Human Rights Center "Memorial"

"Mopping-up" in the village Alkhan-Kala 11-15^th April 2002

Over 20,000 people live in the village, which lies on the bank of the river Sunzha. In the morning of 11^th April the village was blockaded by soldiers. During 5 days the seriously ill were not allowed to receive medical help. Children could not go to school.

According to official information the 'mopping-up' operation was preceded by an attack on 10^th April by the armed units of the Chechen Republic on a car of the make 'Zhiguli', in which there were Chechen militiamen. In the course of the armed clash they killed:First Lieutenant Shakhman Dachaev, militiamen Musa Avtorkhanov and Baron Baskhanov, and also two attackers were killed (one of them a 20 year old local man); two attackers – Said Soslanbekov and Ruslan Shurgaev were wounded and arrested. (ITAR-TASS, Interfax – AVN, RIA 'News')

As Malika Umazheva, the head of the administration of the village Alkhan-Kala affirms, General Igor' Borisovich Bronevitskii led the special operation and, whilst it was being carried out, the prosecutor of the North Caucaus war region Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ferlevskii was present.

He remained at the operation's headquarters on the outskirts of the village. The locals had no free access to him, since it was dangerous for them to move across the village. Compulsory presence of the prosecutor is defined in point 2 of order number 46 of the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation from 25.07.2001. However it states that the location of the prosecutor should be in the local administration.

The head of administration for the village Alkhan-Kala, Malika Umazheva, was not drawn into the operation. Although according to point 2 of order number 80 Commanding OGV (United Group Forces), the head of administration should compulsory be drawn into the populated areas 'for the warning of the possible violations of the laws of the Russian Federation during the special operations and legislative enactments by exposing, arresting and elimination of the heads and members of bandit units in populated areas of the Chechen Republic'.

Malika Umazheva, by her own initiative, tried to interfere with the active participants who carried out the 'mopping up', so as not to allow the unlawful acts to be carried out. But without result.

In violation of point 4 of the order Commanding OGV the identification numbers on the army vehicles were, as usual, effaced.

The faces of many of the soldiers and officials of the forces department were masked, they did not identify themselves, when they entered the house. This violated point number 3 of order number 80, which orders 'the sub-divisional commander of the inspection group of internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who carry out the tasks within populated areas to carry out immediate verification of the houses and subsidary locations, but also of household buildings which are within the grounds of a house, it is absolutely essential to identify their military rank and surname clearly to the owners of the houses and grounds and also the aims of their checks (inspection) which they are carrying out.'

As regards to the end of the 'mopping-up', lists of the arrested locals were not given to the head of the village's administration, as is demanded by point 2 of order number 80. The head of administration independently put together such a list by means of a survey of the population and from complaints of the inhabitants.

Point 3 of order number 80 Commanding OGV of servicemen and militiamen demands ' in the course of checks they need to show constraint, self-possession and politeness and servicemen must resist the possibility of acting in provocation with rudeness and the use of force'.

Despite this, representatives of the federal forces treated the locals with rudeness. For example, in the family of the Magomadovs', who live on street Mir, servicemen beat up a young man in their house, but after checking his documents they claimed that they were mistaken and had beaten up the wrong person. They needed Magomadov with the patronymic Adamovich, but they beat up a man with the patronymic Chinaevich.

The case was as before when representatives of federal forces occupied themselves with robbery. For example, in the house of the Aznievs' soldiers for no reason cut up the floors, they insulted and frightened the children, pushed a 12 year old invalid girl, who was sitting in her wheelchair and as a result of the push she started having a spasmodic attack. After this the mother with her children were jostled into one room and were locked in. The soldiers started taking their dearest possessions out of the house. They removed an electric generator, an electric mincer, an electric kettle, a sheepskin coat, jacket, shoes etc. Later Aznieva together with the head of the village's administration tried to appeal to the representatives of the federal forces to return the taken things. However a superior of the group, having undertaken a search in the house claimed: 'But what did you think? We came here to take everything that we need.'

Calls of locals to fulfill order number 80, which were repeatedly shown on television, were in vain.

On the first day of the special operation, 11^th April, 15 men were arrested (The list was compiled by the head of administration Malika Umazheva.)

1. Musa Gerikhanov
2. Uvais Dataev
3. Said Dilaev
4. B. Abakarov
5. Ruslan Khadizov
6. Ibragim Khabibulaev
7. Akhmed Akhmaev
8. Dzhamkhotov
9. Muzaev
10. Muzaev
11. M. Kadyrov
12. Sh. Magomadov
13. Kasaev
14. Il'ias Utsiev
15. Vakha Shakhabov

They took away the arrested to a wooded area on the outskirts of the village, where a 'temporary filter point' had been organised. They beat them up there, some were tortured by electric shock.On the next day they released them all. They were in a terrible condition and they needed medical help.

During the previous year a plywood shop and a poultry factory had been restored in the village. Both of these manufacturing enterprises were routed during the 'mopping-up' operation. The premises of a local hospital and the local administration, which had only just been refitted also were subjected to pogroms.

The head of administration asked the prosecutor Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ferlevskii to interfere in the 'mopping-up'. But the prosecutor, according to the head of administration, answered that the soldiers carrying out the 'mopping-up' are not subordinate to him and would not take any notice of him.

On 12^th April General V. Molentskii arrived at Alkhan-Kala by helicopter. He met officials who led the 'mopping-up' and left.

When V. Moltenskii left the village they invited the head of administration Malika Umazheva, General Igor' Borisovich Bronevitskii and prosecutor Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ferlevskii to come to them and they proposed to sign a report that the 'mopping-up' had proceeded without human rights violations and that there were no attempts to do this.

M. Umazheva retorted that it did not correspond to the actions. But they started persuading her and having highlighted that the special operation had ended, they left the village at 5pm. Even though the first two days of the 'mopping-up' had proceeded without any murders, the head of the village's administration, fearing that her stubborness would provoke the soldiers to do even more cruel acts, she signed the report. Malika Umazheva said: "I believed them, but they deceived me. They got the document from me, but the next day they murdered people."

In the morning 13^th April armoured personnel carriers entered the village and the soldiers, who were in camouflage uniform, started searching and executing by shooting those people who had been arrested in the previous days, but who had been released. Below we will use the term 'servicemen', although it is not known whether these people belonged to any kind of forces department, to the internal troops, the army, the militia or the Federal Service for Security (FSB).

At 8.30 the servicemen (approximately 40 persons) returned to the house of the Utsievs'. They arrived in two armoured personnel carriers without identification numbers.

Il'ias Abdul-Azimovich Utsiev, 30 years old, was arrested on 11^th April and was taken to the 'temporary filter point', but on 12^th April was released. In the event of releasing I. Utsiev they took a signed acknowledgement that they treated him well and that there had been no grievances against him. But in actual fact he had been cruelly beaten and had been tortured by electric shock: he was bruised all over, on his arms and burns were present on his body.

The soldiers, returning on the morning of 13^th April to the house of the Utsievs's, forced the women out of the rooms. One of the soldiers stood by the door and shot in bursts from a machine gun directly at Il'ias Utsiev, who was lying on the bed and could not get up.

After this the servicemen shut the women in one room, the crying children in another and over 3 hours they made a video in the house and in the courtyard. The relatives of the murdered man confirm that the representatives of the federal forces brought weapons to the house themselves and to the shed in the courtyard, which afterwards they photographed. Apart from this, the servicemen took a sack of flour from the shed, saying that it was TNT. The servicemen threatened the women with execution because the women saw the video being shot from the window.

Vakha Shakhabov was executed in a similar way in his own home.

Vakha Shakhabov was arrested on 11^th April and released on 12^th April. He had been severely beaten, the same as all the others. According to the stories of his relatives, the whole of his body was covered in bloody bruises, his arms were blue and swollen from electric shock. He began to hear badly because of the torture. After his release on 12^th April they took him home in their arms since he was in no condition to move and relatives literally fed him by hand because he was unable to eat on his own.

The servicemen arrived in two armoured personnel carriers without identification numbers and burst into the house. They threw Vakha Shakhabov from the bed and started to beat him by kicking him. Then they grabbed him by the collar, raised him up and pushed his face against the wall. After this they drove his wife out and they locked the room by hook from the inside. A machine gun burst was heard.

Recognising the beginning of a shooting, the village locals had the remaining 13 survivors hidden, the number that had been released the day before. On the 14^th April the soldiers continued to burst into houses, where the recently released lived.

The head of the village's administration tried to protect the people and appealed to the soldiers, calling their attention to the law and to Molentskii's order number 80 Commanding OGV. But the servicemen insulted her and laughed at her when she mentioned the order.

On 15^th April the soldiers, arriving in armoured personnel carriers threw out a headless and armless corpse near the mosque. After this two more bodies were found on the outskirts of the village. Nobody from Alkhan-Kala was able to identify the bodies.

According to official data, in the course of the 'mopping-up' the servicemen discovered 'a large quantity of buried weapons and ammunition'. They also found: a large amount of harmful poison, bottles of home made vodka which contained potassium cyanide and in the building of the elementary school they found 'uncontrolled reactive shells, prepared for assembling a land mine.'

In the second half of the day, 15^th April, representatives of the federal forces left Alkhan-Kala.

After this a gathering of locals from Alkhan-Kala gathered in the centre of the village, approximately 2,000 people, who demanded the authorities to get involved in the situation and 'to betray the murderers, who executed innocent people.'

Over several days the corpses were not buried. Despite the laws of their religion, which demand the burial of the dead on the same day of death, people waited for the officials of the prosecutors to carry out all of the necessary actions.