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Khanpash
Terkibayev, an alleged participant of the Nord-Ost hostage taking crisis,
died
Khanpash Terkibayev, an alleged participant of the Nord-Ost hostage taking crisis, died in a car accident Russian media report with reference to sources in the puppet structures of Chechnya that Khanpash Terkibayev died today in a "car accident" in Grozny. It was known about this man that he had participated in the seizure of "Nord-Ost" and very well might have been the "brain" of this seizure, however, he left the building before it was stormed. The publications which published this information also indicated that Terkibayev was a member of the FSB and that he repeatedly presented his certifications as a member of Yastrzhembsky’s propaganda department and voluntarily told journalists about his contacts with high-ranking Kremlin officials. So far, little is known about the circumstances of Terkibayev’s death. It was only reported that he was driving along the highway in a VAZ-10 automobile, in which he was killed.
[16.12.2003
15:12] Protest near Russian consulate points to Chechen problems About twenty anarchists demonstrated in front of the Russian General Consulate in Brno pointing out to the problems of Chechens today, on the anniversary of the beginning of the war in Chechnya. The demonstrators performed a scene in which Russian soldiers assault and murder a Chechen family camping peacefully in a tent. The activists were cordoned off the building by police, since several years ago they sprayed the wall around the building with red colour in a similar protests. Four of them were later convicted to community service. "Today's demonstration wants to point out that the Russian military liquidates the camps of Chechen refugees in Ingushetia and forces them to repatriation and deportation back to Chechnya," one of the activists, Milan Stefanec, told CTK. "At the same time, we have joined the international campaign for solidarity with the victims of the Chechen war," he said. The activists also wanted to point out that Chechens do not have problems only in Russia. "Even refugees who have asked for asylum in the Czech Republic face expulsion and deportation back to the area where war is raging," Stefanec said. After the protest, organised by the Nesehnuti (Unbendable) movement, the activists held a debate at the Faculty of Social Studies of the Masaryk University. They also collected signatures under a petition asking Interior Minister Stanislav Gross to renew the asylum proceedings of a group of 60 Chechen refugees and prevent their expulsion. The group arrived in the Czech Republic and asked for asylum some time ago. However, after hearing that their chance of receiving asylum in the Czech Republic are low, the refugees set out for Austria at the end of October. On the border near Ceske Velenice, south Bohemia, they were arrested by police.
[16.12.2003 10:55] CTK
A mass protest action is taking place in the village of Shaami-Yurt in Chechnya's Achkhoy-Martan District. The reason for the rally is that Russian servicemen kidnapped a local resident a few days ago. A search for the young man, who was taken away by the military from his own house, yielded no results. His fellow villagers blocked the road leading from the village to the district center of Achkhoy-Martan, demanding that the authorities immediately find and free the young man. [17.12.2003 11:23]
http://www.chechenpress.info/news/12_2003/21_11_12.shtml [BBC Monitoring] The regional operational headquarters of the occupying group in Chechnya issued a statement on Thursday [11 December] that two teenagers aged 12 and 14 from the village of Prigorodnoye, whose bodies were found by local residents on 9 December, had allegedly been "blown up while planting a hand-made explosive device". A representative of the regional operational headquarters (most likely the well-known Col Shabalkin [Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for the regional HQ for Russia's operation in the North Caucasus]) even gave details of the incident: "Rebels from Dadayev's group gave the bomb to the teenagers to carry out an act of terrorism. They told the children to plant the 'deadly device' on the Groznyy-Prigorodnoye road." After the teenagers blew themselves up, Russian servicemen, who were passing by, found their bodies "by chance". In the meantime, according to residents of Prigorodnoye, a local shepherd was first to find the teenagers' bodies on 9 December, not Russian servicemen who were "passing by chance". What is most important is that one can clearly see bullet wounds on the bodies. If they had "blown themselves up while planting a hand-made explosive device", then those would have been splinter wounds. You cannot mix up bullet and splinter wounds. Thus, the Chechens have once again been shown how brutal and deceptive are their enemies - the Russian occupiers. 11.12.03 12 December, Caucasus Times, The results of the State Duma elections in Chechnya were known beforehand. A member of the election commission of the republic has told Caucasus Times that employees of all polling stations knew in advance which candidate would eventually become a deputy of the Russian State Duma. The source said that a corresponding directive had been issued to election commissions long before the voting day. "We were given the following instruction: Akhmar Zavgayev must become a deputy from the single-mandate constituency, while the pro- presidential One Russia party should win on federal lists. I cannot tell you about the technology of elections, but as you can see everything went well," a member of the Chechen election commission said. The fact that the election commission member is right is indirectly confirmed by an interesting detail. One day before the election, all election commissions in Chechnya were closed even though their employees were at work. According to different sources, members of election commissions were busy filling ballot papers on that day. Rumours that Akhmar Zavgayev would become a deputy of the Russian State Duma had been circulated in Chechnya even a month before the voting day. Despite this, the chairman of the Chechen election commission, [Abdul-Kerim] Arsakhanov, insists that the elections were "not marred by serious irregularities". Akhmar Zavgayev is a member of the Federation Council [upper house of parliament] of the Russian Federation and brother of the former party leader of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Doku Zavgayev. Ruslan Adayev, Caucasus Times, Chechnya
http://www.chechenpress.info/news/12_2003/13_16_12.shtml (my tr.) Mikail Trepashkin trial opens Moscow, RUSSIA. Today at 11 am in the Moscow regional military court thetrial began of Mikail Trepashkin, who is accused of disclosing statesecrets. Former FSB colonel Trepashkin emphatically denies his guilt. Onseveral occasions he has alleged that the case against him wasfabricated and politically motivated. Mikhail Trepashin is a member of the Civil Commision investigating thebomb blasts in Moscow in 1999. He worked for the state security servicesfrom 1984 to 1996, and several times revealed the involvement of the FSBin criminal activities, for example, when he took part in the famouspress conference at which he and other security officers disclosed theinvolvement of the FSB in plans to assassinate Boris Berezovskii andUmar Dzhabrailov. Recently Trepashkin has been working as a lawyer. The trial will take place in secret, with neither journalists norfriends of Trepashkin allowed into the courtroom. Marina Yulina,Trepashkin’s lawyer, said before the trial that the accused was notbeing fully informed of the case against him. While the case was beingset out by the military judge Trepashkin was restrained by handcuffs,making it impossible for him to behave normally, by taking notes orreading through papers, and so on. Trepashkin’s lawyers intend to raise a number of objections, includingan insistence on the necessity of fully informing the defendant of thecase against him, and the need for documents supporting the defense case. The trial is expected to last for several days.
Black widow haunts the capital TEXT: Irina Petrakova Moscow police have reported that a female suicide bomber attempted to blow up the Parisien restaurant in the north of the capital yesterday evening. The woman was stopped at the entrance of the restaurant by security guards and fled after they tried to check the contents of her bag. A composite drawing of the suspect has already been released, Gazeta.Ru has learnt. The woman, of Caucasian appearance, aroused suspicion when she appeared at the entrance to the restaurant on Leningradsky Prospekt at around 20:30 [8:30PM], the Moscow main police directorate told Gazeta.Ru. The security guards decided to check the contents of her bag with a metal detector, but when she was asked to open her bag, the woman ran off. The guards decided against pursuing her and instead called the police, who launched Operation Volcano-5 to apprehend the suspect. According to city police officials, all patrol policemen have been provided with a description of the suspect, and the search is continuing. Gazeta.Ru sources in the police directorate say a composite drawing of the suspect was released today. Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that the woman belongs to a squad of female suicide bombers dispatched to the capital to carry out a series of terrorist attacks. Initial media reports said on Tuesday that the woman at the Parisien restaurant bore a resemblance to the accomplice of the bomber who carried out the suicide attack outside the National Hotel in central Moscow earlier this month (a composite picture of her was released by police the day after the blast). However, the main police directorate of Moscow has refuted those reports. The chief spokesman for the directorate said the woman who tried to enter Parisien on Tuesday differed from the National blast accomplice in both height and age. Earlier this month the police declared a search for that accomplice, dubbed Black Fatima by the media. The suspect, a woman of 40-45 years of age, 160-165cm in height, wearing a long black fur coat and a black fur hat, was said to have been seen not far from the scene of the National Hotel blast on 9 December that claimed five lives. The police said the woman may have been the organizer of the attack, financed, according to FSB investigators, from abroad. Investigators said that woman was accompanying a young female terrorist to the building of the State Duma – their original target. But the explosive device detonated before they reached their destination. The power of the explosive device, according to Gazeta.Ru sources, amounted to a little over 1 kilogram of explosives. Investigators from the city prosecutor's office also noted that the device used in the latest blast was similar to the so-called 'shahid belts' (explosive devices strapped to the body) used by terrorists at the open-air rock concert in Tushino last summer, and like the belts worn by the female suicide bombers who took part in the raid on the Nord-Ost musical theatre in October 2002. According to Moscow's chief prosecutor, Grigory Shinakov, the terrorist's accomplice was not killed in the National Hotel blast. Investigators are assuming that the blast near the hotel is not the first she organized. The Federal Security Service said there were similarities with recent bombings in Turkey and Saudi Arabia, blamed on Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. ''According to our assessment, these incidents have a common root, logic and financial base,'' FSB spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko said. UN to send $15m to North Caucasus In 2004 the population of the North Caucasus will receive aid worth of $15m within the World Food Program, the chief coordinator for the World Food Program in Russia Christophe Cherwinsky said today at the meeting with Russia’s deputy foreign minister Yuri Fedorov. [17.12.2003 19:15] The Chechen Times
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