| eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot
24/3/2005 Rebel leaders' relatives abducted, destiny still unknown In December 2004, gunmen in masks and camouflage uniforms (people in Chechnya would rather believe those were officers of the Chechen president's security service) abducted eight relatives of killed Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov, two brothers and aged sister being among them (some sources claim about 20 people were taken hostages). On 24 February, military men captured Doku Umarov's brother, Ruslan, who, according to some reports, is being held at the main Russian military base in Khankala. Another relative of Umarov, Roman Atayev, was detained in Ingushetia in October 2004. Umarov's cousin, Zaurbek, went missing two years ago and has been missing since that time. Such cases are not rare in Chechnya. Residents of the republic say security agencies even detain relatives of ordinary members of the Chechen resistance movement claiming they will release them if the rebels give themselves up'. "The practice of taking rebels' relatives hostages is rather widely used," Khamid, a 53-year-old resident of Chechnya's Vedeno district, says. "It is enough to remember 'the voluntary surrender' of Magomed Khambiyev, who gave himself up to the authorities last year, after some 40 of his relatives had been captured. I know a case when security agencies captured an aged man in our village because his son was in a rebel group. They announced they would release the man only if his son surrendered. However the rebel was killed some time later, and his father was released 'as not wanted'." Chechen law enforcers deny such statements. "The Chechen Interior Ministry has nothing to with illegal actions against relatives of Maskhadov, Umarov and other rebels. There is the law to fight against criminals, rebels and terrorists, and we are not going to break it," an officer of the Chechen Interior Ministry said. Author: Sultan Abubakarov, CK correspondent http://www.lenta.ru/news/2005/03/25/mufti/ (my tr) Boyeviks who wore soldiers' uniforms kill Chechen clergymen Local mufti Khabibula *Umarov and his assistant Amin Gaziyev were killed in the settlement of Proletarskoye of the Grozny district reports Interfax. As described the official representative of regional operational staff on the control of counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus Major General Ilya Shabalkin, these murders were committed by a group of fighters, who wore camouflage uniforms with Russian insignia. [otlichiya]. A source reported that in all, seven people participated in this attack. Both clergymen were shot down in their own houses. |