Background Briefing

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APPENDIX

 CASES OF ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES

DOCUMENTED BY HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH DURING FIELD RESEARH IN CHECHNYA, JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2005

Enforced disappearance of Salambek Alapaev (b. 1982)58

Salambek Alapaev lived in Grozny, but visited his family regularly in his home town of Sernovodsk. On December 27, 2004 he was staying at his house in Sernodovsk on Demiana Bednogo Street, with his pregnant wife, child, and elderly grandfather.

At about 3:00 a.m. two cars, a white Gazel minivan and an UAZ jeep, stopped near the house. A large group of armed men, all of whom spoke unaccented Russian, entered the house. A relative told Human Rights Watch:

They just asked, “What’s your name?” He said, “Salambek.” They did not even let him to put his socks, or shoes, or shirt on— they took him away half-naked. They told him to show his passport. He showed his passport to them, told them that he had a job, and asked them, “Why are you taking [me]?” They did not say a word [in response].

According to the witnesses, the armed men pushed Alapaev’s grandfather away and kicked him when he tried to protest the detention. They searched the house, turning everything upside down. The men then took Alapaev away, and his family has received no information about his fate or whereabouts since.

One of the relatives visited Ramzan Kadyrov’s headquarters in the village of Tsentoroi, but found no information about Alapaev there. The relative decided not to ask the local prosecutor’s office to open a criminal investigation. She told Human Rights Watch:

I asked [the prosecutor] if it wouldn’t harm my son if I wrote a petition, and they told me, “We are not responsible for that.” I was afraid [for my son] and so I did not write [the petition].

The family reported the “disappearance” to the secretary of the Chechnya Security Council, Rudnik Dudaev, who apparently passed the appeal on to the Chechnya prosecutor’s office. The latter ordered the local prosecutor’s office in Achkhoi-Martan to look into the case and inform the Chechnya prosecutor’s office of the results by January 25, 2005.59 At the time of the interview, however, the family had still not received any information from the Achkhoi-Martan prosecutor’s office.

Alapaev worked in the Nalchik office of Medintel, a company that sells medical equipment since July 2004. In November 2004, he was transferred to the company’s Grozny office and lived in the city since then. His family is adamant that Alapaev was never involved with the rebel fighters.


Enforced disappearance of Alis Zubiraev (b. February 5, 1986)60

At about 5:30 a.m. on December 21, 2004, several APCs closed off Lenin Street in the village of Chechen-Aul, and a group of at least six uniformed, armed men approached house number 8, where the Zubiraev family lived. When Alis Zubiraev heard the knock at the door and opened it, the armed men knocked him down with a blow from the butt of a submachine gun. According to witnesses, the men spoke Russian without an accent.

The men checked the passports of all the males in the house. According to a relative, when they looked at Alis Zubiraev’s passport, a soldier said, “That’s him,” and took Zubiraev away, providing no explanation to the family. Zubiraev’s relative told Human Rights Watch:

When they led him away, I started screaming, “Let him dress at least!” They allowed me to bring his shoes and coat. I said, “Why [are you taking him]? He is just a kid! Where are you taking him? Where should we look for him?” They didn’t say anything. 

The men put Alis Zubiraev in a grey minivan (“tabletka”) that had no license plate and drove off with him.

The same night a group of armed men also came to a house adjacent to the Zubiraev home and detained the older son of the family that lived there. This man was released several days later and told Zubiraev’s relatives that he was detained by the Grozny Regional District Department of Internal Affairs (ROVD). He explained that he was kept in detention as a hostage until his younger brother surrendered to the ROVD. He also mentioned that the ROVD group first put him into in an APC and then moved him into a minivan (“tabletka”), where he was blindfolded, but could feel that “someone was at [his] feet.” While questioning him, the ROVD investigators also asked him about Alis Zubiraev. 

Alis Zubiraev’s family appealed repeatedly to the Grozny Regional ROVD, being convinced that they were behind his detention as well. The officials there confirmed that the grey minivan belonged to them, but denied having any knowledge of Zubiraev’s detention or whereabouts. They initially suggested that the group that had detained Zubiraev came from a military base near Starye Atagi, and allegedly looked for him there with no success. The ROVD then opened a criminal investigation into the abduction, which so far has yielded no results. The family also petitioned the Chechen president and the chief prosecutor of Chechnya about the “disappearance,” but has received no further information.

Alis Zubiraev graduated from high school in the summer of 2004 and was helping his uncles with some construction work while preparing to apply to a university. 


Enforced Disappearance of Rasul Mukaev (b. 1979)61

At about 5:00 a.m. on December 3, 2004, a group of eight to ten armed men in masks and green military uniforms burst into the Mukaev family house in the village of Duba-Yurt, waking up Rasul Mukaev, his younger brother, and their parents. According to Mukaev’s relative, the men spoke Russian without an accent. One of Rasul Mukaev’s relatives described the incident to Human Rights Watch:

We were sleeping. They broke the doors, burst in, yelling, and pointed their submachine guns at us, [shouting], “Everyone get down! We’ll shoot!”… I leaped up, started showing them our papers, asking whom they wanted, and why, and who they were—they were all in masks. I was begging them, “Why are you [doing this]?”… They did not explain anything.  

The armed men searched the house but did not take any valuables. They took Rasul Mukaev’s passport, handcuffed him, and put a T-shirt over his head. They walked him away by foot, but later the villagers told the family that the men had taken Mukaev to cars (a so-called tabletka minivan and VAZ-2107) parked on a nearby street and drove away.

Mukaev’s relative told Human Rights Watch that the local prosecutor’s office had opened a criminal investigation into the abduction, and that investigators had come to their house, questioned them, and looked for footprints in and outside the house. At the time of the interview, however, the family was unaware of any results from the investigation and has received no information on Mukaev’s whereabouts.

Rasul Mukaev was wounded in the head during the first Chechnya war, when Duba-Yurt was shelled by Russian artillery. A fragment from the bomb was still lodged in his head, and he also suffered from epilepsy. According to his relative, in 2000 he ran away “into the woods” to join the rebel fighters because he wanted to take revenge for his trauma. After his relatives found him and brought him home, the family immediately fled Chechnya. They returned home shortly before the constitutional referendum in March 2003. During a sweep operation in Duba-Yurt three weeks later, Russian soldiers detained Mukaev. After two months of searching, the family found him at the Khankala military base. Shortly thereafter Mukaev was released and, according to his relative, “apparently amnestied.”


Enforced disappearance of Buchu Abdulkadyrova (b. 1937), Lechi Maskhadov (b. 1936), Lema Maskhadov (b. 1949), Ikhvan Magomedov (b. 1969), Adam Rashiev (b. 1950), Khadizhat Satueva (b. 1964), and Usman Satuev (b. 1957).62


Buchu Abdulkadyrova

Khadizhat Satueva

As part of their policy of “counter-hostage taking” in Chechnya, aimed at apprehending the relatives of rebel leaders and fighters in order to make them surrender, in December 2004 forces under the command of Ramzan Kadyrov detained eight relatives of Aslan Maskhadov, seven of whom subsequently “disappeared.” While Ramzan Kadyrov publicly denied his forces’ involvement in the abductions, the case descriptions below clearly point to their implication in these “disappearances.” The first five of Maskhadov’s relatives “disappeared” after they were detained on December 3, 2004.

On December 3, 2004, Buchu Abdulkadyrova,Aslan Maskhadov’s older sister, was alone at her house, 62 Turbinnaia Street in Staropromyslovski district of Grozny. The neighbors later told her relatives that at about 9:00 p.m. that night eight or nine cars—VAZs and UAZ jeeps—entered the neighborhood. The neighbors saw that the armed men went into Abdulkadyrova’s house, led her out of the house and put her into one of the cars. As the cars were leaving the neighborhood, they were stopped at a checkpoint by a military intelligence unit. The commander of the unit later told Abdulkadyrova’s relatives that after he stopped the cars, he had called Ramzan Kadyrov on a portable radio, who told him that he himself had sent the group and ordered the unit to let them through.

The same night, twelve cars, VAZs and UAZ jeeps, arrived at the house of Aslan Maskhadov’s brother, Lechi Maskhadov, who lived on Mostovaia Street in the Staropromyslovski district of Grozny. According to Maskhadov’s relatives, a large group of armed men burst in and without explanation demanded that Lema Maskhadov hand over his son, Solman. When he answered that his son was not home, the soldiers searched the entire house, and then left, taking Lema Maskhadov with them. 

Also on the night of December 3, 2004, a group of armed men detained another of Aslan Maskhadov’s brothers, Lema Maskhadov, at his house, 125 Sovetskaia Street, in the Pervomaiskaia settlement (stanitsa) in Grozny. Witnesses say the soldiers conducted a search of the house and took him away without allowing him to put his coat on. At the same time, another group of forces came to house no. 87 on the same street, and detained Aslan Maskhadov’s nephew, Ikhvan Magomedov. According to a relative, the forces detaining him explicitly said that they were acting under Ramzan Kadyrov’s orders.

At nearly the same time, on the evening of December 3, 2004, a large group of armed men arrived in eleven cars, UAZs and Nivas, at the house of Adam Rashiev, a distant relative of Aslan Maskhadov, 26 Sovkhoznaia Street, in the Staropromyslovski district of Grozny. The armed men took Rashiev away, telling his relatives that they would take him to the Oktyabrskii District Department of Internal Affairs. However, when the relatives went there, they found out that Rachiev had not been brought there.

Another three relatives of Aslan Maskhadov were detained on night of December 28, 2004; two of them subsequently “disappeared.”

At about 2:00 a.m. on December 28, 2004, a group of armed men arrived in two cars, a VAZ and a Niva, at 62 Turbinnaia Street in the Staropromyslovski district of Grozny, where Aslan Maskhadov’s niece, Khadizhat Satueva, was staying with her relatives. The armed men told Satueva that they were looking for her husband and ordered to her to go with them to show the way to his house. As the relatives found out later, the armed men had tricked Satueva into coming with them, since by that time the armed men had already detained Satueva’s husband.

Earlier that night they had arrived at the Satuev family home, 3 Doprizyvnikov Street, apartment 4. According to relatives, the armed men first apprehended Satuev’s sixteen-year-old son, but then, realizing he was a minor, let him go. Instead, they detained Khadizhat Satueva’s husband, Usman Satuev, and drove him away.  

The same night, another group of forces detained Aslan Maskhadov’s son-in-law Movlid Aguev, who lived in the same area in the “Avtotrest” housing complex. In January 2005, his relatives found out that Aguev was in detention in the Nozhai-Yurt District Department of the Internal Affairs, charged with “participation in an illegal armed formation.” 

The relatives did not manage to get any official information on the fate or whereabouts of the other seven persons. Through unofficial channels they found out that the “disappeared” were held in the village of Tsentoroi, Ramzan Kadyrov’s headquarters, but were unable to confirm this information.

While initially the authorities refused to take any action in response to the families’ appeals, in late January, 2005, the Staropromyslovski district prosecutor’s office opened criminal investigations into the abductions: cases no. 43009 (Buchu Abdulkadyrova); no. 43012 (Lechi Maskhadov); no. 43011 (Khadizhat Satueva), and no. 43010 (Usman Satuev).63 The relatives believe that criminal cases were opened into the abductions of the other three of Maskhadov’s relatives, however did not have the documents confirming this. So far, the investigations have yielded no results.


Enforced disappearance of Adam Demelkhanov (b. 1983)64

At about 3:00 a.m. on November 7, 2004, the sound of approaching APCs awoke the Demelkhanov family in their home at 73 Nagornaia Street in the village of Starye Atagi. The two APCs broke through the gates into the yard; later the relatives also saw two UAZ jeeps parked within a short distance of the house. About thirty soldiers surrounded the house, and part of the group burst in. According to Demelkhanov’s relatives, the men spoke Russian without an accent; some wore masks, while others did not. They did not identify themselves.

 

One of the soldiers forced Demelkhanov’s mother to the floor and stepped on her. He cursed at her and threatened to shoot her should she attempt to move. Another group bound and gagged Demelkhanov’s father. The soldiers then dragged him out of the house to an APC outside. The men also badly beat an elderly relative, who had been sleeping in another room at the time. 

The soldiers then went to Adam Demelkhanov’s room, where his mother heard a gunshot fired. Later, after the soldiers had left, she found a pool of blood in the room. The soldiers dragged Demelkhanov by the feet down the stairs and out to the cars parked near the house. His relative told Human Rights Watch:

I could even hear the knocking of his head against the stairs. He showed no signs of life. If at least he had moaned! But nothing, he was unconscious. And the trail of blood went on for about 100 meters where they had dragged him. They dragged him like a dog.

Without looking at the men’s documents, the soldiers drove off with Adam Demelkhanov and his father, but then released the father on the way. He returned home several hours later. He was blindfolded while inside the APC and unable to see his son. When the vehicle had stopped and the soldiers removed his blindfold, he noticed several people in black uniforms—different from the camouflage uniforms that his abductors wore—near the APC.

The morning following the detention, a neighbor of the Demelkhanovs’ told the family that he had led the soldiers to their house, but when the family tried to question him further, he just said that he “must have confused the houses.” He also mentioned that at least some of the soldiers were from a local commandant’s office in Starye Atagi.

The family reported the incident to the prosecutor’s office in Tolstoi-Yurt, which opened a criminal investigation into the abduction and then forwarded the case to the prosecutor’s office in Grozny. The relatives also wrote to the President of the Chechen Republic, Alu Alkhanov, and to Vice Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov. The investigators told the family that soldiers from the Khankala military base had taken part in the operation, but did not provide any details. To date the family has received no further information on Demelkhanov’s whereabouts. Demelkhanov was a second-year student at the Chechen State University.

One other person, Badrudin Kantaev, was also detained the same night and subsequently “disappeared” (see the case description below).


Enforced Disappearance of Badrudin Kantaev (b. October 21, 1960)65

On the night of November 7, 2004, several APCs drove up to 293 Nuradilova Street in Starye Atagi, where the Kantaev family was renting a room. A group of soldiers, one of whom was masked, broke down the door and burst into the room. They did not introduce themselves and did not provide any explanations, but roused Badrudin Kantaev from his bed and led him away, wrapping a blanket over his head.  His wife told Human Rights Watch:

I told them “Please, don’t scare my small children,” and then they cursed in Russian and one [of them] hit me. They did not search anything, did not even say a word. I told them they could check [his] passport—maybe he is innocent. But they took him away with his passport. He only had his [pajama bottoms] and a T-shirt on.

Based on some of the soldiers’ remarks, Kantaev’s wife believes that the soldiers might have been looking for some young men who lived in the house previously, but whom the family did not know.

Kantaev has not been seen or heard from since the day of his detention. His relatives went to the local police and prosecutor’s office and wrote to Chechen President Alu Alkhanov about the “disappearance,” but have not received any information on Kantaev’s whereabouts. They are unsure whether the prosecutor’s office has launched a criminal investigation into the abduction.

Badrudin Kantaev worked as a carpenter, but during the month before his detention was at home ill with serious tuberculosis. 


Enforced disappearance of Bakar Khutiev (b. March 6, 1986)66

Bakar Khutiev was a first-year law student at the Argun branch of Moscow Humanitarian Academy. On October 27, 2004, at about 1:30 p.m., he was walking home from the university with three of his friends. As he approached his house on Titova Street in Argun, three armed men in camouflage uniforms, one of whom was wearing a mask, called him over to them.

Several of Khutiev’s friends and neighbors witnessed the incident and later told Khutiev’s relative that the three men, who were speaking Chechen, almost immediately forced Khutiev into a white Volga car parked nearby (license plate no. 278, region 99). The men then left with Khutiev, accompanied by two other cars, both silver VAZ-2199s, which are known in Chechnya to be used by Ramzan Kadurov’s forces. Khutiev has not been seen or heard from since then.

A relative of Khutiev reported his abduction to the head of the Argun administration, the local prosecutor’s office, the District Department of Internal Affairs, the Federal Security Service, and the president of the Chechen Republic. A Federal Security Service official told the family that that agency had checked the Volga license plate number and established that the car was not registered in Chechnya.

The prosecutor’s office in Argun conducting the criminal investigation into the abduction (case no. 48047) informed the family that the investigation had been suspended on January 26, 2005, due to the impossibility of establishing the perpetrators. At the time of the interview, the family was planning to appeal the suspension of the investigation. 


Enforced disappearance of Adam Baizatov (b.1945)67

At about 11:30 a.m. on October 22, 2004, Adam Baizatov left his house, 17 Sheripova Street, in the village of Gikalo. According to his family, he was going to a local mosque to participate in the Friday prayer. When Baizatov did not return that day, his family started searching for him.

Villagers told the family that Baizatov did not make it to the mosque that day. A group of elderly men who were also heading to the mosque told the family that they saw Baizatov walking down Rabochaia Street, which leads to the mosque, and saw him being stopped by a group of armed men in military uniforms, who put a sack on his head and threw him in one of two cars parked nearby. The eyewitnesses told the family that both cars were light-green VAZ-2107, region no. 23.

Baizatov’s relatives reported the abduction to the local village police, who took no action. The relatives also reported the case to the prosecutor’s office in Tolstoi-Yurt. Investigators from that office visited the family, picked up some documents and photographs, and opened a criminal case into the abduction, but the investigation has not produced any results, and the family has not received any further information on Baizatov’s whereabouts.

According to his family, Adam Baizatov fought on the Chechen side during the first war, but was amnestied, never took part in the second war, and was working as a welder. In 2000, the family fled Chechnya but returned in late 2003. In 2004, federal forces checked Baizatov’s documents twice during passport checks in the village but never questioned him. 


Enforced disappearance of Rasul Tutaev (b. 1981)68

On October 22, 2004, at 8:45 p.m., a group of about ten soldiers burst into the family home of Rasul Tutaev at 135 Kommunisticheskaia Street in Grozny. According to Tutaev’s relatives, there were several Chechens among them, but most of the soldiers spoke Russian without an accent, were wearing grey military uniforms, and carried automatic weapons and other special armaments, such as laser target-indicators. The soldiers arrived in two Gazel minivans, one white (license plate no. 798 AKh, region 95) and one light blue, without license plates.

 Tutaev’s relative told Human Rights Watch:

[Rasul] had just come home, had dinner and was watching TV. Just as he sat down, a twelve-year-old boy from a neighboring yard ran into our house; he said masked Russians had come and beat him up—he was covered in blood. I asked him “Why did you come here?” One of my sons works in the security forces, [the boy] apparently thought he would help him. But as I asked him, I heard a voice say in Chechen, “Open the gates!” I opened, and they burst in… The boy then ran away—they did not follow him.

According to the relative, when the soldiers, who were shining their laser target-indicators at the family, came upon Rasul Tutaev, a Russian soldier asked the masked Chechen accompanying him, “Is this him or not?”  The masked man replied, “It’s not him.”  Just then, one of the soldiers brought out a uniform belonging to Rasul’s brother that he had found in one of the closets. He held the uniform up and said, “Never mind—we’ll take him.” The relatives tried to explain that the uniform belonged to Rasul’s older brother, who was serving in one of Ramzan Kadyrov’s units (so called Neftepolk, which guards oil installations in Chechnya), but the soldiers ignored them. 

The soldiers took Rasul Tutaev away without asking his name or demanding his passport. The relative told Human Rights Watch that she tried to prevent the detention, holding the gates, but the soldiers hit her and she fell unconscious. Since then, Tutaev has “disappeared.”

The Lenin district prosecutor’s office in Grozny opened a criminal investigation into the abduction of Rasul Tutaev (case no. 30136). Since then, Tutaev’s relatives, who also petitioned various other authorities about the “disappearance,” have received written responses from the Chechen regional branch of the Federal Security Service and Grozny-based army unit no. 6836, both denying having any knowledge of the case. The State Council of Chechnya passed the family’s appeal to the Chechen prosecutor’s office, and the latter in turn passed it back to the local prosecutor, informing the family that the local prosecutor would keep them informed on any progress with the investigation.69 So far, however, the family has received no information on Tutaev’s fate or whereabouts. 


Enforced disappearance of Zalpa Mintaeva (b. 1957)70

At about 6:00 a.m. on October 9, 2004, a group of about ten or fifteen armed, masked men, all of whom, according to the witnesses, spoke Russian without an accent, burst into the home of the Mintaev family at 29 Stepnaia Street in Argun.

A relative of Zalpa Mintaeva told Human Rights Watch that the men first asked if there were any male family members at home. When the relatives answered that there were no men in the family, the armed men told Zalpa Mintaeva, “Then you’ll go with us, since you are the oldest.” The relative added:

We were all very scared, and kept asking them, “Why, why [are you taking her]?” but they did not respond. They said they would “find out” and then bring her back. I grabbed her and was holding her, not to let them take her away, but they told me, “If you continue resisting, we’ll take you and the kids away as well.” And then they threw me to a sofa and hit me with the butt of a submachine gun.

The armed men searched the house and took away Minateva’s earrings, her cell phone, and the 30,000 rubles (about U.S. $1,000) the family had received when Mintaeva’s son-in-law, who served in Kadyrov’s forces, was killed in the line of duty. The armed men then led Mintaeva to the street and put her in one of the cars parked near the house. According to the witnesses, one of the cars was a white Gazel minivan (license plate no. 517), and the other one was a silver “Volga” (license plate no. 214).

The family tried unsuccessfully to find Mintaeva through unofficial channels and searched for her in local prisons. The relatives then reported the “disappearance” to the local prosecutor’s office. They said that an investigator had come once to question the family, but they were not sure if the prosecutor’s office had opened a criminal investigation into the abduction. To date the family has received no information about Mintaeva’s fate or whereabouts.


Enforced disappearance of Arbi Isiev (b. 1985)71

On September 29, 2004, at about 12:50 p.m., Arbi Isiev left his home, 8 Starozavodskaia Street, in Argun. He intended to pick up his aunt, return home briefly, and then go with her to Grozny. 

When several hours passed and he had not yet returned, his relatives began to worry. When they learned from the aunt that Isiev never made it to her house, they started searching for Isiev in Argun. They found several eyewitnesses who told them that Isiev had been abducted. The witnesses said that shortly after 1:00 p.m. two men approached Isiev on the corner of Vygonnaia and Gudermesskaia Streets. One of the men wore the black T-shirt of a Special Police Force (OMON) uniform and a mask. The other one was not masked and was dressed in camouflage; he was short and stocky and had red hair. According to witnesses, Isiev talked to the men in Chechen, asking them to let him go. The men forced Isiev into a white Volga car (model GAZ-3110) with black stripes on the doors and without license plates.

The relatives immediately reported the incident to the local prosecutor’s office, and on September 30, 2004, an investigator told the relatives that the prosecutor’s office had opened a criminal case into Isiev’s abduction. However, to date the family has received no documents confirming a criminal case was opened, and no information on Isiev’s whereabouts. A relative of Isiev told Human Rights Watch:

Three or four days ago [in the beginning of February 2005], I talked to the investigator. He asked for [Isiev’s] photo, and told me they had sent inquiries everywhere, but everybody was saying, “We don’t have him.” He said, “Do you know anything or not? Have you found out anything?” They are asking us!

In the summer of 2004 Isiev was admitted as a first-year law student to the Argun branch of Moscow Humanitarian Academy. His family is adamant that he was never involved with the rebel fighters. They suspect that a young man detained from their neighborhood in August 2004 and who knew Isiev had mentioned his name to the authorities. The man was later released, but his relatives did not allow Isiev’s family to talk to him.


Enforced disappearance of Shamkhan Tumaev (b. 1982)72

On September 19, 2004, at 2:00 a.m., a group of about twenty armed men wearing camouflage uniforms and speaking unaccented Russian, and all but one masked, burst into the yard of Shamkhan Tumaev’s family home at 13 Titova Street in the village of Valerik. A family member who was at home at that time said that as the men were breaking in, they shouted, “Open up, police!” (militsia in Russian).

The armed men first searched the house where Tumaev’s relatives lived. They demanded Tumaev’s passport, which was not there, and confiscated some videotapes with commercial movies and a phone. The men then locked the relatives in the house and proceeded to the neighboring house, also at 13 Titova Street, where Tumaev lived with his wife and child. They forced Tumaev’s pregnant wife to the ground, holding her at gunpoint while they searched the house. Then they took Tumaev outside, and the relatives heard a gunshot, which they believed to be a signal, since at that point a UAZ jeep pulled up to the house. The men drove away with Tumaev. A relative tried to follow the jeep in his car, but did not manage to keep up with the military vehicle. 

Relatives immediately began a search for Tumaev, seeking information through both official and unofficial channels. A Federal Security Service official in Nalchik whom the family reached through personal contacts told them that the operation was carried out by the Regional Operative Headquarters and military intelligence, but he did not provide any additional information. One of Tumaev’s relatives told Human Rights Watch:

We also went to a [local] commandant—he said [that Tumaev] was not listed [as wanted] anywhere in the computer. We say, if he is guilty, let them bring him to trial, but just let us know where he is, so that we could at least deliver a parcel for him. But there is no trace and no response…

The prosecutor’s office in Achkhoi-Martan opened a criminal investigation into Tumaev’s abduction (case no. 38043), and an investigator came once to question the family. In December 2004, the prosecutor’s office informed the family that the time period for the investigation was extended till January 29, 2005, but at the time of the interview the family was unaware whether the case had been suspended or extended further. So far, the investigation has yielded no results, and Tumaev’s fate remains unknown to the family.


Enforced disappearance of Aslan Inalov (b. 1977)73

On September 15, 2004, Aslan Inalov, a resident of the village of Sernovodsk, flew from the Magas airport in Ingushetia to Moscow with his sister and his younger brother. The three were going to proceed to Kiev, Ukraine, where the younger brother, who is blind, was scheduled to have surgery.

Upon arrival in Moscow, Aslan Inalov was detained at customs by airport security and then transferred to one of the pretrial detention centers (SIZO) in Moscow. His sister and brother then left for Kiev, having informed the family of Inalov’s detention. Inalov spent five days in the detention center and was released without charge.

On September 23, 2004, he returned to Ingushetia, and from the airport went to his aunt, who lives in the town of Sleptsovsk, Ingushetia, just across the administrative border from Sernovodsk. His aunt tried to persuade him to stay overnight, but he decided to walk back home. Inalov left her house at about 4:00 p.m., taking the shortest road to Sernovodsk. He never made it home.

The next morning, Inalov’s relatives in Sernovodsk contacted his aunt in Ingushetia and, having learned that he had left her house the previous afternoon, started their search for Inalov. Through unofficial contacts in the local branch of Federal Security Service in Magas, Ingushetia, they found out that on the night of September 23, 2004, Inalov had been detained on his way to Sernovodsk at a mobile checkpoint, and that the soldiers had then delivered him to the main Kavkaz checkpoint on the main road from Ingushetia to Chechnya. The relatives also managed to learn that for the first two months after his detention, Inalov was held by the Federal Security Service in Magas, and then transferred to the Federal Security Service in Grozny on November 12, 2004. The contact also told the family that Inalov was detained in connection with the June 2004 rebels’ raid on Ingushetia but did not know whether official charges had been brought against him.

The authorities, however, never officially confirmed this information. The family reported the “disappearance” to the local prosecutor’s office in Achkhoi-Martan and to the district department of internal affairs and sent a written request for information to the Federal Security Service in Grozny. They have received no response from any of these authorities.74


Enforced disappearance of Khalimat Sadulaeva (b.1967)75

At about 6:00 a.m. on September 12, 2004, armed men arrived in three cars (a Gazel minivan, VAZ-2199 and a VAZ-2106) at 31 Novaia Street in the town of Argun, where the Sadulaev family lives in two adjacent houses. As the armed men, wearing camouflage uniforms, jumped over the gates into the yard, Khalimat Sadulaeva ran to the house where her brother lived with his family. According to her mother, Sadulaeva feared that the men would take her brother away, as he was the only adult male relative who was at home at the time. Sadulaeva’s family believes the group had both Russian and Chechen forces, since some of the men spoke Russian and some spoke Chechen.

According to Sadulaeva’s relatives, the armed men forced her brother to the floor. When Sadulaeva entered the house, one of the armed men pointed at her and said, “That’s her.” The men then grabbed Sadulaeva and dragged her out of the house. They also searched the house and took a purse containing 2,900 rubles (about U.S. $100).

Sadulaeva’s mother told Human Rights Watch:

I thought they were taking my son away. I ran out and shouted, “Where are you taking him?” I couldn’t really see--they just clustered around her. But the children started crying, “They are taking mommy away!”… I ran up with her passport, but they did not take it. As they were leading her away, I rushed [toward them], but they threw me off. [One of them] pointed his gun at me, and I told him, “Go ahead, shoot me if you are that kind of a man.” He did not shoot, they just dragged her away.

The armed men then put Sadulaeva in one of the cars and drove her away, providing no explanation to the family.

The family petitioned the local administration in Argun, the Federal Security Service in Grozny, and the local military commandant’s office. The relatives believed that the Argun prosecutor’s office had opened a criminal investigation into Sadulaeva’s abduction; however they did not receive any papers confirming this. An employee at Khankala military base told the family that she had seen Sadulaeva there in January 2005, but the relatives were unable to get an official response from military authorities at the base.

Khalimat Sadulaeva is a housewife who was raising her four children. In August 2004 a fire destroyed the apartment where she lived with her husband and children, and she and her children temporarily moved in with her mother and other relatives. About two weeks prior to Sadulaeva’s detention, a guard at the local administration, where she went to renew the documents that had been destroyed by the fire, told her that the Federal Security Service had been inquiring about her, but did not provide any details. Two days before Sadulaeva’s detention, a Federal Security Service official at the local commandant’s office asked Sadulaeva’s brother about her, and the brother told him that his sister had just renewed her papers, that she was living with the rest of the family, and was not hiding from anyone. These encounters led the family to believe that the Federal Security Service was involved in the detention and “disappearance” of Sadualeva. 


Enforced disappearance of Aslan Tazurkaev (b. August 7, 1981)76

At about 5:00 a.m. on July 4, 2004, a group of uniformed, armed and masked men burst into the family home of Aslan Tazurkaev, 3 Ordzhonikidzhe Street, in the village of Novye Atagi. The men forced Tazurkaev and his brother, who were sleeping in the same room, onto the floor, and then led both men outside. The masked men then showed the two brothers to someone sitting in one of the UAZ jeeps with blacked-out windows, parked in the street. After that they took Alsan Tazurkaev with them, but let his brother return home, providing no explanation.

According to Tazurkaev’s relative, the men arrived in an APC (license plate no. 181), a green Gazel minivan (license plate no. 347 SS—the witness did not manage to see the third letter—region 95), and two UAZ jeeps with black (military) license plates (nos. 0808 and 0886). The witness said it was hard to see the numbers, since they were partially smeared with mud, but was convinced he had written them down accurately. Tazurkaev’s relatives then followed the vehicles and saw them entering a military base near the village, located at an abandoned grain milling complex known to locals as “the mill.” Federal Security Service and military intelligence units are based there along with regular Ministry of Defense troops. 

Two other villagers, also taken away the same night, were released two days later. Tazurkaev, however, “disappeared” without a trace. When Tazurkaev’s relatives asked the released detainees about his whereabouts, they refused to answer, saying they did not know where they had been held, because they were blindfolded the entire time, and that they were released only after they had “promised to cooperate.” The relatives also spoke to three detainees from a neighboring village who believed they had been held either at the Khankala military base or at the mill, where they had seen Tazurkaev shortly before their release on August 3 or 4, 2004.

A relative of Tazurkaev told Human Rights Watch about his efforts to inquire about him at the mill:

They told us, “Search somewhere else; we don’t have him.” When we staged a protest and blocked the roads to Shali and to Atagi, a commandant of the Shali district joined us, and we went to the [military base at the] mill together. A [Federal Security Service] official came out to see us and warned the commandant, “If you show up here once more, I’ll jail you too.”

At the relatives’ request, the prosecutor’s office in Shali opened a criminal investigation into Tazurkaev’s abduction (case no. 36084). On December 1, 2004, the case was handed over to the military prosecutor’s office attached to military unit no. 20116, based in Shali district.77 As of this writing, however, the family has received no further information on Tazurkaev’s whereabouts or any progress in the investigation.

During the three years before his abduction, Aslan Tazurkaev had been studying at a medical college in the city of Kislovodsk. He graduated from the college on June 30, 2004, and returned to Chechnya just days before his abduction.


Enforced disappearance of Adlan Ilaev (b. October 8, 1987), Inver Ilaev (b. April 4, 1982), Rustam Ilaev (b. May 9, 1974), and Kazbek Bataev (b. January 6, 1983)78


Adlan Ilaev

Inver Ilaev

Rustam Ilaev

Kazbek Bataev

   

On July 3, 2004, Rustam Ilaev, Adlan Ilaev and Kazbek Bataev spent the night at the home of their cousin, Inver Ilaev, in the village of Assinovskaia. They did so because they had just repainted their own house, also in Assinovskaia, and could not stay there.

According to their relatives, at around 4:00 a.m. that night, two APCs arrived at Inver Ilaev’s home at 95 Fifty Years of October Street and about thirty soldiers in camouflage uniforms burst into the house. Villagers told the relatives that they saw that the soldiers had arrived in two APCs, which they parked not far from the house. Most of the men wore black uniforms, some some green camouflage, and all of them spoke unaccented Russian. One of the relatives told Human Rights Watch:

They burst in and just asked, “Where are your men?” They pushed all women and children into a corner here, and went to the bedroom, and started beating [the men] mercilessly. Everything was [covered] with blood in that room, their beds, and the curtains. They did not even ask for their names or documents…

The soldiers searched and looted the house, taking money and jewelry; they also took a spare tire and a car battery and from the yard. They walked all four men out of the house and drove them away in the APCs.

The relatives have received no official information about the four men’s fate or whereabouts since their detention. A released detainee told the family that he had seen the four men at Khankala military base in August 2004, and that they had told him that for the first nineteen days after their detention they had been held at the military intelligence (GRU) base in Achkhoi-Martan. Unofficial sources told the family that the operation had been carried out by “military intelligence unit no. 12, stationed in Achkhoi-Martan.

The prosecutor’s office in Achkhoi-Martan opened a criminal investigation into the abduction (case no. 49002), and the family has made regular inquiries to the investigator assigned to the case, but so far he has not provided them with any information on the “disappeared” or their perpetrators. In October 2004, the family was received by a deputy minister of internal affairs of Chechnya, who, according to the relatives, told them: “The APCs were identified, we know who took [the men away], we know [who they are]. I’ll call and the [detainees] will be released.” His promise, however, remains unfulfilled.


Enforced disappearance of Sukhrat Tokhtarov (b.1981)79

On the evening of June 24, 2004, Sukhrat Tokhtarov was walking back to his house, 100 Nagornaia Street, in the village of Staryi Atagi. He had spent the day gathering stones for construction purposes near the Argun River.

As he was approaching his street, two men jumped out of a parked car that stood in his way.  They grabbed Tokhtarov, handcuffed him, put a sack over his head, threw him into the trunk, and drove away. Four elderly people, one a relative of Tokhtarov’s, witnessed the abduction and said that the car—a VAZ-2199 without license plates—had been parked in the street for a while, apparently waiting for Tokhtarov. There were four men in camouflage uniforms in the car. When Tokhtarov was approaching the car, the witnesses heard one of the men saying in Chechen, “Here, he is coming,” into a portable radio.

Tokhtarov has been neither heard from nor seen since his abduction. His relatives made inquiries at a military base located at the abandoned grain milling complex near the village (“the mill”), and in the village of Tsentoroi, where Ramzan Kadyrov’s forces are believed to hold their detainees. At both places, officials denied having Tokhtarov. Investigators from a local prosecutor’s office in Tolstoi-Yurt visited the family once and questioned them about the abduction, but the family was not sure whether the prosecutor’s office had opened a criminal case.

Sukhrat Tokhtarov had been detained twice prior to his abduction. His youngest brother, who, according to the family, was a rebel fighter, was killed in March 2003. After his brother’s death, federal forces detained Tokhtarov twice in 2003. The first time they held him somewhere in Grozny, and the second time, at the mill. According to his relatives, both times Tokhtarov was interrogated and badly beaten, but promptly released. The relatives told Human Rights Watch that when they were asking about Tokhtarov at the mill, officials there confirmed that they had taken him twice before, but denied having any information about the June 2004 abduction.


Enforced disappearance of Abdulkhamid Jabrailov (b. January 13, 1957);  enforced disappearance  or possible extrajudicial execution of Ruslan Jabrailov (b. 1985)80 and Adam Khamzatov (b. 1983).


Abdulkhamid Jabrailov

Ruslan Jabrailov

At about 3:00 a.m. on June 23, 2004, about thirty soldiers, who arrived in an APC, an Ural truck and a so-called tabletka minivan, burst into the home of the Jabrailov family at 46 Kooperativnaia Street in the village of Samashki. The soldiers, according to the witnesses, spoke Russian without an accent.

The soldiers asked Abdulkhamid Jabrailov to show his passport and then took him away bare foot, without asking any questions or providing any explanations. According to a relative, the soldiers put Jabrailov into the Ural truck and drove him away.

Jabrailov’s relatives said that they believe it was a mistake, since the security forces had been regularly conducting passport checks in the village, but had never questioned Jabrailov. The local prosecutor’s office in Achkhoi-Martan opened a criminal investigation into the abduction of Abdulkhamid Jabrailov. It also sent inquiries regarding Jabrailov’s detention and “disappearance” to various civilian and military authorities, including the district department of internal affairs in Achkhoi-Martan, the local military commandant’s office, the local branch of the Federal Security Service, and the United Group of Forces’ military prosecutor’s office. The latter responded that “the involvement of Russian servicemen in the abduction has not been established,” and that “Russian forces did not conduct any security or other special operations” in the area on that date.81 The family does not know whether other authorities provided any response to the prosecutor. On October 8, 2004, the criminal investigation was suspended, and the family does not know whether it has been reopened since. As of February 8, the family had no information about Abdulkhamid Jabrailov’s fate or whereabouts.

Less then a month after Abdulkhamid Jabrailov’s detention, his nephew, Ruslan Jabrailov, also “disappeared.” At about 10:00 p.m. on August 10, 2004, a female friend came to Jabrailov and invited him to a party. He went outside, where another friend of his, Adam Khamzatov, was waiting.

A female relative of Ruslan Jabrailov followed him outside, worried that he was going out so late. There she saw two silver VAZ-2199 cars in the street. Later other villagers told the relative that the cars—known in Chechnya to be used by Ramzan Kadyrov’s forces—had been driving back and forth through the village since morning. As the two men walked to the street, Jabrailov’s relative heard Khamzatov saying, “Ruslan, let’s hurry up.” At that moment, the armed men sitting in the cars started shooting in the direction of Jabrailov and Khamzatov, and both men fell on the ground.

According to Jabrailov’s relative, the soldiers then threw both men into one of the cars and drove away. As they were leaving, the villagers who witnessed the incident heard them saying on a portable radio, “Caught two devils [shaitany] one wounded, one killed.” The witness explained that shaitany is the common term for “rebel fighters” used by Kadyrov’s forces. The relatives did not know which of the two men had been killed, although later they found Ruslan’s cap with a hole from a bullet at the site of the incident.

Jabrailov’s family did not inquire about Ruslan, suspecting that he had been killed and that their efforts may undermine their search for Abdulkhamid. However, Jabrailov’s relative told Human Rights Watch that the Khamzatov family was actively searching for Adam Khamzatov and making inquires regarding the “disappearance” of both men with various local authorities, but has not received any information about the two men’s fate or whereabouts.


Enforced Disappearance and possible summary execution of Yusup Bargaev (b. January 25, 1985)82

On June 13, 2004, Yusup Baragev, a resident of the village of Novye Atagi, went to the town of Shali to receive his welfare payment. At around 4:30 p.m. that day he returned to Novye Atagi by bus and got out on Lenin Street.

According to a witness who was at the bus stop at that time, a Gazel minivan stopped near the bus, and masked, armed men jumped out. As Bargaev was getting out of the bus, the men shouted “Stop!” but Bargaev got frightened and started to run. The armed men then fired three shots in his direction, and he fell to the ground. The men then picked him up and threw him into their minivan, holding the witnesses at the bus stop at gunpoint. The witness did not know whether Bargaev had been killed or wounded, but after the soldiers had left, she saw blood on the ground.

Bargaev’s family, whom the witnesses immediately informed of the incident, reported the case to the prosecutor’s office in Shali. The office opened a criminal investigation (case no. 36088) into the abduction, but so far it has yielded no results, and neither Bargaev’s whereabouts nor the identity of the perpetrators has been established. On August 27, 2004, the prosecutor’s office gave Baragev’s mother a document certifying her status as a victim who suffered moral harm as a result of her son’s abduction. The document stated that “unidentified perpetrators in camouflage uniforms and armed with automatic weapons detained Yusup Baragaev and drove him away in an unknown direction.”

Since then, the family has received no further information about Bargaev from the prosecutor’s office or from any other sources.

A relative of Baragev’s told Human Rights Watch that three or four days before Bargaev’s detention, Russian security forces were conducting passport checks in Novye Atagi. At the time, Bargaev was not at home. The men asked about Bargaev and checked his passport, which he had left at home, and left.  The family believed that Bargaev’s subsequent detention was linked to this incident and might have been carried out by the same forces that conducted the passport checks.

Yusup Baragev was unemployed. According to his relative, Bargaev had been suffering from mental illness for a number of years. Since May 2004, he was receiving outpatient treatment at Grozny Hospital No. 2, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.83


Enforced disappearance of Sarali Seriev (b.1980)84

At about 5:00 p.m. on June 1, 2004, nine cars arrived at the Seriev family home at 41 Kirov Street in the village of Belgatoi. One of the cars was a UAZ “tabletka” and the other eight were VAZ-21099s. A large group of armed men in camouflage uniforms burst into the house. According to Seriev’s father, the men spoke Russian, but he believed that some of them were Chechens who had directed the soldiers to his house. The men grabbed Sarali Seriev and took him away, ignoring the protests of his elderly father. Seriev has not been seen or heard from since.

Seriev’s father reported the incident to the local police the same day, and an investigator arrived at his house to question the witnesses. The Shali prosecutor’s office opened a criminal investigation into the abduction (case no. 36076), and Seriev’s father believes that so far the case had not been suspended. The investigation, however, has yielded no results. 

Several days after Seriev was taken away, his father met with Ramzan Kadyrov, and, according to the father, Kadyrov ordered the head of the Shali administration to look into the case immediately. The head of the administration later informed the family that he had included Seriev’s name “in the list of persons abducted by unknown perpetrators in 2004,” which he had submitted to the president and the government of Chechnya, and that he would inform the family should he find anything out about Seriev’s fate. So far he has provided no information to the family. The family also received a response from the commander of Vostok special forces battalion, who denied having any information about Seriev. In October 2004, the United Group of Forces military prosecutor’s office informed Seriev’s father that the prosecutor’s office had established that “Federal forces’ servicemen were not involved in the abduction” of Sarali Seriev. 

Sarali Seriev was disabled—in 2000, he lost his right hand and three fingers from his left hand as a result of a mine explosion. In 2002, his mother was killed during artillery shelling in the village, and an older brother, who worked as a policeman after the first war, died in the line of duty. Seriev’s elderly father was taking care of his son. After Seriev was taken away, six hundred villagers signed an appeal for his release, testifying that Seriev was never involved with the rebel fighters.

Enforced disappearance of Murad Maaev (b.1983)85

On March 25, 2004, Murad Maaev was visiting his sick mother in his home village of Starye Atagi. Maaev had lived in Ingushetia as an internally displaced person since 2001, but visited his parents regularly.

At about 8:00 p.m. Maaev left the house, 12 Uchitelskaia Street, and went outside, apparently to visit a friend in the village. He never returned home. Maaev’s father told Human Rights Watch:

His mother was very sick then. She was waiting for him for so long. She passed away recently… [In March] he just came for one day, to visit her. He spent the day with her, and was going to leave [in the morning]. In the evening he told us he would go out just for a minute… We were waiting, we thought he would come back, maybe he went to visit friends. And now I just know I don’t have a son anymore.

Alerted by Maaev’s long absence, his relatives started looking for him in the village. They learned that federal forces were conducting targeted raids in the village that evening, and that villagers had seen four APCs and several other military vehicles in the streets. Maaev’s relatives concluded that the soldiers must have run into the young man either in the street or at a friend’s house and taken him away.

One other person, who was also detained in the village that night but released two days later, said that he had been held at a military base located at the abandoned grain milling complex (“the mill”) near the village and that he had seen Maaev there as well.86 The man left Chechnya immediately after his release.

The Grozny District Department of Internal Affairs opened a search for Murad Maaev, labeling him missing, rather than abducted. On April 8, 2004, an interim military commandant of Chechnya requested information about Maaev’s whereabouts from a Grozny district military commandant. Five days later the district commandant responded that “at the time in question neither the [Federal Security Service], nor the military commandant’s office, nor the military units under the commandant’s command have conducted any operations in the given locality.”87 On April 22, 2004, the Office of the Prosecutor of Chechnya sent another request to the Grozny district military commandant; however, it apparently remained unanswered. To date, the family has received no further information about Murad Maaev’s whereabouts.


Enforced disappearance of Aset Dombaeva (b. June 26, 1952)88

On the afternoon of February 25, 2004, nine armed men arrived in a Gazel minivan at the Dombaev family’s home, 39 Kuibysheva Street, in the town of Urus-Martan. The men wore masks and camouflage military uniforms. According to a family member, all of them spoke Russian, although there were some Chechens among them.

When the armed men arrived, two male relatives from the Dombaev family and two friends of theirs were in the yard, doing some construction work. The men forced all four of them and a small child, who was in the yard as well, into a barn. About fifteen minutes later, when the two soldiers who were guarding them left, the men left the barn and discovered the armed men had taken away Aset Dombaeva and her husband, fifty-three-year-old Khasan Dombaev. The armed men had also taken three hundred rubles (about U.S. $10), which they had found in the house.

Khasan Dombaev, who returned home after soldiers released him the same day, told the family the armed men had pushed him out of the car near the Baku—Rostov Highway, despite his protests and demands to let his wife go as well. Aset Dombaeva has not been seen or heard from since then.

One of Dombaeva’s relatives reported the “disappearance” to a local human rights organization and made a written appeal to the local prosecutor’s office. Afterward, an investigator from the prosecutor’s office who came to speak with the relative promised that he would personally make inquiries into Dombaeva’s whereabouts, but he made no progress. Over the last eight months the family has not heard anything from the prosecutor’s office.

In October 2003, several months prior to Aset Dombaeva’s detention and “disappearance,” her son, who was, according to a relative, a rebel fighter, also “disappeared” after he had been detained by federal forces. Dombaeva’s relatives believed that the elderly woman’s “disappearance” was linked to the “disappearance” of her son.  


Enforced disappearance of Luisa Mutaeva (b. October 1984)89

At around 2:30 a.m. on January 19, 2004, three vehicles (a UAZ jeep, a RAF minivan and a VAZ-2199) arrived at the house of the Mutaev family, 60 Bershanskaia Street,  in the village of Assinovskaia. A group of about fifteen armed men, some of them masked, entered the house announcing that they were conducting a passport check. The men spoke Russian without an accent. 

The family produced their passports, and after checking them the men ordered Luisa Mutaeva to go with them. They told the family that there was nothing wrong with the passport, but that they would take Mutaeva to a local commandant’s office for an interrogation and then would let her go. Mutaeva’s relative told Human Rights Watch:

They told her, “Dress up warm, it will be cold.” [Her] mother asked where they were taking her. They said, “It’s nothing, mamma, don’t worry, we’ll interrogate her now and will let her go.” And they did not explain anything—what interrogation and why [they had to interrogate her].

The men initially ordered Mutaeva’s sister to go with them as well, but then let her stay, apparently realizing from her passport that she was only fifteen years old.

Mutaeva never came back, and to date the relatives do not know where she is. The relative interviewed by Human Rights Watch was not sure whether a criminal investigation had been opened into the abduction, but said that an investigator had visited the family several times, and that one of the relatives was inquiring regularly at the local prosecutor’s office, but have not received any information on Mutaeva’s fate or whereabouts.

A year before Muateva’s detention, on January 21, 2003, her older step-brother, Isa Firzauli (b.1977) had also been taken away from the same house and “disappeared.” Mutaeva’s relative denied that any of the family members were involved with the rebel fighters. 





[58] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with relatives and neighbors of Salambek Alapaev, Sernovodsk, February 4, 2005.

[59] Copies of the documents are on file with Human Rights Watch.

[60] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with a relative of Alis Zubiraev, Nazran, January 27, 2005.

[61] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with a relative of Rasul Mukaev, Grozny, January 29, 2005.

[62] The case descriptions are based on Human Rights Watch interviews with family members of the “disappeared,” Grozny, January 30 and 31, 2005. 

[63] Copies of the documents are on file with Human Rights Watch.

[64] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with a relative of Adam Demelkhanov, Grozny, January 29, 2005.

[65] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with a relative of Badrudin Kantaev, Grozny, January 29, 2005.

[66] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with a relative of Bakar Khutiev, Argun, February 7, 2005.

[67] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with the relatives of Adam Baizatov, Gikalo, February 6, 2005.

[68] The case description is based on Human Rights Watch interview with a relative of Rasul Tutaev, Grozny, February 2, 2005.

[69] Copies of the documents are on file with Human Rights Watch.

[70] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with the relatives of Zalpa Mintaeva, Argun, January 30, 2005.

[71] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with two relatives of Arbi Isiev, Argun, February 7, 2005.

[72] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with three relatives of Shamkhan Tumaev, Urus-Martan, February 1, 2005.

[73] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with a relative of Aslan Inalov, Sernovodsk, February 4, 2005.

[74] Copies of the documents are on file with Human Rights Watch.

[75] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with the relatives of Khlaimat Sadulaeva, Argun, January 30, 2005.

[76] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with the relatives of Aslan Tazurkaev, Grozny, February 5, 2005.

[77] Copies of the documents are on file with Human Rights Watch.

[78] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with the relatives of the “disappeared,” Assinovskaia, February 8, 2005.

[79] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with the relatives of Sukhrat Tokhtarov, Starye Atagi, February 6, 2005.

[80] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with two relatives of Abdul-Khalid Dzhabrailov and Ruslan Dzhabrailov, Samashki, Febrauary 8, 2005.

[81] Copies of the documents are on file with Human Rights Watch.

[82] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with a relative of Yusup Bargaev and a witness to his detention, Grozny, January 29, 2005.

[83] Copies of the medical documents are on file with Human Rights Watch.

[84] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with the father of Sarali Seriev, Grozny, January 30, 2005.

[85] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with a relatives and a neighbor of Murad Maaev, Starye Atagi, February 6, 2005.

[86] These details supplied by an article in The Chechen Times newspaper.  See “‘Disappeared’ at the Mill,” The Chechen Times, December 16, 2004.

[87] Copies of the documents are on file with Human Rights Watch.

[88] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with a relative of Aset Dombaeva, Urus-Martan, February 1, 2005.

[89] The case description is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with a relative of Luisa Mutaeva, Assinovskaia, February 8, 2005.


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