Earlier we reported that four Argun residents, detained in March during a “cleansing” operation of that town, were later found dead.
On March 19, 2001, members of the Ministry of Emergency Situations brought four unknown bodies to the village cemetery in Prigorodnoe, where they were buried. The bodies were naked and they carried signs that some kind of post-mortem had been conducted on them: a slit from the neck to the groin region.
By the end of March, the bodies were identified by relatives from photographs taken by Prigorodnoe residents during burial and were discovered to be people who had disappeared after being detained. They turned out to be:
1. Muslim Umarovich Baitsev, born 1976;
2. Ayub Bibulatovich Gairbekov, born 1978;
3. Abdul-Malik Gazaliyevich Tovzarkhanov, born 1963;
4. Ismail Musosovich Khutiev, born 1982.
All had been detained by federal forces during the cleansing of Argun, from March 11 to 14. Despite numerous appeals to various authorities, including the local prosecutor, relatives were unable to discover anything about the fate of the missing until the end of March.
We have written that this tragic history has left many questions.
These are just a few:
What do the post-mortem scars on the bodies mean? Who carried out a
post-mortem and why?
What do the other injuries, clearly visible on the bodies, mean?
Where were these bodies before they were brought to Prigorodnoe?
What was the cause of death of these four people?
NOW WE KNOW THE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS!
Memorial's Human Rights Center has learned that on March 13, 2001, during a patrol near the Russian military base in Khankala, military personnel discovered a fresh grave in an irrigation canal, which they initially mistook for a landmine. Instead of a landmine, however, the arriving sappers found human remains. Assisted by the sappers and in the presence of represenatives of the military prosecutor, four bodies were exhumed with bullet wounds to their backs and back of their heads. The bodies were cleaned and delivered to the Joint Group of Forces reception area for processing the dead.
Because the bodies showed signs of a violent death, the military prosecutor opened Criminal Case No. 14/33/0132-01. Between March 14 and 16, autopsies were conducted by forensic science personnel from the Special Forensic Science Laboratory Nr.124 in Rostov and after that, on March19, the bodies were handed over for burial to the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Chechen Republic.
IT BECOMES CLEAR FROM THESE FACTS THAT IN THE VICINITY OF THE RUSSIAN MILITARY BASE AT KHANKALA, A SECOND BURIAL SITE WAS FOUND CONTAINING CIVILIANS WHO HAD BEEN DETAINED BY REPRESENTATIVES OF FEDERAL FORCES.
Earlier, at the end of February in a rural settlement close to the
military base at Khankal, more than 50 bodies were found. Many of
these were identified as people who had been detained at different times by
members of the federal forces. (See: Bodies discovered near Khankala - irrefutable evidence of war crimes committed by federal forces; Persons Detained in Chechnya by Military and Internal Affairs Agents Become Victims of Summary Executions)
There are another seven people whose fate is unknown, who also had been detained by members of federal forces during the Argun cleansing (March11-14) and who later disappeared:
1. Shamil Said-Khasanovich Akhmadov, born 1975;
2. Said-Magomed Magomedovich Dikiev, born 1968;
3. Ali Sahidievich Labazanov, born 1955;
4. Ali Eldiev, born 1970;
5. Ruslan Mezhidov;
6. Ruslan Madagovich Viskhadzhiev, born 1951;
7. Abdul-Vakhab Sulimovich Yanurkaev (Yashurkaev), born 1940.
Because of the disappearance of these people, the Chechen Republic prosecutor has opened a criminal investigation.