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gazeta.ru
October 18, 2001
Threatened Journalist Flees from Russia
By Artyom Vernidoub
One of Russia's best known broadsheet journalists Anna Politkovskaya, of the popular Novaya Gazeta (NG) newspaper who has won a reputation for exposing violations of human rights and other illegal activities committed the federal forces in Chechnya, has fled from Russia after receiving threats from an officer with the Khanty-Mansiysk Region's Interior Ministry department Sergei Lapin, known to his colleagues as Kadet.
In September this year Novaya Gazeta published an article by Anna Politkovskaya entitled "People Disappearing" about alleged summary executions and torture committed by a unit of Interior Ministry troops from Khanty-Mansiysk, serving in the Oktyabrskiy district of the Chechen capital Grozny.
In particular, on January 2 this year the Khanty-Mansiysk unit arrested 26-year-old Chechen national Zelimkhan Mourdalov.
"In the district department (manned by the Khanty-Mansiysk Interior troops) Zelimkhan was put at the disposal of Major Alexander Prilepin, head of the criminal police, more commonly known by the nickname Alex, investigator Zhuravlyov and officer Sergei Lapin, nicknamed Kadet -- that word was shaven on the back of his head," wrote Politkovskaya in the article.
"Later an investigation determined that namely those officers ordered that Zelimkhan be tortured and also tortured him themselves… His fractured bone stuck out from his right forearm. His right ear was cut off. His thorax bones were brokenâ," Politkovskaya asserts in the article.
On the same day the crippled Chechen was taken from his cell reportedly to be sent to hospital. He has not been seen since that moment.
On January 7th, under pressure from Mourdalov's relatives, the prosecutor's office of Grozny ordered the arrest and remand of investigator Zhuravlyov, however the seniors of the Khanty-Mansiysk unit had already sent him back to his hometown of Nizhnevartovsk.
On January 18 the prosecutors went after Lapin (aka Kadet), but his colleagues in the Oktyabrsky police station refused to hand him over. Soon afterwards, he too was sent home from Chechnya.
On March 12 two investigators from the Grozny prosecutor's office arrived in Nizhnevartovsk to detain Lapin-Kadet. But Lapin was not detained. Instead, he gave a written promise not to leave Nizhnevartovsk pending trial. A month later the travel ban imposed on him was lifted by the Nizhnevartovsk municipal court.
On September 10, Anna Politkovskaya wrote the article about the case. In her usual, sometimes over-dramatic style, she described the atrocities committed by the federal policemen in Grozny.
For instance, in her article she wrote: "Khanty-Mansiyskers terrorized not only the population of Grozny, but also the prosecutor's office of Grozny… when anyone of the officers implicated in Mourdalov"s case was summoned for questioning (at the prosecutor"s office), a police brigade armed to the teeth went there, smashed furniture in corridors, and aimed their grenade launchers at the building."
Several days after the article was published, NG editor's office received the first threat by e-mail.
An anonymous well-wisher wrote: "There exists trustworthy information that an operational worker of the criminal investigation department, who served in the Republic of Chechnya, who has a personal call-sign "Kadet" (not a nickname), received training in special FSB (Federal Security Service) camps in spheres of subversive activities, sniper's training… At present, his whereabouts are unknown but there is evidence that he is in possession of a rifle and intends to visit the city of Moscow. Are you by any chance in the know about the aim of the disgraced Interior Ministry operative's visit to Moscow?"
"We immediately became suspicious because of the fact that the person knew that 'Kadet' was not a nickname but a call-sign. We receive dozens of such letters and otherwise we would yave ignored the threat," NG's chief editor Dmitry Muratov told Gazeta.Ru.
"Therefore it was decided to provide Anna Politkovskaya with guards. Provided she was accompanied by guards, I allowed her to go to a live program at one television company, and then an anchorman revealed that Politkovskaya had come with guards, - I do not know why they did that, such idiocy. And five days ago one more letter arrived that reads that if in the course of ten days a refutation of Politkovskaya's article was not published, then… Kadet had already arrived in Moscow".
"But," Muratov told us, "There will be no refutation".
After that Muratov decided to send Anna abroad. He did not specify whereto though but later Ekho Moskvy radio station learned from the Committee to Protect Journalists based in New York that her destination was Vienna, Austria.
Deputy chief editor of NG Yuri Shchekochikhin, who is also a State Duma deputy, wrote a letter to the Minister of the Interior Boris Gryzlov and met with his deputy Vassilyev.
Muratov assured Gazeta.Ru that the Interior Ministry had promised to thoroughly investigate the situation.
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