Conference in Chechnya told abduction problem still rife
Interfax
Groznyy, 1 July: An interdepartmental commission is to be set up in Chechnya shortly to establish the whereabouts of abducted, missing and forcibly removed people. A decision to this effect was made at an interdepartmental conference on progress in the search for the missing and the abducted, which was held in Groznyy on Tuesday (1 July).
Top officials from law enforcement agencies, representatives of force structures and leaders of nongovernmental human rights organizations who addressed the conference stressed that the lack of progress in the search for the missing was having an adverse effect on public morale.
In particular, Akhmed Dakayev, chief of the department for liaison with law enforcement bodies and forces in the government of the Chechen Republic, said that the relatives of the missing and the abducted often joined the ranks of rebels.
On numerous occasions, the number plates of the motor vehicles used in the abductions as well as the identities of commanders and units were known, but the investigations were going nowhere, the conference was told.
Thus a spokesman for Operations and Search Bureau (OSB) No 2 of the Russian Interior Ministry's main directorate for the Southern Federal District said that "the staff of the OMON (special purpose police detachments) from the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area perpetrated dozens of abductions and murders in the Chechen Republic, and it is not just Sergey Lapin, who was convicted in the notorious case of Zelimkhan Murdalov, who should be behind bars". (Lt Lapin from Khanty-Mansiysk was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment in a maximum security facility for abducting and torturing Groznyy resident Murdalov.)
He said that more than 50 bodies of civilians had been found in 2000 near a checkpoint deployment area in Groznyy's Oktyabrskiy district. Many bodies with signs of gunshot wounds were also found in Achkhoy-Martanovskiy District. Until those guilty begin to be brought to account, the crimes will continue, the OSB spokesman stressed.
The prosecutor of the Chechen Republic, Valeriy Kuznetsov, told the conference: "Why, while we draw our wages, we don't do our job and just wait for some instructions from the top? Everyone knew about the criminal actions of a certain Baysarov and the servicemen of the Vostok battalion, but everyone was waiting for instructions. There should be no more instances of people being abducted and others waiting for instructions," the prosecutor said. (Movladi Baysarov, the commander of the Gorets group of the Russian Federal Security Service in Chechnya, was accused by Moscow-backed Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov of abducting and killing a Chechen family; Baysarov was shot to death in Moscow in November 2006. The Vostok battalion of the Russian Defence Ministry in Chechnya has been accused by Kadyrov and his followers of various crimes.)
The conference was chaired by Abdulkakhir Izraylov, deputy prime minister in the government of Chechnya and head of the administration of republic's president and government.