You will not be judged

Posters “450 years of the voluntary annexation of Kabardino-Balkaria to Russia. Together forever!" have been decorating Nalchik since last year, when the republic celebrated this semicircular date. The authorities are in no hurry to dismantle reminders of voluntariness, but someone periodically paints over the words “voluntary annexation” and writes over “1785-1864” - the date of the Great Caucasian War, during which Kabarda and Balkaria were conquered.

These dates, of course, are also painted over. After the rebellion of October 2005, when local Islamic radicals stormed the institutions of the security forces in Nalchik and killed several dozen security officials, such actions are perceived especially sharply here. While this poster-historical controversy is going on, the republic is preparing to go through another shock - the trial of the participants in the rebellion. 58 people should be in the dock at once. Such a scope in Russian history was only in the processes of Narodnaya Volya, and even during the period of mass purges of 1929–1938. For the sake of this court, in just 3 months they even built a special building adjacent to the pre-trial detention center where the rebels are kept. The construction cost the budget 100 million rubles.

The investigation concluded that by shooting the security forces, the rebels sought to "create a Sharia state in the North Caucasus." But the prosecutor's office failed to ensure that the verdict was passed by professional judges - the defendants chose a jury trial. The selection of assessors should take place this week, May 14. The first attempt to form a collegium on April 24 failed - formally due to the absence of several lawyers. However, the leadership of the Supreme Court of the republic does not hide the fact that there were other problems: out of 450 invited candidates, less than half turned up.

This kind of boycott confirmed the fears of the prosecutor's office: the inhabitants of the republic have an ambiguous attitude towards those bloody events. Many of them are unwilling to condemn the Islamic opposition and, by becoming a jury, they can demonstrate loyalty to the Islamists, not to the authorities. As a result, many years of judicial work can be destroyed in one moment. The process, as Zaur Kodzokov, deputy chairman of the KBR Supreme Court, predicts, will last more than one year.

RECOVERY OF LISTS

The confrontation between the Islamists and the security forces in the KBR began back in the late 90s, when the republican Ministry of Internal Affairs began to compile "lists of people who support the religious extremist movement" Wahhabism "". Hundreds of people got there on formal grounds, for example, for regular attendance at mosques, especially those that were not friends with the Muslim spiritual administration and did not report to the security services. However, those who went to the “correct” mosque could also be denounced by the imam, who suspected radicalism hiding behind excessive piety. The local police jargon even has the term "prayer" - regular prayer was considered a basic sign of extremism.

Being on the “Wahhabi list” meant that houses would be searched endlessly, children would be interrogated at school, and men would be taken to the Republican Organized Crime Control Department. There were even several appeals to the prosecutor's office; they were not given a go - but judging by these documents and the stories of many residents, the prevention of extremism looked like preventive arrests with obligatory beatings, shaving crosses on the heads of "Wahhabis" and other manifestations of violence.

By 2005, the main Russian terrorist Shamil Basayev decided that the Kabardino-Balkarian police had already done enough work, and, having contacted the leader of the Islamic opposition in the KBR, Anzor Astemirov, persuaded him to switch to armed struggle. Outcome: On October 13, 2005, the airport, the buildings of the district police departments, the republican Ministry of Internal Affairs, the border detachment, the FSB, the UFSIN, traffic police posts, the OMON base and the PPS regiment were attacked. Killed militants - 92, security forces - 35, bystanders - 12, wounded - 195 (including 129 policemen). Anzor Astemirov himself fled, and with him about 40 more people accused of rebellion. More than a hundred of those not involved in the rebellion, but appearing in the "Wahhabi lists" also went to the forests.

The wife of one of these "forest brothers" at a meeting with a Newsweek correspondent said: "The husband regularly read namaz, that is, in police terminology, he was" praying ". After the events, all of them began to be seized, tortured, rumors spread that many could not stand it and slandered themselves, and slandered their neighbors. He did not wait until his turn came, and after 5 days he went to the mountains ... "

The Islamic opposition in the republic called itself the "Kabardino-Balkarian Jamaat" - according to Jamaat leader Musa Mukozhev, the community numbered up to 10,000 people. Each of them has dozens of close relatives and hundreds of distant ones. Too many in the CBI, if not sympathetic to the rebels, at least believe that they had good reason to arm themselves and take to the streets on October 13, 2005.

JURY WORK

In such circumstances, the selection of jurors is a difficult test for the prosecutor's office. A year ago, at its suggestion (formally, the initiative came from the KBR parliament), even amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation were considered, excluding jury jurisdiction in cases relating to terrorism, illegal armed groups, violent seizure of power and armed rebellion. The representative of the KBR in the State Duma, Zaurbi Nakhushev, then spoke quite frankly: "... The jury, for a number of reasons, is not ready to impose an adequate punishment commensurate with the nature and gravity of the crime committed." However, the Duma decided not to make it easier for the prosecution and rejected the amendments.

Now the prosecutor's office has decided to go from the other end: if it is impossible without a jury at all, you can try to select people with the right views. Lawyer Magomed Abubakarov, representing the interests of one of the accused, told a Newsweek correspondent the following story. Someone Yuri Asanov, an employee of the Kabardino-Balkarian Institute for Humanitarian Research (IGI), recently challenged his dismissal through the court (he was reduced for a small number of scientific publications). Asanov submitted a certificate that he could not devote much time to scientific activities, as he was engaged in identifying the family ties of potential jurors with the rebels. The judge of the Supreme Court of the KBR, Mikhail Kanunnikov, confirmed the existence of this document, and the deputy director of the IGI, Alim Tetuev, said that the work was ordered by the prosecutor's office. The further fate of the study is unknown, but it can be assumed that the prosecution, armed with these data, is able to influence the selection of the jury more than the defense, which does not have such information.

In a small republic (870,000 inhabitants), almost any juror can be connected either with the militants or with the security forces. Yes, the jury! Newsweek talked to the relatives of one of the accused - he is in jail, and his cousin is an employee of the same prison. Recently, the brother of the accused, who was not involved in the rebellion, but is listed in the "Wahhabi lists", met with his cousin:

• Are you guarding him now, would you probably shoot him if you could?

• Of course not, what are you talking about...

• And I could be with you!

EMOTIONAL PROCESS

Jurors are more likely to reach acquittals than professional judges. A professional relies on facts and feels like a part of the system, while a jury relies more on emotions. The investigation gave food for emotions.

Almost all the defendants announced their participation in the attack already on the first day after their arrest, and a month later, the media got photos of the accused - these photos show signs of severe beatings and torture. Finding a juror in the republic who has not seen these photos is almost impossible. It is also impossible to hide from the jury the fact that there should have been 59 defendants in total, but one of them, Valery Bolov, was urgently released from the pre-trial detention center in February of this year, but died a few days later. Diagnosis - traumatic cirrhosis of the liver.

The jury will have to make a difficult decision regarding Anzor Sasikov. On the evening of October 13, 2005, police officers brought him to court, presenting him as an active participant in the attack. At the same time, a number of defense witnesses claim that Sasikov was arrested at 10 am at his home, when the events were just beginning.

Similar problems may arise with Rasul Kudaev, who was detained 10 days after the mutiny. The case contains his confession of participation in the attack on the traffic police post. Kudaev confessed a day after his arrest. In order for him to sign the appropriate interrogation protocol, a doctor had to be called. An extract from the Ambulance magazine reads: “... the subject was lying on the floor, showing no signs of life ...” Kudaev is a kind of local celebrity - he is a former prisoner of the American prison in Guantanamo Bay. Kudaev was arrested in Afghanistan, but subsequently released due to lack of corpus delicti.

Albiyan Malyshev, according to investigators, led the attack on the 3rd police department of Nalchik. He did not participate directly in the attack, he did not hold a weapon in his hands. Judging by the case file, the leadership was as follows. Malyshev was married to the sister of the murdered militant Aslan Arkhagov; in the midst of the events, the brother-in-law called the accused on his mobile phone. Malyshev, who was next to the cordon ring from the local security forces, advised his relative not to meddle in this place - there are a lot of military and armored personnel around. All participants in the episode with the attack on OVD-3 were killed, and, according to the defense, Malyshev simply decided to "fill the vacuum." It is far from a fact that the jury will agree with the investigation, as if this telephone conversation is drawn to “leadership”.

It appears that the investigation team is not averse to taking some of the most problematic people out of the game; at the very least, Rasul Kudaev's mother received an offer from an unnamed intelligence officer to organize an additional examination for her son in Moscow in order to recognize him as mentally ill, and therefore beyond jurisdiction. After she informed the lawyer about this proposal, the negotiations were curtailed.

AS IN AMERICA

After the rebellion, the Russian prosecutor's office, perhaps for the first time, mastered the experience of US justice - "agreement with the investigation." Previously, for sincere repentance and cooperation in Russia, the sentence was only slightly reduced, but now the investigation has acted according to the formula "amnesty in exchange for testimony." In total, there are 12 such amnestied secondary participants in the rebellion. They were released a year after the rebellion.

Basically, the accusation is based on their testimonies. One episode - one forgiven witness-participant. They are even under some kind of witness protection program. The mother of the amnestied Aslan Tkhamokov said that her son was given a curator , "FSS officer Murat." Now Tkhamokov is in Moscow, he works as a security guard, he freely goes on vacation abroad.

After the October events, when many participants in the rebellion and simply “listed” went to the “greenfield”, the regional anti-terrorist commission of the KBR promised to give amnesty to all those who voluntarily surrendered and laid down their arms if there was no blood on their hands. However, there were more such witnesses than required, and as a result, the amnesty did not affect many of those to whom it was promised.

Anzor Ashev, Islam Tukhuzhev, Murat Midov and Murat Abazov, armed with pistols and grenades, were supposed to attack the building of the Republican Ministry of Internal Affairs. But prudently did not even attempt to fulfill the task assigned to them. A few days later, these failed militants surrendered voluntarily. But only Abazov fell under the amnesty - more than one witness testifying against accomplices was not required for this episode.

Lawyer Magomed Abubakarov fears that the amnestied witnesses will not appear at the court session and that their written testimonies given during the investigation will simply be read out. Abubakarov is sure that the prosecution is more than satisfied with such a scenario - there is always a risk that such witnesses will say in court that they slandered their comrades under moral and physical pressure.

PARTISAN SONGS

Last year, commenting on the situation to Newsweek, President of Kabardino-Balkaria Arsen Kanokov asked rhetorically: “Is there still a danger of something like this happening again? Have you managed to eliminate the causes that led to the outbreak? And he answered himself: “It is difficult to eliminate all the causes in two years. The followers of radical Islam played an important role. But even the methods used in the republic to fight believers only added fuel to the fire.”

Today, the official mufti of the KBR, Anas Pshikhachev, assures that many of the previous excesses have been eliminated: “After the mutiny, there were two facts when policemen copied visitors to the mosque, but after the intervention of the Spiritual Directorate of the KBR, this practice was stopped.”

Perhaps the mufti is not disingenuous, and new lists are not kept. But this doesn’t make it any easier for the old ‘listed men’. Zeytun Gaev was detained and taken to the republican Organized Crime Control Department on suspicion of having links with the ‘forest brothers’ on November 15, 2007. that he was dead, after interrogation he threw himself out the window from the fourth floor and crashed ... ”- says his father.

Meanwhile, according to the conclusion of the forensic medical examination, the injuries on the body of Gaev, which caused death, are of a lifetime nature. They have a prescription of 6-12 hours before the moment of death and are caused by "repeated action of hard blunt objects with a limited area of ​​​​impact", which could be fingers clenched into a fist, a leg shod in shoes, a stick, etc.

Two and a half years ago, the "listed Wahhabi" Zaur Psanukov, who was delivered to the UBOP, also ended up in the morgue a day later. The UBOP officers shrugged their shoulders: “They didn’t keep track, he jumped out the window.” This is not news for the republic: a year before the rebellion, Rasul Tsakoev, detained by the police, was found dying from beatings in a country dump. Before his death, he managed to tell that the head of the Organized Crime Control Department, Anatoly Kyarov, instructed his subordinates to torture him until he “signed”. All the same confessions in connection with the "forest brothers" were required to be signed. In January of this year, unknown people fired at Kyarov's official car. The colonel is dead.

A conversation with the builder Alim from the village of Khasanya - this village is called in the republican Ministry of Internal Affairs only as a hotbed of Wahhabism - revealed the logic of a simple and therefore eerie dialogue that "prayers" are now having with the police:

• Is it true that now the police are no longer fierce as before?

• Yes, they have been more polite lately. You see, - he pointed to the green slopes of the mountains, - when the green blossoms, they always become polite.

In Nalchik, the actions of opponents of the authorities have not been perceived as an unambiguous evil for a long time. Recently, the republican prosecutor's office opened a criminal case on the distribution of CDs with songs of extremist content performed by the Chechen bard Timur Mutsuraev. He sings of the courage of the Mujahideen and is very popular in the Caucasus. A Newsweek correspondent asked the first stall in the Green Market:

• Is there anything from Timur Mutsuraev?

The teenage salesman nods.

• Do you know that since yesterday these are extremist discs and you can’t sell them, but if they catch you, there will be trouble?

• They won’t catch you, - the boy smiles, - we don’t keep partisan songs on the counter.

For him, Mutsuraev's "Hey Shahid" is the same partisan song as Surkov's "Dugout".

INTERVIEW

"Why didn't we kill them?"

The main problem of the trial of the participants in the Nalchik rebellion is the ambiguous attitude of society towards these events. Even the victims treat the rebels with a certain amount of sympathy. Leyla Makhieva was held hostage by militants holding defense in the Souvenir store for almost a day. In an interview with Orkhan Dzhemal, Leyla admitted that she does not dare to call them militants.

How did you get held hostage?

I worked as a saleswoman when the shooting started, there was me and another saleswoman in the store, then three more women ran in. And soon two armed guys broke into us. So we became hostages. After a while, another guy made his way to them, there were three of them.

How did they behave? Aggressively? Confused?

They were injured, very thirsty, but very cold-blooded and prudent. The first was wounded in the shoulder, the second had a crushed thumb, the third, who ran to us later, generally had a terrible wound: the bone was sticking out of the thigh; they were all bleeding.

At first, one of them scared us a lot, demanded that one of us go and fetch water. At some point, I was afraid that he would shoot, then I realized that they would not shoot at us. They weren't aggressive towards us.

One of the women who took refuge in the store named Zurida immediately offered them her help, began to bandage ...

And how did you yourself behave when you were in such an extreme situation?

Zurida immediately set the right course of action, we sympathized with them, people are wounded, albeit with weapons. We started asking them questions. When the shooting subsided a little, they began to tell us about their families. The one that scared us the most began to tell that he had a kitten at home, which he took in the mosque, and it was so touching that at some point I even forgot that they were shooting at us.

But in the first minutes, of course, we experienced panic horror. One of the hostages, a young girl, spoke on the phone in Kabardian, and at first we did not know who they were by nationality, and I was afraid they did not understand and would think something bad. I asked her: speak Russian, you never know, but the girl was just hysterical.

Did they let you call?

Yes. I have an aunt in Moscow, she called me first, in Nalchik then nobody knew anything, but she already called, what is going on with you? I told her: don’t worry, everything is fine with me, but please contact the outside world, tell the security forces not to shoot in our direction. We were afraid that not these guys would kill us, but from the other side. Then I called my mother, she already knew what was happening, but did not know that I was there. I told her: Mom, everything is fine with me, I am alive and unharmed. Toward evening, I called my mother again, I just wanted to say goodbye, I no longer believed that I would survive.

Did the militants themselves try to contact anyone?

The one who ran to us first also called his mother. I will never forget his words: "Mom, I'm hurt, take me out of here." I then met this woman. She told me that she thought that her son was not in the city, and did not suspect that he was involved in such matters. Police officers came to her with a search, and as soon as they left, a call came from him. She told how she rushed around the yard and did not know what to do.

Why did you meet this woman?

She asked me to meet with her, to tell her about the last minutes of her son. She asked me for forgiveness, but I had the feeling that it was I who should ask her for forgiveness, because her son was gone, and I remained alive.

There was a moment when they all passed out and there was a gun next to us, you could take it and kill them all, but Zurida and I didn’t even think about it then. Then she says: Do you remember the gun? why didn't we kill them? do you remember that, do you remember that? and why? That's why... I have no ill will towards them, now I don't and then I didn't, for some reason I can't even call them militants.

Well, mentally, what do you call them?

Commoners… they had their own ideology. I do not support this ideology, but I cannot judge either.

Have you tried to find out why they did it?

When we already understood that these were our own, Nalchik, Kabardians, Balkars, of course, we began to ask about this. Their answers were, in general, primitive: they said that they opposed the infidels. Gyaurs in their understanding were just cops who do not allow them to pray, offend, infringe on their rights. They began to tell a lot of stories about how the police beat them, about the oppression of different people.

Did the security forces try to negotiate with them?

Yes. They asked for water, and three bottles of mineral water were thrown through the window, in exchange they had to release two hostages. We somehow did not agree on who would leave and who would stay. They wanted to let an adult woman go, she was already very ill, and another woman, she said that she had a small child and she needed to go home. But we had a frightened girl with us, she was the first to rush to the exit. They threatened her with a machine gun: where you went, come back. And then Zurida began to ask: they gave you three bottles of water, well, let three people go. They obeyed her, but Zurida and I stayed behind... We were released the very next morning. It was very cold at night, our store sold cloaks and woolen kiiz (national felt carpets. - Newsweek ), and one of them, who called mother, covered us with them, and on top of it with boxes and everything that was, threw and said that this will not stop the bullet, but it can save it from fragments. But they themselves were bleeding, they were cold, and we gave everything to them, while we ourselves remained just on cardboard.

Did any conflicts arise between you and the militants during the day?

We started a conversation: guys, you started all this, you have ideas, you want to go to the end and die, as you say, on the path of Allah, and we are innocent people, we have done nothing to anyone, we are also believers ... let us go - and please, die for the truth. They were tense, worried. They answered us: “The holy month of Ramadan is coming, you will die with us and immediately go to paradise. Do you feel bad, girls? Here I already began to be indignant, furious: why are you deciding for me, I don’t want to die, but I want to live.

But they were so confused and so believed in their ideas that they thought I should die of happiness because now I will die here. It was useless to discuss this topic with them.

Can you estimate in hindsight whether these people could have killed you?

They did not threaten us, but they said that if suddenly there was an assault, they all had grenades ready, and they were ready to blow up everyone at once - both the federals, and themselves, and us. We asked them all the time: wait, don’t rush, we’ll manage without bloodshed, we’ll all leave, we won’t leave you, they’ll bring a car right away, we’ll all sit there together, hide ourselves in a cloak and go to the forest, to the mountains ...

Sleeping gas was used during the assault. Do you remember anything?

It's vague. The last thing I remember: we were lying on the floor, it was very cold, Zurida and I hugged to make it somehow warmer. She tells me: I see some kind of transparent hands, they seem to be washing me. I think, well, everything, they arrived, what hands? Zurida, what are you talking about, it's scary, please stop it, but it was quiet, quiet. I suddenly began to see pigeons myself, well, I think it’s excellent in general, three doves fly above me. I close my eyes - I see; I open my eyes - I see. Then I briefly remember: we are lying, one of them is standing over me, shooting, there is a strong firing. I don't remember anything else. We woke up in the hospital.