Appendix 2

In order to avoid misunderstanding, we would like to point out that the brother of the deceased Magomed Magmadov is also called Magomed.

"On 21^st February 2001, we found three of our boys: Said-Rakhman Musayev, Metayev Odes Topaevich and Magomadov Magomed Alaudinovich.

The aunt of Metayev, who lives in Belgatoye told us that she was also in the rural settlement along with two women as she had been looking for her relatives who had disappeared. She told us that she saw a lot of bodies there.

The village is close to Khankala. Just outside Khankala, there is a Buryat post (No 105), there is a motorway which runs from this post in the direction of Argun. If you travel along this motorway for about 500-600 metres (from the post) you will see a burnt out bus (LiAZ) on the right hand side. To the right of this bus, there is a country road leading to the rural cooperative association.

We took two members of the special police-force (OMON) from the commander's office located in the village of Pobyedinskiy and travelled there in two cars. In Minutka, there were 10 people from the Murmansk special police force (they had also been based in our village – Pobyedinskiy previously). We travelled there without any difficulties. When we arrived, the members of the special police force did not let us in immediately, they checked us with the help of police dogs. They turned over all the corpses and had a look at them to check whether or not they had been planted with mines. After we arrived, I immediately recognised the corpse of my son. Magomed Magomedov recognised the corpse of his brother. Then we told those lads (the members of the special police force) and Odes' mother "We are going to look for a car. The bodies cannot stay here overnight now that we know they are here."

When we arrived with the car, Odes' mother told me "We have found Odes".

She was very calm when I said that I had found my son's body. We had not been able to find our children for two and a half months.

We had appealed to all organisations, to Znamenskoye and to Kalamanov, we had hung a notice up at the 'Zerkalo' programme with photographs of her children – the lady travelled there from Znamenskoye. We couldn't find anything out. It seems though that they had killed them on the third day already. My son's beard hadn't even grown."

"They mutilated our children. I cannot even repeat what we saw. Not in any way!

A lady told me that her son, who they had abducted, had been found. She told me "I went to that hell, I don't know what to call it – a rural settlement." I asked her to look for my son too, I told her what clothes he had been wearing. She felt every corpse, from the socks to the underwear. She was there on 19^th February, the day was a good one, she looked at all the corpses thoroughly.

When we travelled there on 21^st February, there had already been quite a lot of snow. There were corpses on every snow-drift and every tussock, and every mother thought "There, under that tussock, that's where he'll be…" God was on our side, which is why I was able to find my son. I hadn't slept in my own home for 3 months. My husband is disabled, with no legs. My son has three children – how am I supposed to bring them up? I have no work, insufficient money, a tiny pension. The boy was only 28 years old."

"I found him first. We found him in a half collapsed country house at the entrance on the porch. When I found him, he was lying on his stomach, with his hands bound behind him – his hands were bound with cord. The corpse was in a pitiful state: two of his digits were missing on one of his hands (I cannot say which because I was in such a state…), one of his ears was missing, he had been blindfolded. Odes' ear had been removed when he was still alive, because his face was covered in blood. One of his eyes was missing, or it had been poked out when he was still alive, I don't know. When we took the corpse home, in order to clean it and bury him, the body fell apart. He had wounds on his chest which had been inflicted whilst he was still alive, knife wounds, on the left hand side of his rib-cage he had two puncture wounds. The wounds looked deep, a dog or some other kind of wild animal could not have made them. So, if someone claims that it was a dog, that is simply impossible.

At Odes' head, there was another corpse, it had been torn to pieces – it looked as though dogs had torn him up, it was impossible to recognise him, the outside had been eaten by dogs, he didn't have a head, he had no hands and his hands were lying there separated from the body, there were also the remains of another man, the head and the limbs were lying there. But it was horrendous to have to look at all this business."

"I saw all three corpses. All of them had been torn to pieces. There were light bullet wounds in their hearts. And all three had been intentionally shot in the head. I am reporting this officially. Magomed Magomadov took me there and we looked at all the corpses. We also looked at his son. Magomed Magomadov (the third corpse) had had both of his eyes poked out and apart from that, from the chin to the bottom of the jaw (beard line), the skin on his face had been peeled off completely – he was still alive when this was done to him. They lay on the ground, their heads were on the ground, he lay with his neck toward the ground, they simply couldn't stop the blood. When we transferred them into the car, we had to hold them by the shoulders: the bones in all three of them (arm and shoulder bones) were smashed, they were all broken to pieces. One of Odes' eyes was missing – I had the impression that this happened when he was still alive because of the blood on his face.

On that day, members of the local special police force accompanied us – without chaperones, you simply weren't allowed to go there. To claim that this was all done by Chechen fighters is simply absurd: everything is fenced in there, and it is simply impossible to enter. The area is surrounded by troops and helicopters are constantly circling the area – it isn't possible to sneak in. Even with military chaperones, it was difficult for us to get in there. They checked us along the entire route. Even though the troops themselves had registered our vehicle, there were many tense moments when we passed by tank columns. They didn't want to let us in, we went there in fear, and risking our own lives to collect these corpses.

There were many corpses of other people there too – I personally saw 3 other corpses and we didn't even go very far into this rural plot– firstly we went along a path where we found 2 corpses and then we found the third body – during this time, I personally saw 3 other bodies.

After we had found Said-Rakhman and Magomed's bodies, we could not return until we had found the third body. Of course, we may not have noticed the body if they had thrown it into some ditch. We didn't stray very far from the path.

Fresh tyre tracks from a 'Ural' vehicle could be seen.

"The path which leads into the plot is to the left off the road. They were laying just 30 metres from the road."

"Magomed Magomadov was taken straight from his neighbours house. A tank column of two armed vehicles and 4 'Urals' was travelling through our village. Troops from this column simply collected people who were on the street. In the fog, a passenger vehicle simply ran into the column. Then it turned round and travelled back on the residential side. They started to shoot at the car and the driver was seriously injured. The driver lost control of the vehicle and the vehicle began to drive into the gates of houses. Next to all of this, was the Magomadov's home. Magomed was a member of the police force of the Staropromuislovsk region. He jumped over the fence to the neighbours. The troops seeing that it would not be possible to take away the injured driver of the car, took Magomed away instead.

As soon as they had taken Magomadov's brother, he went straight to the commander's office in Pobyedinsky, taking with him some members of the special police force (M Magomadov – deputy head of the administration) and their commanding officers. They are have now already left – they were the Ufimskiy special police force. They caught up with the tank column and they were told by the troops who were there "We are carrying out a special operation – go home and mind your own business. Otherwise it will be worse for you!"

"We searched for them for more than two months. There were rumours that they were at Khankala. The others who were arrested and then released were found not far from Khankala."

"On that day, we were stopped by troops on the motorway. It was about 9:00 in the evening. They ordered us to dim our lights, get out of the car and place the keys on the bonnet. They checked us all. But I didn't have my documents with me. They threw us all into the 'Ural'. There were already some people lying there. They laid us on top of each other and on the way masked soldiers who were sitting in the car beat us. Our hands were tightly bound behind our backs. We travelled for a long time sometimes stopping, sometimes turning right, sometimes left. We travelled throughout the night, the car stopped when the sun started to rise.

We were taken out of the vehicle. It was Khankala. We were blindfolded with our own scarves if we had them, those who didn't have a scarf, had their hats pulled down over their eyes. Then we were put in two pits of about 3-4 metres in depth. There were 10 people in one and 11 in the other. It was a very tight squeeze. We could stand up freely, but it was impossible for all of us to sit at the same time. It was cold. The top of the pit was covered with a sheet of iron and a wooden roof. They moved this roof and then put something on the top.

We were called for questioning. Whoever was there at the top of the pit pulled those who were called for questioning out. Then, as soon as you were at the top, you were blindfolded. Before me, a number of others had been questioned. They took me into a tent. They asked me "You don't know any fighters either? You'll mine yourself and him to cover it all up?" They were talking about the brother of my wife Said-Rakhman Musayev. I told them that that wasn't true. They asked me what I did for a living. I told them that, at that moment, I didn't work at all. Then they said "We'll hang the boy and shoot you."

We spent the night in the pit and then, towards lunchtime, they released two of the group who had been taken from Pervomayskaya. They apologised to them, saying that some influential people had come to find them, but in fact it was their fault because they had violated the curfew. Then, they took another two or three from the pit.

Late in the evening, they took us all form the pit and told us "Prepare yourselves, you are going to meet with Allah. Are you all ready?" I thought they were going to take us to be shot. My face was covered with a hat. I had the feeling that they were taking photos of us because they lifted my hat so that the bottom half of my face and my beard was visible. They asked me if I wanted to say anything. I said that I did. They obviously came to the conclusion that I wanted to say something only to them and so told me to walk over to them. But, all I said was that weren't fighters but civilians. At that point, one of them came over to me, lifted up my hat, looked me directly in the eyes and asked "And, so – isn't that the same thing?" Then, he put my hat back over my eyes.

There were four of us standing there, and they sat us all in a 'Ural' vehicle. There were already people in the car. They took us somewhere along the motorway. There were security guards in the car. One of them accidentally pulled the trigger on his gun and injured my neighbour. The guard was frightened and began to apologise to him, saying that they could punish him for that. The bullet had shot right through the flesh on the wounded man's leg. They ordered me to bandage it.

Then the car stopped and we were ordered to get out. They asked us if we had any problems with Gantimirov's soldiers? We said that we didn't. They then told us to go into the building which had been a petrol station. They said that they were going to have lunch and then follow us in. They left. Some of us decided to run away immediately. But there could have been mines and so, along with some others, I remained there. Then, we walked along the road to a crossroads and we saw lights. It was the village of Noviy Tsentoroy.

Musayev was in the pit with me. Metayev and Magomadov were in another pit. Fellow villagers saw them."

"On 24^th February, I was at the rural settlement with the commission. General Prosecutor Chernov was also there, as were other employees of the republic Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Procuracy, representatives of the Grozny and surrounding area Ministry of Internal Affairs and members of the Murmansk special police force who were based in Minutka. There was also on of Kadirov's advisors, Saduyev Kuduz and the deputy head of the Staropromislovsk Temporary Department of Internal Affairs, Aliyev Sharan. They all saw that, if you followed the tracks of the 'Ural' vehicle, you found a whole series of corpses.

Chernov was nervous at the beginning that everyone noticed this, then he said a few words of condolence. He filmed a video.

We saw other corpses there. After we had found the corpses of our relatives, we walked further.

There were two other corpses at the place where we found Odes Metayev's body. They were completely eaten up. I saw about 10 bodies. Some of them had been mined."