"Who could keep me?"

On August 23, it will be five years since the murder of the Nabi and Hasanguseyn brothers. The young men worked as shepherds. They were 17 and 18 years old. Murtazali has been fighting for the investigation of the murder of his sons for five years

"The hay was mowed, fruits were grown, plowed the earth"

At the door of the Sovetsky District Court of Makhachkala, there is a low stocky man. Sedding a beard, a shirt in a small cage, a black cap, the strained hands of a rural resident. He speaks slowly, pondering every word. The phrases are short and significant. A mournful expression on the face, gestures of a person who does the most important thing in his life.

This is Murtazali Hasanguseynov, the father of the killed Nabi and Hasanguseyn. They were his only sons. In court, he disputes the next refusal of the Investigative Committee to initiate a criminal case against the former chief of police of the Shamilsky district of the Republic of Ibrahim Aliyev and three more police officers. It was Aliyev who declared the dead teenagers to bandits - he gave out a summary that the Gasanguseynovs were militants, thereby giving the go -ahead for their liquidation.

The court supports . The refusal is canceled.

Murtazali Gasanguseynov photo: Dmitry Markov for TD

Murtazali was born in the Horo-Hindah-Avar village, whose small and cohesive population is used to surviving in difficult conditions: everyone here has a natural economy. He received eight classes of education and earned a hard rural labor all his life, was a little working-working, he worked on a collective farm in the 1980s. “The hay was mowed, the garden was watered, fruits were grown, the earth plowed. There was no tractor, they plowed bulls, ”the man recalls.

And in the mature years, he had to study laws, procedural investigative norms and rules, immerse himself in legal wisdom, in order to at least posthumously protect his sons and those who are still alive, but can become a mild prey, a victim of a reservation, destroyed by a “militant”.

“My wife and I are disabled,” the man says. - We have a small Tuhum (family community. - Approx. TD ). Apparently, that's why they chose my sons as victims. There is no one to intercede. They thought they would be killed, but we will make a joke and forget everything. ”

"What did you do?"

Everyone knew the sons of Murtazali: they grazed the cattle of the inhabitants of three villages. Both gathered in the army, and a Russian flag fluttered over their shepherd house in the mountains in the mountains.

View of the village of Horo-Hinds Photo: Dmitry Markov for TD

Early on the morning of August 24, 2016, a relative came across their bodies on the way home. They lay faces down. Nearby were machine guns, duffel bags and berets, and the slippers, which were usually worn, lay nearby. A relative saw a detachment of one and a half dozen police officers with stretcher and two employees of the Center for Combating Extremism approached the killed people. "What did you do?" The relative shouted to them. They denied involvement in the death of adolescents, referring to the order of the authorities. But the man did not lag behind: "Why then did you come here right now?"

The policemen wanted to lock the guys in a car grub, behind bars, but the relatives who were already fled to the place of the tragedy, this prevented this, and then the bodies were laid on the seat of the car.

The native brothers managed to find out that the dead were considered involved in several crimes in the area: a fabrication of the school in the village of Telestl, the explosion of a television tower in the village of Hebda and the murder of the federal judge Ubaidula Magomedov. On the same day, the acting Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Shamilsky district, the police major, Ibrahim Aliyev, announced the special operations conducted in the village of Hor-Hinds, as a result of which two militants were destroyed by return fire, and instituted the dead cases under Articles 317 (an encroachment on the lives of law enforcement officers) and 222 (illegal storage and weapons of weapons) criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

No one believed this - everyone knew teenagers. The bodies demanded that they bury Islamic customs. But the employees of the district department took corpses to the district center - to the village of Hebda, then to be transported to Makhachkala "for further investigative actions." Then, local men, gathered, blocked the mountain tunnel leading to the district center, and the women went to the police station, demanding that an examination of the causes of the death of the boys conduct on the spot. The score went to the clock. “My children would be irrevocably declared terrorists,” says Murtazali.

Children at the stream for the village photo: Dmitry Markov for TD

He recalls how his neighbors burst into a police garage, pulled out the bodies of shepherds out of the car and carried along the street on a stretcher. Police beat women in their hands, taking away their bodies. But they did not yield. Some men who overwhelm the tunnel came running to help. According to eyewitnesses, Ibrahim Aliyev quickly arrived at the scene and opened fire from the machine gun over the heads of people. But the bodies nevertheless brought to the rural mosque.

At the insistence of relatives, the first examination was held in the village of Hinda. It turned out that all the bullets were penetrating: there are eight bullet wounds on the Hasan’s body, Nabi had eleven, and there are only two bullet holes on the jackets. “Of the three points, they shot from Kalashnikov. Having killed them, they changed them into camouflage jackets, and they shot at my killed children again. They put a brown jacket on one, on the other - black. Winter berets were bent up. They could not put them in - they threw them nearby. But this is August, the heat, who wears winter shoes? " - says Murtazali.

Four months later, two militants were killed, involved in crimes that were charged with his sons. "Then I was indignant: why are my sons killed for?" - recalls Murtazali.

Family photography on the phone Murtazili photo: Dmitry Markov for TD

In January 2017, he filed an application with the investigating authorities with a demand to institute criminal proceedings on the fact of the murder. At the end of March, the prosecutor of Dagestan admitted that there is no reason to consider his sons to be militants, and sent materials to initiate a criminal case for an additional audit. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB denied information about the conduct of special operations in the Shamilsky district on the day of the death of adolescents.

By the end of 2017, criminal cases against the brothers were terminated.

"I need their apologies?!"

Murtazali goes to the cemetery for his boys' birthday - to congratulate.

So he says. And from these words in the soul is difficult and mournful.

Then he recalls how, before the tragedy with his sons, he almost died himself: “I was seriously ill. Liver. The doctors already abandoned me, they said that I was not a tenant. The boys were afraid that I would die, sat near me, worried. The herbalist was saved. "

Murtazali was recognized as the victims in the case of the murder of sons. The criminal case on the murder of Gasanguseynov is investigated by the investigation group of the Central Investigative Committee. It still did not get to court.

The man is trying to achieve another case-about the official forgery (because of the linden summary signed by the acting chief of the police of the Shamilsky district, Ibrahim Aliyev and other police officers who had the attitude to this summary), again passing the circle, the prosecutor’s office, and the supreme court. From there, the application is lowered to the district, he everydayly refuses to initiate a criminal case, and Murtazali again submits to the Supreme Court of Dagestan.

The place where the brothers found the bodies is fenced by the fence from the cattle photo: Dmitry Markov for TD

The first lawyer, who took up the case, according to Murtazali, turned out to be inhabited from the "that" side. He tried to stop the father of the dead: they say that efforts are useless. "Where are you going against a tank without a bayonet-knife?" - recalls Murtazali his words. “But I decided to go against this tank and find a way to stop it.”

The lawyer was collected by the whole world, and, alas, it was not possible to return the money spent. Therefore, the man spat on lawyer fraud and decided to first restore the honest name of his sons. This was not easy.

Many times he went out with pickets to the center of Makhachkala. He achieved admission to officials, demanded an objective trial in the case. He stood silently, kept a poster with photos of children and the text of the “SK Russia in Dagestan, covers the accomplice of the murder of shepherds Aliyev I. G.” In any weather and regardless of the number of those gathered.

Once Murtazali found out that the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev would come to Makhachkala. He was going to go to the picket - hoped that the minister would notice. But that morning he was detained and delivered to the police department of the Soviet district of Makhachkala. He was kept there for four hours, and then released with an apology. Kolokoltsev had already left the city by that time.

“They knew where I went and why. I need their apologies?! " - Murtasali is indignant.

During the time of the murder of his children in the republic, three leaders were replaced. The officials waved away from him, as from an annoying fly, while he rehabilitated the memory of his sons step by step.

Somehow one of the officials came to the village of the village next to the village of the village to open a tuberculosis hospital. Someone from the audience asked him: why were the shepherds killed for? He said that the murder is political.

Local men are building a sports ground in honor of the Gasanguseynov brothers : Dmitry Markov for TD

“The next head of the region Vladimir Vasiliev, I almost jumped under the wheel of a motorcade with photos of my sons in my hands. But he still did not accept me. And I was not even going to ask him to find the killers, I just wanted our parents to hear us, ”Murtazali is convinced of his innocence, and this gives him strength.

He is outraged that Aliyev was not even fired from work - he was simply transferred to another district by district police officers. “It was a deliberate murder. And then, in order to settle the case, to avoid investigation, Aliyev through his messengers offered me five million rubles. I scouted if I agree to shut up, ”the face of Murtazali at these words expresses contempt.

Then, he says, he conveyed in response that the poor man, but would take five million on credit and put a million more on top: “I will put him in one place, and let him give me his only son. Will give it?! "

Murtazali does not give up

Now the interests of Murtazali are represented by the lawyers of the committee against torture - one of the few organizations who undertake hopeless, it would seem, things in the Caucasus. They received the case from the Dagestan branch of the Memorial human rights organization Non -profit organization that performs the functions of a foreign agent .

“Then our memorial colleagues had difficult times: they tried to burn the car, there was an attack on the head of Sirazhezhutdin Datsiev. As a result, he had to leave the country. They were very crushed. In this situation, we took up for, I will not be afraid to make high -profile statements, a significant thing for Dagestan and the entire Caucasus is the case of the Gasanguseynov brothers. Significant because in most similar cases the relatives of the dead are silent. And Murtazali does not give up. I bow before his endurance. I remember that my colleague Abubakar Yangulbaev lived for several weeks in the mountain village of Horo-Hindah, interviewed dozens of local residents, examined the place of murder, shoveled a pile of documents and in detail, reproduced a picture of this vile murder, ”recalls the inspector of the North Caucasus department of the torture of Konstantin Gusev.

House of the Hasanguseynovs family : Dmitry Markov for TD

The standard scheme for the fabrication of “militants” affairs, according to him, is illegal detention, subsequent torture and receipt of confession. And this is a very harmful practice primarily for the fight against terrorism itself, Gusev says: as a result, it is virtually impossible to find real militants among the huge number of “virtual terrorists”.

“In this regard, the case of killed shepherds stands out greatly. The brothers were immediately killed. Then in the mountains nearby, two militants really hid, whom they could not catch. Apparently, the authorities demanded the results, and the Gasanguseynov brothers actually sent it to a slaughter, ”says the lawyer.

According to him, the concealment of such crimes is also standard: if statements from relatives have received, then they are intimidated. In the Caucasus, families are mostly large, so they are threatened to pick up other sons. And people are afraid. If relatives show resistance and continue to achieve justice, then the case will not be elementary.

“I can give an example of our own business from Ingushetia. Then, under a terrorist article, a person was arrested. He died or was killed during the interrogation. The body was not given to relatives for a month. The uncle of the murdered addressed us. He turned out to be the most daring and fundamental. The rest were scared. We started working on the case, but pressed on close relatives, threatening that they would not give the body at all. This is a great tragedy for Muslims. Then the uncle who turned to us, his name was the Sultan, apologized to us and in his hearts declared about relatives that "it would be better if they were killed by themselves, since they were such cowards." This is a situation that is quite characteristic of the Caucasus, ”the human rights activist states.

The criminal case of the murder of shepherds has recently turned 45 months. The preliminary investigation in the criminal case was extended until October. So far, there is not even officially specific suspects in the case. It is unique in that those who pressed the trigger are not to blame: they followed the order. The guilty giving him away.

The slope on which the tragedy photo took place: Dmitry Markov for TD

The version of the "murder by mistake" appeared almost immediately, says Gusev. But it looked insolvent. “In general, the case of the murdered brothers very reminds me of the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin: the same stupidity and inability of the authorities at least somehow justify their crimes,” the lawyer shares his impressions.

In March 2020, the European Court of Human Rights, having examined the case of “Hasanguseynov against Russia”, concluded that the Russian authorities violated Article 2 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the right to life). It is the authorities of the authorities that are responsible for the murder of brothers and an ineffective investigation.

By decision of the European Court, Russia must pay the applicant 120 thousand euros. “I would give this money to sick children. My soul breaks when I see posts about them on Instagram, ”Murtazali plans.

With the case of an official forgery against Aliyev and several other police officers, everything is more complicated. “In court, they say that these reports and reports have no legal force, you can imagine! But why did we “have gazed” for a year and three months, tormented us, claiming that our children are militants and terrorists? Then, then, their data had legal force, but now not? " - the distorted father is indignant.

“At the same time, the primary source of the information information is a certain unknown employee whom no one remembers. This employee belongs to the same unknown unit SOG-5, the composition of which has not yet been established, ”adds Gusev.

The lawyers of the committee against torture appealed the decision to refuse to institute criminal proceedings. The Supreme Court of the Republic of Dagestan canceled the decision of the court of first instance. The complaint was returned to the Soviet District Court of the city of Makhachkala for the third time.

“We won this court, but the prosecutor's office of Dagestan demanded to cancel the court order. On August 10, the Supreme Court of Dagestan left an appeal of the prosecutor's office, and the decision of the court of first instance in force, ”Gusev describes the judicial ups and downs.

But, according to Gusev, thanks to the perseverance of murtasal, it was quite likely that more than one life was saved: a precedent was created that such murders can be given publicity and achieve their investigation that they can no longer be “hung up”.

“The tank is really stopped. Now there are no new killings of children after we began to resist, ”Murtazali agrees.

During his confrontation with the security forces, dozens of people whose relatives also suffered from the police addressed him. These people are afraid to talk about their trouble out loud, because there are other children, they can also suffer.

Children bathe in a stream behind the village photo: Dmitry Markov for TD

“I also received threats,” says Murtazali. - Once they told me that they ordered me, that they would destroy. I replied: what am I, is it better than my sons? I am here in the square, every day (stood with a picket), even if they shoot there. For the fact that they let me here, they fired two heads of the police department. But I say: who could keep me? "

The words of support from the Internet that the Committee employee against torture Konstantin Gusev prints and brings him especially significant for Murtasali. For a birthday in June, Murtazali received a selection of messages, keeps them at home and considers the best gift. Near the house, he plans to create a museum of the Gasanguseynov brothers.

It’s difficult to go against the state car alone. In order to prove the facts of torture, to demand investigation, to hold guilty liable and betray the crime, to support the applicants morally and prepare documents to the European Court of Human Rights, the lawyers of the committee against torture often risk their security. Please support their work.

The material was created with the support of the Fund of Presidential Grants