| Two prosecutors
freed from Chechen captivity
TEXT: Gazeta.Ru Two prosecutors, abducted a year ago, have been freed from captivity in Chechnya, Russian news agencies reported on Friday morning. Senior assistant prosecutor of Chechnya Nadezhda Pogosova and deputy prosecutor of the Shatoi District of the republic Alexei Klimov, abducted on 27 December 2002 in Grozny, have been freed from Chechen captivity during a special operation carried out by the republican power-wielding agencies, a source in the Interior Ministry of Chechnya told Interfax. The operation was carried out in one of the mountainous districts in the republic, the source reported without elaborating. The freed hostages are outside the republic, an Interior Ministry official said. Their state of health is satisfactory, and there is no risk to their health. On Friday the deputy prosecutor of the Chechen Republic, Igor Samokhin, confirmed that the freed prosecutors had been freed during a special operation carried out a day earlier and brought to the town of Mineralnyye Vody. Before he was elected President of Chechnya in October this year, the head of the republican administration Akhmad Kadyrov, speaking at one of the news conferences, claimed that according to his information, rebel leader Doka Umarov was holding the abducted prosecutors captive. Kadyrov alleged that the rebels had demanded a ransom for the hostages. On his part, the then-acting president of Chechnya pledged "to apply all efforts for liberating the prosecutors without paying a ransom". Senior assistant prosecutor of Chechnya, Nadezhda Pogosova, and deputy prosecutor of Shatoi, Alexei Klimov, were abducted in December last year. On 27 December Pogosova and Klimov left Grozny in the prosecutor' office's Opel and headed to Mozdok airport in North Ossetia. However, the two never arrived at the point of their destination. On January 1 the search for the missing pair began. On 27 December a powerful blast rocked the government compound in the Chechen capital, killing dozens of local officials. At first it was believed that the missing prosecutors were killed in the attack, but their bodies were not found among the bodies of victims of the terrorist act. In summer this year the Moscow media published two video addresses by the hostages in which they asked for liberation. In particular, Nadezhda Pogosova addressed the well-known entrepreneur and co- founder of the Liberal Russia party Boris Berezovsky with the request to help her and her colleague out of Chechen captivity. The video file had been sent to Grani.ru news web site by email. Some observers suggested that the address to Berezovsky could be "a provocation" on the part of the rebels. Meanwhile, in Ingushetia four policemen died and 11 were injured as a private house blew up in the village of Troitskaya, in Ingushetia, RIA Novosti reported on Friday, citing the Emergencies Ministry. Two people are in critical condition. According to the ministry, the explosion occurred at 10h30 at 31, Ulitsa Lenina [Street]. An explosive device went off as a special- purpose police unit was checking a private residential house, an Emergencies Ministry official said. Another major terror
attack has been prevented on Friday in Chechnya. A car laden with 300
kilos of explosives was found in the outskirts of Novyi Sharoi, Interfax
reported citing the chief spokesman for the anti-terror operations in
the Northern Caucasus Ilya Shabalkin. According to preliminary reports,
the rebels had planned to perpetrate the attack in a crowded place.
Fraud disclosed in Ingushetia in the lists of refugees wishing to return to Chechnya INGUSHETIA, November 12, Caucasus Times - Several cases with false signatures of refugees were signaled from Ingushetia's "Sputnik" camp in Ordzhonikidzevskaya village when unknown suspects filled in the application blanks on behalf of internally displaced persons to return to Chechnya, the Caucasus Times correspondent reports citing the locals. Residents of "Sputnik" tent camp for Chechen refugees. The people believe this is another trick of the authorities to compel the refugees to return to Chechnya. "I was very surprised when the administration told me just yesterday about my intention to leave the camp. They showed me the application I had allegedly submitted a week ago. When I said I did not intend to return now the officials insisted I’d better do it now to take advantage of given privileges and voluntarily leave the camp, otherwise I risk to remain out in the street, because since now my name had been crossed off the Migration service lists and they were not accountable for my future," a local woman Zalina Saikhanova told the Caucasus Times correspondent. Meanwhile, the representatives of administration of the camp ruled out any possibility that someone would fill in the application blanks on behalf of the refugees. "This could be done either by members of family, or close relatives. You know, it's just because the people hesitate and after the documents have been already ready, they change their mind and find lots of excuses," the camp administration said. Nonetheless, the refugees are concerned with the situation. The majority of locals said they were afraid the authorities would apply such tactic as well as those cases when refugees' names were unreasonably crossed off the lists for humanitarian help to force them out the camp. Malika Suleymenova, Caucasus Times, Ingushetia 14.11.2003 RUSSIA, Moscow. Former hostages and relatives of the victims killed during Dubrovka theatre siege urged the International Chemical Weapons Forum that opened 11 November in Moscow, to condemn Russian authorities for the use of the lethal gas during the storm of the theatre. In their address to the Forum’s co-ordination committee, NORD-OST association of the terrorist act victims urged the forum to pass a special resolution on ‘non-lethal’ chemical weapons. "Doubrovka theatre tragedy demonstrated that there is no such thing as a ‘non-lethal’ chemical weapon. Its use must be considered a crime regardless of the circumstances," state the authors of the address. The address also raises the issue whereby the appropriate international organisations must check the national arsenals of special substances used by security services. "The use of the lethal gas lead to the death of our friends and family members as well as life-long disabilities in the surviving hostages… It is obvious that the type of gas used in the theatre gives all the reason to talk about violation of Chemical Weapons Convention," state the Nord-Ost victims. Non-governmental environmental organisation Russian Green Cross organised 5th public forum: Ratification of the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons by Russia: Its Status and Prospects by the End of 2003. It is expected to be attended by representatives from USA, Great Britain, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, European Commission and Russian organs of the state. PRIMA News Agency [2003-11-12-Rus-35]
Friday, 14 November 2003 Escape, if you can! The alarming news spreads is received from the mountainous part of Chechnya. After the Armed forces of the ChRI carried out a number of large-scale military actions in the mountainous part of the republic, having inflicted serious losses to the enemy, the Russian occupation forces launched retaliatory action, but, as it is customary to them, not against the fighters of the Chechen resistance Movement, but against the civilians living in the mountain areas of the republic. At the crack of the dawn Russian armored fighting vehicles surrounded a small mountain village Zums in the Itum-Kala region of Chechnya. According to the eyewitnesses, the Russian militants drove the villagers, including women, children and old people into the school in the center of the village. Severely beating and scoffing at them the Russians required of them to give up the "boeviks" (fighters) and their fellow-villagers sympathizing them. The Russian occupants plundered, blew up and burnt the homes of those villagers who were suspected of assisting the Chechen Mujahideens. In response to the mockery, one of the villagers told the occupants: - It is violation of the Constitution and criminal law of Russian Federation. What else do you want of us? You have carried out referendum and elections, now, ostensibly, you are making peace. Why are you scoffing at us? We will go to law, and you will pay for this. Having heard these words, one of the chastisers, to all appearances, a commander, answered: - How can you brutes, speak of the law? Our tanks and I am your law here. Take him out and let him go! And really, according to the eyewitnesses, he was released and let go with the words: -Escape, if you can! The man ran away, - an instinct of self-preservation worked. But no sooner had he run off 100 meters, a real chase began. Laughing, the Russian gangsters opened automatic fire on the running man. Having run about 400 meters, he reached a deep cavity and, not realizing what he was doing, jumped into it. The militants pursuing him ran to the edge of the cavity, looked down and returned, saying that the man was dead. - Well, who else wants law? The Russian aggressors kept on insulting the people but, a day later, the humiliated, beaten and frightened people were released. One of the victims of this operation, an old woman by name Marjan, told: - I am 70 years old. We live poorly. When they began driving us out of our houses, it reminded me the 1944 deportation, and I was frightened for my son. And I thought to myself, - again deportation. I want to die in my native land. But today, having returned, we saw the same picture… The house was in a mess. There was my pension for two months in the chest, but they have stolen money and other family valuables. We have been robbed by the gangsters dressed in Russian military uniform. So, it is a legal robbery on the part of the Russian State, isn't it? Having recovered from the raid of robbers, people went down in the cavity to get the body of their fellow- villager. They found him, but fortunately and to their surprise, he turned out to be alive, though, seriously injured. It's a miracle that he did not die, - Allah had mercy upon him. This kind of retaliatory actions are carried out against the Chechen civilians all over the republic. Now the Russian militants attack the families of the Chechen Mujahideens' relatives, they plunder them and then burn their houses. The civilians suspected of rendering assistance to the armed forces of the ChRI are detained and severely tortured. At the best, after such tortures the man remains invalid. Their houses are plundered and blown up. But the brutality of Russian criminals in uniform cannot break down the resistance of the Chechen people, quite on the contrary, it causes the hatred which knows no end, and this hatred to the Russian invaders make them take up arms. Today it is no secret that there is a direct order of President Putin to spike fear into the Chechen nation and break down their obstinacy, and force the Chechens to their knees before him. Today the red and brown crest of the Kremlin with an emblem of a "two-headed mutant" decided to embody this century- old imperial dream of Russia. But they have forgotten that owing to the resistance of the Chechens lasting 400 years, this nation has cultivated immunity against Russia's brutality. The Almighty only knows how long the war will last in Chechnya. I believe that the atrocities of the Russian military will last until the ruling clique of the Kremlin headed by Putin find themselves in the prison cell next to Milosevic. I believe that those people who assisted unknown Putin to ascend the throne, will find strength to throw him down. In the meantime, according to the received reports, Chechen forces intensify their actions to draw near the final destruction and banishment of the Russian occupants from the Chechen land. Siddik Bilto, for Chechenpress http://www.chechenpress.info/english/news/11_2003/4_13_11.shtml |