhanov of participating in a criminal community - he was part of a bandit group headed by Basayev and carried out all his actions on his personal instructions. He was also accused of preparing and attempting to carry out two terrorist attacks in Moscow in 2001 - car bombings in public places, which did not happen only by accident due to the malfunction of improvised explosive devices. But Khaskhanov and his accomplices managed to commit the atrocities he had planned a year later, in October 2002, when an explosion occurred near the McDonald’s restaurant on Pokryshkina Street, and a couple of days later Muscovites learned about the terrorists’ seizure of the Dubrovka Theater Center.

Unlike his accomplices, Khaskhanov, accused of several terrorist attacks, hostage-taking, murders and attempted murders of many people, storage and transportation of weapons and deliberate destruction of property, confessed to many things, pled not guilty only to complicity in the seizure of the Dubrovka Theater Center. But he helped investigators restore the picture of the events of those years, talked about how the conspiracy took place, how the plan to commit terrorist attacks in Moscow was built and then implemented.

According to the verdict, in 2000-2001, “unidentified leaders of illegal armed groups hiding in Chechnya created a criminal community and planned an act of terrorism - a series of explosions in public places in Moscow.” Khaskhanov also entered this community and was tasked with recruiting the perpetrators of these crimes “among the Chechens living in Moscow,” which he did by hiring the Mezhiev brothers, Murdalov and Sobraliev. The five of them were responsible for the supply of weapons from Nazran, which they brought to Moscow, hidden in gas tanks of cars, looked for housing for the bandits, and provided them with mobile communications. One of the main tasks was to find places to carry out explosions - these had to be the most socially significant and crowded places. The terrorists traveled around the city for some time, and finally their choice fell on the State Duma building and the McDonald's restaurant on Pushkin Square. Two bomb-laden vehicles were driven there and activated by a clock mechanism. Then, fortunately, chance failed the terrorists (they purchased low-quality explosives), and the explosions did not take place. Nevertheless, this fact does not negate the guilt of Khaskhanov and his accomplices, because, as Judge Novikov noted in the verdict, “this could lead to socially dangerous consequences, panic, destabilization and mass destruction.”

A year later, the terrorists decided to take revenge. “Basayev, being one of the leaders of an illegal armed group, in order to create an Islamic state under the guise of fighting for the independence of the self-proclaimed republic of Ichkeria, planned a series of terrorist attacks in Moscow and created a criminal community that included at least 52 individuals,” the verdict says. This time, in addition to a series of similar explosions with the help of stuffed cars, it was planned to use female suicide bombers who were supposed to blow themselves up in public places of the capital, as well as to take a large number of hostages. All this “with the aim of influencing the Russian authorities and withdrawing troops from Chechnya.” Together with Khaskhanov, who was again given the task of recruiting and providing technical and combat equipment to militants, one of Basayev’s henchmen, Abubakar, who was responsible for training suicide bombers (later killed), and Movsar Baraev, who commanded the seizure of the theater center, went to Moscow. This time, weapons and ammunition were brought into the capital on a KamAZ truck, disguised as air receivers.

On October 19, 2002, the terrorists began to implement their plans. At the same time, they refused to seize the State Duma “due to lack of funds.” The bandits placed one car bomb near the Concert Hall. Tchaikovsky, the second - to the McDonald's restaurant on Pokryshkina Street. Suicide bombers were taken from Murdalov's apartment. For unknown reasons, the explosion at McDonald's occurred at 13.00 instead of 19.00, as was set on the clock mechanism. The bomb near the concert hall did not go off at all, and the militants took the mine from it, giving it to Barayev, who on October 23 went to seize Nord-Ost.

Yesterday, defendant Khaskhanov looked confused and looked pleadingly at the judge as he read the verdict, apparently hoping for leniency for his assistance to the investigation. During the entire time he did not utter a word, only once he addressed the convoy: “Take off the handcuffs, otherwise I’m sweating.” But this was denied to him.

Judge Valery Novikov found Khaskhanov guilty of all charges except one - intentional destruction of property, since these actions “are covered by a more serious article - “terrorism.” For all other acts, Khaskhanov received a total of 22 years in a maximum security colony. The prosecution asked for 25 years for him, but cooperation with the investigation, his first conviction and the presence of seven young children played a role.

How Khaskhanov reacted to the verdict remains unclear. He did not answer the journalists’ questions, and his lawyer Anton Golyshev said: “My client did not intend to appeal the verdict and has not yet told me anything about it.” “The prosecution believes that the punishment corresponds to the acts that Khaskhanov committed,” said in turn the state prosecutor of the Moscow prosecutor’s office Alexander Remizov.

Ekaterina BUTORINA, Evgenia ALESHINA