Resident of Chechnya kidnapped several months ago announced to be liquidated militant

Employees of Chechen power agencies have handed over the body of a 21-year-old citizen of the city of Argun to his relatives. He was kidnapped by armed persons several months ago after he had been released from a militia station. The militia asserts that the young man was killed in the recent armed clash with members of the armed underground. However, human rights activists and his relatives are sure that he fell victim of an extrajudicial execution.

The story of Alikhan Markuev, 21, a resident of Argun, became broadly known due to human rights activists and journalists of the "Novaya Gazeta". In the end of August, the paper published an article about the fate of former militant Alikhan Markuev.

The young man, who was amnestied in 2008, this summer became an object of steadfast attention of militiamen. He was repeatedly summoned to interrogations, tortured and beaten, and at night on August 2, after being released from the militia building in Argun, Alikhan was kidnapped by a group of armed persons in masquerade masks. A week ago, law enforcers told his relatives that Alikhan Markuev was killed in a skirmish that took place in the Shali District.

"In 2007, Alikhan Markuev, together with his several friends, went to the forest and joined militants. His family got under pressure. The Argun authorities even tried to violently move the militants' families out of the city. Power agents rushed into their homes, threatened with execution and demanded to return children home. Last year, they came back. One of the republic's TV channels gave a special report, where Ibragim Temirbaev, head of administration of Argun, solemnly guaranteed safety to Alikhan Markuev. As far as I know, after his return from the forest he worked at different construction sites and lived a normal life. Power agents had no claims to him," one of Chechen human rights activists, familiar with this case, told the "Caucasian Knot".

According to his story, power agents started persecuting Alikhan this summer, after several terrorists-suicide bombers blew themselves up in Grozny and other cities. One of them was Ruslan Mukhadiev, a native of Argun, who went to join militants in summer of 2007 together with Markuev.