HRC "Memorial": 13 persons disappeared in Chechnya in 2008

In 2008, 42 persons were kidnapped in Chechnya, of them 13 disappeared without any traces. These are the updated monitoring results of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", reported today by Dmitri Grushkin, a member of the Centre's Board, to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The "Memorial" knows that 20 persons out of 42 kidnapping victims of 2008 were released or bought out for ransom, while four persons were found murdered. Another five were detected at pre-trial detention facilities as suspects of committing crimes.

In 2008, the count of kidnappings went up as compared with 2007, when, according to the HRC "Memorial", 35 persons were kidnapped. Moreover, already this year, in 2009, according to the data of the monitoring held by human rights activists, five persons were kidnapped. Of them three were released or bought out, the fate of other two is unknown.

The growth of the number of kidnappings is observed in the end of 2008 and start of 2009. According to Mr Grushkin, this is typical for this season: "When the 'green' season ends (i.e., when leaves fall down from trees, and it is difficult for militants to hide in the woods, - note of the "Caucasian Knot"), power agencies become more active in revealing members of illegal armed formations (IAFs)."

However, there is another possible reason. "After the last 'alternative' power agencies disappeared in 2008, in particular, battalions 'Vostok' (East) and 'Zapad' (West), and since federal power agencies have now poor influence in Chechnya, the influence of the Republic's law enforcement bodies has strengthened. It's rather probable that the growth of kidnappings is an example of 'over-efforts' of local power agents, who have now received absolute power," Dmitri Grushkin made his comments.

"Judging by the facts at disposal of the HRC 'Memorial', these particular agencies are responsible for kidnappings," the human rights activist asserts. "Although, we don't know for sure, since in fact kidnappers never present their IDs and have no emblems on their uniform. But, for example, we possess data that one of the kidnappings this January was committed by people with galloons of the patrol-sentry militia regiment."

Dmitri Grushkin remarks that the kidnapped persons, as a rule, had in the past direct or indirect attitude to IAFs, or are militants' relatives.

The source has added that the "Memorial" does not have the whole trustworthy information, since its monitoring fails to cover the whole territory of Chechnya. Therefore, it is quite probably that more people disappear than the human rights organization manages to find out.