Persons, killed in special operation in Chechnya, were earlier kidnapped by power agents, relatives assert

Residents of Chechnya, who were declared by the authorities as killed during a special operation, were earlier kidnapped Ali Aidamirov, Khalid Dushaev, and Israil Adizov. This was reported by the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" with reference to relatives of the killed persons.

According to the "Memorial", "on June 24, 2011, three young men Ali Aidamirov, Khalid Dushaev, and Israil Adizov spent the entire day in a water park. In the evening, when they came out and waited for their friend, who agreed to drive them home, they were approached by representatives of unidentified power agency, who demanded to present documents. Ali and Khalid had no passports with them. Then, the unidentified power agents demanded that all three young men went with them."

"At that moment, a group of men was approached by police officers from the OVD (Interior Division) of the Gudermes District. One of them said that Israil was his neighbour and asked the power agents to let young men go with them to the police station in Gudermes. The power agents were allowed their colleagues from Gudermes to take Israil with him; however, they drove Ali and Khalid away to some unknown destination. In the same evening, Israil was released," the HRC has noted.

However, according to relatives, on June 26, 2011, unidentified armed power agents kidnapped him and drove away to some unknown destination.

"The Gudermes inter-district investigatory division of the Investigatory Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) for Chechnya initiated criminal cases on the fact of kidnapping of Adizov, Aidamirov and Dushaev. Their relatives report on witnesses of the kidnapping; meanwhile, the investigation was not duly conducted, and the whereabouts of the kidnapped men remained unknown till January 10, 2012," the "Memorial" reports.

On that day, the investigator asked the relatives of the kidnapped men to visit the Grozny morgue to identify bodies. The bodies were brought after the major armed clash, which occurred between local power agents and militants on January 8 in the Vedeno District of Chechnya," the Human Rights Centre reports.

According to the "Memorial", the relatives are convinced that their sons were not militants and that they were not killed in battle. The bodies are not given out to the relatives.

The "Caucasian Knot" reported that yet in January 10, head on of the Chechen NGOs dropped a hint of some doubts about the results of the special operation in the Vedeno District.

"With regard to that special operation, I am perplexed by the fact that initially, it was reported on one, then about three, and now five killed militants. That is, losses of militants grew in proportion to losses of power agents, which originally were also clearly underestimated," he stated.