http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/chechn...hechnya0305.pdf
or chapters : http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/chechnya0305/
below are excerpts
“Disappearances” in Chechnya as a Crime against Humanity
An enforced disappearance takes place when a person is taken into custody by state agents, and the authorities subsequently deny that the victim is in their custody or conceal the victim’s whereabouts or fate in a way that places the victim beyond the protection of the law.8 Often victims of “disappearances” also suffer torture or are summarily executed. Typically those responsible for “disappearances” will try to avoid being called to account through cover-ups and by spreading misleading information about the facts.
International law recognizes that a widespread or systematic pattern of enforced disappearances constitutes a crime against humanity— an act or series of acts that outrage the conscience of humankind.9 A human rights violation may be classified as a crime against humanity in the context of an armed conflict or in times of peace. In modern jurisprudence the elements of “widespread or systematic” include the scale of the crime, the existence of specific patterns as to the identity of the perpetrators and the victims, the authorities’ knowledge about the crime or obligation to have such knowledge, and the actions taken by the authorities in response to this knowledge.
The available evidence shows that enforced disappearances in Chechnya are both widespread and systematic. According to government statistics, at least 2,090 people have “disappeared” since the conflict started in 1999; human rights groups estimate the figure to be between three thousand and five thousand.10 As this briefing paper shows, the victims are always civilians or individuals who, when taken from their homes, checkpoints or other locations, are unarmed—they are hors de combat. They are predominantly men between eighteen and forty years old, although, after several Chechen female suicide bombers targeted civilians in Russia, women have also increasingly become victims of “disappearances.” In two of the forty-three cases reflected in this briefing paper the victims were minors under eighteen years old.
In the vast majority of cases, the perpetrators are unquestionably government agents—either federal forces or, as is increasingly the case, local Chechen security forces who are ultimately subordinate to the Russian federal Ministry of Internal Affairs or the Ministry of Defense. According to a Chechen official, 1,814 criminal investigations were opened into enforced disappearances, yet not a single one has resulted in a conviction.11 This demonstrates the Russian government’s awareness of the scale of the problem, even if it denies responsibility, and its utter lack of commitment to ending “disappearances” and holding their perpetrators accountable.
Under principles of international law, when a pattern of enforced disappearances amounts to a crime against humanity, any state may prosecute their perpetrators regardless of their nationality, the nationality of victims, or the place where the offense was committed.12 International law states that neither a head of state nor responsible government officials enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for crimes against humanity.13
The Declaration on Enforced Disappearances reaffirms this principle, known as universal jurisdiction, providing that “all States should take any lawful and appropriate action available to them to bring to justice all persons presumed responsible for an act of enforced disappearance, who are found to be in their jurisdiction or under their control.”14
A Widespread Pattern
Enforced disappearances have become an enduring hallmark of the conflict in Chechnya. In previous reports, Human Rights Watch documented hundreds of cases in which federal forces detained people during large-scale sweep operations or targeted raids, with authorities then denying any responsibility or knowledge of the detainees’ whereabouts.15
Official figures on “disappearances” in Chechnya are inconsistent and contradictory, and yet even the most modest official figures demonstrate the appalling scale of the problem.
At the end of December 2004, a representative of the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation claimed that since the beginning of the counterterrorist operation in 1999, 2,437 persons were abducted, and of those, 347 were released by the law enforcement agents, which suggests that 2,090 of them “disappeared.”16
In another December 2004 statement, Russian Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin said that “disappearances” remain “the main problem in the republic” and that, according to the Chechen Prosecutor’s Office, there were 1,700 abductions in the first eleven months of 2004.17
Chechen President Alu Alkhanov stated in October 2004 that “according to the prosecutor’s data, up to seven people a day… ‘disappear’ in the republic.”18
Despite some official allegations that the number of “disappearances” declined in 2004, on January 16, 2005, Secretary of Economic and Public Security Council of Chechnya Rudnik Dudaev stated that “the past year in Chechnya has shown the greatest spike in the numbers registered of this type of crime.”19 He added that in 2004, about 500 people were abducted, and that the whereabouts of the majority of them are still unknown.
These official statements provide irrefutable evidence that the authorities—both local and federal—are fully aware of the problem of “disappearances” in Chechnya and its actual scale.
The Memorial Human Rights Center, a local human rights organization that has had offices in Chechnya since 2001, maintains a database on “disappearances” in Chechnya that currently contains 1,450 cases documented by its staff since the beginning of the conflict in 1999.20 While the “disappearances” rate has fluctuated over the years, Memorial has found that the rate did not decrease in 2004. In 2004 Memorial’s staff documented the abductions of 396 people, 207 of whom “disappeared.”21 Memorial monitors the situation in approximately one-fourth of the territory of Chechnya, so the actual number of “disappearances” may be several times higher, since circumstantial evidence suggests the situation is similar in areas not monitored by Memorial. Further, the organization emphasizes that the total number for 2004 is likely to increase, since many families report the “disappearance” of their relatives to Memorial months after their detention, after their own efforts to find the detainee have proven futile.
A Systematic Pattern: Perpetrators
Throughout the past four years, Human Rights Watch research has shown that “disappearances” are not random acts of criminality but rather follow a systematic pattern, whereby the victims are either civilians or hors de combat. The Russian government frequently claims that Chechen rebel forces are responsible for “disappearances,” but Human Rights Watch found clear evidence that federal or pro-Moscow Chechen law enforcement, military, or security agents and forces are responsible for the vast majority of these crimes.
In approximately one-third of the forty-three cases recently documented by Human Rights Watch, Russia’s federal forces carried out detentions that resulted in the “disappearance” of the victims. In many of these cases, witnesses indicated that the perpetrators ferried off their victims in armored personnel carriers (APCs), which are used only by Russian forces, spoke unaccented Russian, and, in cases when they did not wear masks, were of Russian appearance as well, all of which demonstrate involvement of Russia’s federal forces.
Some of these detentions were carried out in a manner reminiscent of the notorious sweep operations that happened throughout Chechnya in 2001-2002. For example, on the night of July 3, 2004, a large group of soldiers in two APCs arrived at the village of Assinovskaia in western Chechnya. The soldiers, who witnesses said were drunk, searched the house of the Ilaev family and took away all the males who had been staying in the house that night—Adlan Ilaev (b.1987) Inver Ilaev (b.1982), Rustam Ilaev (b. 1974), and Kazbek Bataev (b. 1983). The soldiers also took money, jewelry, a spare tire, and a car battery that they found in the house. Relatives learned through unofficial sources that the servicemen who carried out the operation were members of “military intelligence unit no. 12,” and that the four missing men had been seen in August 2004 by other detainees at the Khankala military base, located just outside Grozny. Although the local prosecutor’s office opened a criminal case into the abduction, so far the family has received no official information of the detainees’ fate or whereabouts.22
While in previous years, Russian forces were the main perpetrators of “disappearances,” over the last year they seem to have largely been replaced by Chechen security forces. Approximately two-thirds of the “disappearances” documented by Human Rights Watch in 2005 were perpetrated by or with the participation of Chechen security forces, most of which are effectively under the command of Ramzan Kadyrov, the son of the assassinated president of Chechnya.23 In addition to Kadyrov’s forces, there are at least two other Chechen units—the Ministry of Defense special forces battalions Vostok (“East”), under the command of Sulim Yamadaev, and Zapad (“West”), under the command of Said-Magomed Kakiev. According to Memorial, the latter two are also responsible for human rights abuses, including enforced disappearances.24
Recently, Kadyrov publicly denied his units’ involvement in abductions and even threatened to sue human rights groups accusing them of such crimes.25 But in a number of cases documented by Human Rights Watch, the forces carrying out the detentions did not try to conceal their identity as members of Kadyrov’s forces. For example, in December 2004 a group that detained eight relatives of Aslan Maskhadov (see the case description below) openly claimed that they were acting under Ramzan Kadyrov’s orders.26 As the group was leaving the Krasnaia Turbina settlement in Grozny after detaining Maskhadov’s elderly sister, they were stopped at a checkpoint by a military intelligence unit. The commander of the unit later told the woman’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.27 Ramzan Kadyrov, however, publicly denied his forces’ involvement in the abduction.28
In another case, relatives of eighteen-year-old “Suleiman S.” (not his real name), who was taken away from one of the villages in Gudermes region of eastern Chechnya in December 2004, told Human Rights Watch that they had recognized the unmasked men who carried out the detention as representatives of a local unit of Kadyrov’s Security Service.29
In many other cases, witnesses testified that the abductions were perpetrated both at night and during the day by large groups of armed men, arriving in several vehicles (including, on many occasions, silver VAZ-2199 cars, notorious in Chechnya as the cars used by Kadyrov’s forces) and speaking Chechen. It is inconceivable that ordinary criminals or Chechen rebel groups could so freely and openly stage the abduction of hundreds of people without interference of the authorities in areas of Chechnya that have been under Russian control since early 2000. Thus, direct and circumstantial evidence points to forces under Kadyrov’s command and other pro-Moscow Chechen units as the perpetrators of a great many “disappearances.”
Chechen troops seem to enjoy increasingly broad independence in Chechnya, but they are still under the formal control of the federal center, and oversight and responsibility for their actions ultimately lies with the Ministries of Defense and Internal Affairs. Moreover, by recently awarding Ramzan Kadyrov the title “Hero of Russia,” the leadership in Moscow has confirmed that it supports and approves of Kadyrov’s policies and methods in Chechnya.
Several statements by Russian and local Chechen authorities make clear that they are aware of the involvement of federal forces in abductions and “disappearances” in Chechnya, even as officials have often tried to attribute these crimes to Chechen fighters.
In March 2003, Prosecutor of Chechnya Vladimir Kravchenko reported to a closed meeting of military and security forces that he had concluded that of the 565 investigations opened into abductions in 2002, “about 300 cases included data on federal force involvement in ‘disappearances.’”30
Akhmad Kadyrov, the president of Chechnya assassinated in 2004, also repeatedly cited the involvement of federal forces in “disappearances.” In an interview in late March 2003, he stated that in December 2002 and January 2003 those committing abductions were most often people “who drove around in APCs and Urals,” and added, “I don’t think Basaev drives an APC these days, does he?”31
In late January 2005, the commander of the Regional Operational Headquarters in Chechnya maintained that “unfortunately, besides the bandits, representatives of federal forces and law enforcement agencies also take part in the abductions of residents of the republic.”32
Perpetrators of crimes against humanity such as “disappearances” are criminally responsible for their acts. Given the particular seriousness of these crimes, international law sets out special rules of responsibility for them. Thus, criminal responsibility cannot be avoided by invoking that the suspect holds an official position including that of head of state. Military commanders or others with command authority are considered criminally responsible for “disappearances” carried out by their subordinates if they were aware—or should have been aware—of the abuses and failed to take effective measures to prevent them. The exception of due obedience to superior orders is not accepted as a justification for the commission of crimes against humanity. Finally, statutes of limitations do not run in the cases of crimes against humanity and those responsible do not benefit from refuge in third countries.
A Systematic Pattern: Victims
The victims of “disappearances” in Chechnya fall into three main categories described below.
Most victims of “disappearances” in cases documented by Human Rights Watch previously and during our 2005 research trip were males between the ages of eighteen and forty, from a variety of social and educational backgrounds, whom the authorities presumably believed were affiliated with or had information about rebel fighters.33
In a typical case, on the night of November 7, 2004, federal forces arrived on several APCs and UAZ jeeps in the village of Starye Atagi in central Chechnya. The soldiers broke into two houses in the village, and, holding the families at gunpoint, took away twenty-two-year-old Adam Demelkhanov and forty-four-year-old Badrudin Kantaev, without even checking the men’s documents. Both men have not been seen or heard from since then. The families of the men denied their involvement with rebel fighters. Demelkhanov was a second-year student at the Chechen State University, and Kantaev had worked as a carpenter, but during the month before his “disappearance” was at home, ill with serious tuberculosis. A neighbor later told the Demilkhanov family that he had led the forces to the house.34
Recently Russian and Chechen security forces have also increasingly targeted women—a trend that may be linked to the fact that a number of women were among the perpetrators of recent terrorist attacks in Russian cities.
For example, at the dawn of September 12, 2004, a large group of armed men detained thirty-seven-year-old Khalimat Sadulaeva, a mother of four, in her house in the town of Argun, about ten miles east of Grozny. Since then, the family has not received any official information about her whereabouts, although a contact at the Khankala military base told the family he had seen Sadulaeva there in January 2005. The family believes that the Federal Security Service, or FSB, was behind the “disappearance,” since shortly before the detention an FSB official at a local commandant’s office had asked Sadulaeva’s brother about her.35
On October 9, 2004, forty-seven-year-old Zalpa Mintaeva, also a mother of four, was taken from her house in Argun by a group of armed men speaking unaccented Russian. According to witnesses, the armed men first asked about male members of the household, and, having heard that there were no men in the house, told Mintaeva: “Then you’ll go with us, since you are the oldest.” Since then, the relatives have had no information about the woman’s fate or whereabouts despite their tireless efforts to find her.36
Finally, at least twelve people who “disappeared” over the last six months were relatives of rebel fighters. In October 2004, Russia’s prosecutor general suggested the adoption of a new antiterrorist law that would allow “counter-hostage-taking”—detaining rebel fighters’ relatives in order to force them to surrender.37 The initiative was supported by Chechen President Alu Alkhanov, who promised the implementation of such a law, should it be adopted.38 While the prosecutor general subsequently retracted his proposal, made at the State Duma in the aftermath of the Beslan atrocity, he sent a strong signal of approval for such a policy. Several cases documented by Human Rights Watch during the 2005 research trip to Chechnya provide evidence that security forces have adopted a policy of “counter-hostage-taking.”
The most renown “counter-hostage” operation occurred in December 2004, when members of Kadyrov’s forces abducted and “disappeared” eight of Aslan Maskhadov’s relatives.39 One of the eight, Maskhadov’s nephew Movlid Aguev, “reappeared” in January 2005 in the Nozhai-Yurt District Department of Internal Affairs (ROVD), being charged with participation in an “illegal armed formation,” but to date the whereabouts of the other seven remain unknown.40
While initially the authorities denied reports of the “disappearance” of Maskhadov’s relatives, and would not even acknowledge that they were missing, on February 18, 2005, Chechen President Alu Alkhanov confirmed the fact of the abductions. He announced that the prosecutor’s office had launched a criminal investigation, but has not thus far publicized any findings.41
In another illustrative case, on February 25, 2004, a group of armed men, some of whom spoke Russian and some Chechen, took fifty-two-year-old Aset Dombaeva and her fifty-eight-year-old husband from their house in Urus-Martan, in central Chechnya. Before they reached their destination, however, the men pushed Dombaeva’s husband out of the car and drove away. He returned home, but Dombaeva herself has been neither heard from nor seen since then. Several months earlier, in October 2003, Dombaeva’s son, who was, according to the relatives, 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.42
Evidence of torture and killings in custody
Many of those who “disappear” in the custody of Russian or pro-Moscow Chechen forces also become victims of torture and extrajudicial executions. Bodies of people who had been previously taken into custody and then “disappeared” are regularly found in Chechnya. In one of the cases documented by Human Rights Watch in 2004, eight men “disappeared” after they were taken away during a large-scale sweep operation conducted by Russian forces on March 27, 2004, in the village of Duba-Yurt. Two weeks later the bodies of these men, bearing gunshot wounds to their heads and torsos, were found in a ravine fifteen miles northeast of Duba-Yurt. The criminal investigation opened into the case has so far produced no results.43
In a more recent case, a joint group of Russian and Chechen security forces “disappeared” two residents of Grozny in September 2004. The relatives’ search proved futile, but several months later they recognized the men among three bodies found on the outskirts of the city. The bodies bore gunshot wounds, and the victims’ hands were tied with metal wire.44
The testimony of detainees who were eventually released after being held in unacknowledged detention strongly suggests that torture in custody is rampant in Chechnya.
Human Rights Watch interviewed one such former detainee on the day following his release. The young man had been detained at the end of January 2005 by Russian security forces at a so-called mobile checkpoint and held for six days, during which time his relatives actively sought but received no information of his whereabouts. While in detention, the young man was held on the concrete floor of a tiny, unheated cell. He was handcuffed and had a plastic bag over his head the entire time.45 At the time of the interview he was in a state of shock, had difficulty speaking clearly and focusing his eyes; he said that his perpetrators had injected him with an unknown drug. He had bruises on his face and arms, and he could not move several of his fingers, which were heavily swollen. Notably, the family decided not to report the unlawful detention and torture to the authorities—as one of the relatives said, “In whatever state he is, since we found him alive I revoked my appeal [about the ‘disappearance’].”46
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