Eyewitnesses: militants spent night in the house of Ilaev brothers

The kidnapping of Ilaev brothers in Pervomaiskoe village was preceded by a skirmish between power agents with two supposed militants, some of the villagers assert.

"I can't say anything bad about Adkhan or Alvi (Ilaev), however, as far as I know, on that night two persons spent the night in their house. When militia or militaries surrounded the house, those two persons opened fire and managed to escape. There was a skirmish there, although, as far as I know, without any casualties and victims among either parties," said Aldan, a resident of Pervomaiskoe village.

According to another native of the village, it is extremely difficult to speak about particular details of the events at night on December 1. "The problem is that it all happened late at night. There was some shooting, and naturally, nobody was let to approach the surrounded house. Now many people say that there were two unknown men in Ilaevs' house; most likely, the militaries tried to detain them, but the men had managed to escape. Now it's practically impossible to check all this. But I think that even if someone had really been in that house, it was not a reason at all to capture and subsequently murder Adkhan and Alvi," said their fellow villager Hasan.

"Should they have resisted with arms in hands, then everything was clear. But the matter of fact is that the Ilaevs were seized in their own house, taken by unknown persons to some unknown place; and on the following it was announced that they were militants and killed at the attempt of detention, since, allegedly, Adkhan and Alvi had rendered armed resistance," he added.

"The most terrible thing in this case, in my opinion, is that one of the assassinated brothers had a child born on that very day. As far as I know, the brothers' father is now in Mecca where he went in the end of November to make his Hajj. Imagine his feelings to know that his sons were killed and declared to be militants," said Hasan.