"They have nothing to do in Chechnya, let's beat them"

On March 16, the Grozny City hotel attacked the head of the committee to prevent torture by Igor Kalyapin. This is the third attack for a week related to the Chechen Republic. Earlier, a group of journalists and human rights activists was beaten on the border of Ingushetia and Chechnya, took the equipment, set fire to the bus in which they were driving. How was the investigation of the crime - in the report of The New Times, who was among the victims

The bus bought by the driver on credit is not subject to restoration, Magas, March 13, 2016. Photo: Denis Sinyakov/Mediazone

I signed the first protocol in case No. 16200056 at 00:10 March 10, 2016. By this time, it was already known that the apartment of the torture committee in Karabulak was defeated by armed people in balaclavas, and checked the NPO office in Grozny. However, the case of an attack on a bus with journalists and human rights activists was initiated by
Part 2 of Art. 213 ("hooliganism") and part 2 of Art. 167 ("Intentional causing harm to property") of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Two days later, Art. 162 - robbery.

March 9, Ordzhonikidzevskoye. Islam

The bus is on. A crowd of men runs to us. Scary. Suddenly they are again attackers? On the traffic jam: drivers stop one after another on the sidelines and surround us. Call an ambulance, police, fire department. They remove a scarf from me and make a tourniquet out of it on the leg of Mary (the journalist of the Swedish radio Lena Maria Person Loofgren received a foot injury). A tall man in civilian clothes runs up to us and waves a crust: "I'm from the police of the Sunzhensky district, get ready, go!"

We do not follow him. Scary. Suddenly he is one of those? The man takes a form from the doctor and asks to record our names on him. Hands shake. I take a pen and put all my strength to stick my hand to the leaf.

"Let's go, go, it is dangerous here!" - shouts the policeman, fearing a new attack. You need to make sure that everything is in order. Maria, Oiten (Oiten Windstad, Norwegian correspondent Ny Tid), Katya (lawyer Ekaterina Vanlov) and Bashir (driver Bashir Pliev) sit in an ambulance. The rest are in police cars.

The driver winds and drives, as if leaving the chase. He hits the brakes at the intersection. Three cars, people in camouflage with weapons.

"Let's go, go, it is dangerous here!" - shouts the policeman, fearing a new attack

"To inspect everyone with Chechen numbers!" - The driver in civilian clothes yells to them and gasps again. On the streets of Sunzhi it is dark and quiet. The car growls.

The police department is a maze from barriers, corridors and stairs. We go out into the yard. Scary. Suddenly he leads us to the basement? I wonder how long I last under torture?

We are being brought into a cabinet sheathed with wood. Portraits of Dzerzhinsky, Putin, Stalin are watching us from the wall. An endless series of interrogations will begin here: local, republican, federal, Moscow investigators want to know details. Name, surname, patronymic? Do you smoke? Here is an ashtray. What happened? What were they dressed in? Will you meet - can you identify?

The room is light. Two men are sitting at the negotiation table, from each, a little behind - six more gloomy serious faces. On the left, bald in a leather jacket is a police lieutenant general, Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Ingushetia Alexander Trofimov. On the right in a good suit is the prosecutor of the republic Petr Nikolaev.

“Do not worry,” the minister says, “it all ended. Tell us what happened. ”

A thin porcelain cup with gilding is placed on the table. On the table - cookies in tin banks, cakes. My dirty coat, lumps of the earth in my hair and bloody streams on the dress are not very suitable for the ringing of thin glass. I rest against the President’s portrait and begin to tell: “Today, when we returned to the hotel, two cars blocked us on the road. At first I thought that this is such a frisky manner of driving: Bashir will now tell the young people that you should not dashing, and we will go further. And then one of them hit the windshield with a stick. ”

For the first four days, interrogations went around the clock - with interruptions in sleep, Magas, March 10, 2016. Photo: Timur Rakhmatulin

“Here is the whole of the North Caucasus Federal District,” that policeman takes me again. It turns out that Islam - an employee of the department for combating economic crimes - I was just on the border, I had to hit my friends there in the case. We hear - cotton. They thought the gas cylinder exploded. I think I’ll go now, I’ll check home early - I have an Angina. And here you are. You see, the face is red? It was I who thought that someone in the car remained and climbed into the fire. "

My testimony is recorded by the seconded investigator from Murmansk. Ketka, black T -shirt, pistol - you will not give it more than 27 years old. He brings tea, sausage, cheese, bread and sweets.

“There was a time when one of us was killed every day,” Islam continues. - Of the ten two, there are not constantly. They cleaned up without hesitation, shot right by the house. I went to Moscow. He kept two stores at the South-West, received good money. And the comrades called and said: "We are killed here, and you are sitting out." And I returned. "

“You see, the face is red? I thought that someone in the car remained and climbed into the fire "

Islam says that the territory on which we were attacked is controversial, but actually Ingush. What was so specially conceived. “But it's good that you did not have time to drive a border post,” he adds. - They would cross the border - and did not survive. Why did I take you away? There is the first post of Chechens! ”

According to Islam, the video is unlikely to get a video from the post. And most of all, he was afraid of the attack precisely from there. Other investigators and employees of state protection will be told about this by a checkpoint.

“The Chechens are completely insolent,” one of them was furious, “they before, do you know how they traveled?” They go past the post and shoot in the air. A couple of years ago, the boss stopped these at the border, so an hour later armed people arrived, went to our borderpost and shot the chief point -blank. Now look what they do! "

The text of my interrogation disappeared from the computer. We'll have to do it again. Law enforcement officers fill the protocol, talk about their relations with the neighboring republic. They are confident in one thing: now, after what happened on the highway, the relationship between them and the Chechen colleagues, and so not the best, will be completely detached.

March 10, Magas. Bekan

“I won’t go there without weapons,” a tall man with glasses and a low voice appears in the colonel’s office. He is one of the senior investigators of Magas, now he will go to the Grozny City hotel to pick up our things. Later he returns with nothing.

“The head of the hotel came out, introduced himself to Turku Abdul-Shahid,” said Bekan. - “If you drink a seagull, then come on. And if you inspect the rooms, then we finished, ”he tells me.”

Victims. *From left to right: *photographer Mikhail Solunin, driver Bashir Pliev, journalist Yegor Skovoroda. Photo: Denis Sinyakov/Mediazone

Bekan has a jacket on Latskan - a gilded icon in the form of an emblem of the Republic of Ingushetia. “This means that I am endless,” he explains. Bekan writes out my testimony, jokes, quotes Mtsyri Lermontov: “Old man! I have heard many times that you saved me from death. ”

"Why did you go to Beslan?" He asks. “Go to school No. 1,” I reply. “I was there. Only in 1992. Remember, there was such an Ingush-Ossetian conflict? " - “The six -week war, yes. Have you been a hostage? " - “Uncle saved me. My relatives were killed, I still can’t return my house. Someday I will tell you everything. And now they are forbidden to talk about it loudly. ”

Later I learn that Bekan is from a solid Ingush teip, he never sits and does not eat with the elders in his family.

A set of rules hangs on the wall in the office: “Know that sincere love and great achievements are impossible without great risk”, “Study the rules to know how to violate them”, “finding out relations with your loved one, touch only a momentary situation”.

My interrogation ends at two in the morning. Two cats begin to yell in the corridor, and I can be rude to the next investigator. I refuse to sign a paper in which the lack of claims will include.

In the morning I will find out that the interrogation will have to go again.

March 11–12, Magas. Emil

Morning. In the office of the colonel, a cat rubs on my gypsy leg, and I shout: “Did you know yesterday you should have interrogated with a video camera? Why were everyone with the video, and I am without?! " “Experts were needed in another place,” the colonel moves the seagulls to me, “and Moscow requested the video.” You are not angry, we just want to do our job well. ”

The investigator leads me to the office. Smoothly shaved, in a uniform blue tunic. This time he is in his form, and not in a borrowed one.

“Do you remember what they told me yesterday? - he asks, - tell us the same thing. And there will be a couple of additional questions - about your professional activity. ”

The interrogation lasts four hours. After the camera turns off, I read the protocol for spelling errors for coffee. It is better to do this at once - the leadership is swearing, you will have to redo it again.

“You're well done,” says the investigator, “said well, as if for the first time.”

Later, another victim breaks up - photographer Mikhail Solunin. After the next interrogation lasting seven hours, his patience ends.

“You see, we work out several versions,” the investigator reassures us. - First: the Russians arrived, they have nothing to do in Chechnya, let's beat them. Second: journalists arrived, they have expensive equipment, let's take it away. And the third: the journalists arrived, they have nothing to do in Chechnya, let's break them. Now we are going to the main version. Yes, the application of the 144th article (“obstruction of journalistic activity”) is also being considered. ”

We sign the last document at Magas Airport.

On March 15, the Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs will be connected to the investigation of the incident. On March 16, at the Grozny City Hotel, Igor Kalyapin will be kicked out of the hotel, thrown with green, flour and eggs. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov will associate this with the “criminal situation” in the republic and notes that the Kremlin is counting on more effective measures to prevent such incidents. In his Instagram, the head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov will publish children, dogs, Crimea, training of the Akhmat fighting club, a report on the preparation for the 13th anniversary of the referendum in Chechnya. He will write: “Thanks to Akhmat Haji and his support by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chechnya from the“ hot point ”on the world map turned into the most stable and calm region of Russia.”

And it’s true: the bus burned, Kalyapin left Grozny. You can sleep calmly.