On 8 August a bomb exploded in the long and crowded underpass at Pushkin Square in the heart of Moscow. Twelve were killed outright and 97 injured.
21 September 2000
On 31 August the following people were arrested in the capital on suspicion of having organised the explosion on Pushkin Square: a 36-year-old Muscovite businessman, Turpal-Ali Djabrailov; his older brother Turpal Djabrailov, a farm-worker from the Sholkovskaya village; his cousin Alimpasha Djabrailov, who lives in Volgograd; and their distant Stavropol relative, Ahmad Djamulayev.
"Certain of those detained have already admitted their involvement and begun to give statements," the TV news calmly announced. Who believes this latest exposure of a "Chechen criminal gang"? You're right, most people believe it.
The longer this continues the further we retreat from reality. We instantly accept the myths that are fed to us, and confuse real life with these virtual worlds. So who are the Djabrailovs? Why exactly were they picked up during the latest round in the struggle against terrorism?
One Family
Turpal-Ali Djabrailov, who the investigators tried to make the chief organiser of the explosion, has lived in Moscow for the past eight years. His reasons are entirely understandable: he could not live in Chechnya because he is totally pro-Russia. He was secretary of the Sholkovskaya district committee of the Komsomol and comes from a family fiercely opposed to Dudayev, Maskhadov and the Wahhabites, not to mention Basayev. Turpal-Ali graduated from the Moscow Management Academy, then tried to set up his own business, with mixed success. On 6 August the family went on a trip to Sholkovskaya. Turpal-Ali took with him his daughters, who are four and eight, and his pregnant wife Tamara, so they could all benefit from the fresh fruits and vegetables from his parents' allotment.
They were met there, alas, by misfortune. Mariam, Turpal-Ali's elder sister, was wasting away. No one could say what the matter was. Their father decided she must be quickly taken to Moscow for examination, and he entrusted Turpal-Ali and his serious, taciturn elder brother, Turpal, to accompany her there. Their cousin Alimpasha was urgently summoned from Volgograd to go with them. (Tamara and the girls would stay for a little while longer in Chechnya.)
They were right to hurry. Mariam proved to be suffering from a rapidly developing cancer of the oesophagus and one of the clinics at the Pirogov Hospital in Moscow agreed to operate. Alimpasha and Turpal decided to remain in the capital until it was clear how successful the operation had been. On 17 August new guests arrived at Turpal-Ali's apartment on Krzhizhanovsky Street. The Djamulayevs, distant relatives from Stavropol, had come to stay: Ahmad, Angelica and their three small children. Their visit was also not a cheerful one. Ahmad and Angelica's seven-year-old daughter, Madina, had begun rapidly to lose her sight. After going to all the ophthalmologists in Stavropol it was decided that they must take her without delay for an operation at one of the eye clinics in Moscow. Ahmad rang up Turpal-Ali. "Of course, I'll help," he replied. How could he refuse such a request?
On 26 August, Tamara and the children returned to Moscow. Five children, including one five-month-old infant, and the six adults squeezed into the small three-room apartment.
Meanwhile, they were all very busy. The Djabrailov menfolk were constantly off to the Pirogov clinic. The Djamulayevs were trying to get their daughter examined by a specialist and return with her to Stavropol for the new school term on I September. Often when he returned in the evening, Turpal-Ali would say: "There seems to be someone following me. There's always someone watching by the entrance to our staircase." No one in the apartment thought any more of it. If you're not guilty you have nothing to fear. To be on the safe side, however, the women sewed up the pockets on the men's clothes so that nothing could be planted on them.
On 31 August, Turpal-Ali and Tamara went to visit his sister Mariam. They parted as they were leaving the clinic: Tamara went home, Turpal-Ali went to work. The older Turpal was also out, looking for medicine for his sister. That night neither came home.
At 11.46 p.m. the doorbell rang. Some people showed Tamara a search warrant. They were all carrying bags. When Tamara asked them to leave the bags outside they at once lost almost all interest in their task. They made a pretence of examining everything, concentrating on family photographs and papers. Finally they went. They took with them all photographs of Turpal-Ali and his diaries, and they also arrested Alimpasha and Ahmad. With no idea what was going on, Tamara and Angelica stayed behind with the five small children.
Arrest
"I didn't know where they were taking me," says Ahmad Djamulayev. "It's the first time I've ever been to Moscow. I don't know a single street here, and couldn't tell where we were. They put Alimpasha in a different car. Then they took me to a cell. I wasn't questioned until the following day. The investigator asked only about Turpal-Ali: Who was he? What does he do? Why had I come to stay with him in Moscow? I told him all about our Madina's illness.
"Then I was ordered to sign a deposition which said I had insulted a policeman, used obscenities and behaved provocatively. I refused outright – nothing of the kind had happened. They threatened me, but I stood firm. Then they told me, 'Get out of here.' I asked for an official document explaining why and where I had been held for several days (I realised it was already night outside). They threatened to give me 15 days in prison for delinquency. I said, 'At least tell me which way to go. I don't know Moscow.'
"The major on duty demanded 10 roubles for the information. I gave it to him and he showed me how to get to the nearest Metro station. When I left the building I saw the sign TVERSKOE POLICE STATION [in central Moscow, not far from Pushkin Square, Tr.]. I got back to the family and discovered that neither Alimpasha nor Turpal-Ali nor Turpal had yet returned home."
Meanwhile Alimpasha was already at police headquarters on Petrovka Street. From the Tverskoe police station where he had been asked every conceivable question about Turpal-Ali, Alimpasha was taken to court. "What for? Why to court?" he asked the policemen. "Because you're a Chechen, that's why," they replied.
At the court building he was ordered to stand outside the door leading into the courtroom: "There's no need for you in there." A few minutes later they said: "That's it. You've been sentenced." And took him back to Petrovka Street, to a new cell.
"Do you know under what Article of the Criminal Code you were convicted?" I ask.
"No, they didn't say."
"Didn't they give you some document? For example, the court's decision? So that you could appeal?"
"No."
"Did they provide you with a lawyer? Did you demand one?"
"No."
Alimpasha is a very simple, straightforward fellow. He did not demand anything from anyone. When he had been detained for 72 hours he was taken to the prison gates at 2 a.m. "Get out," they told him.
When Alimpasha got back to the Djabrailovs Ahmad asked him: "At the police station did you hear the voice of that Galya who came round here a few times? I heard her outside the door."
"I even saw her there," replied Alimpasha. "I was turned to face the wall in the corridor. She couldn't see my face and was talking to the policemen, as though she was one of them, not someone they'd arrested."
The men agreed this could hardly be a coincidence. But I'll return to Galya in a moment. In the meantime someone rang up Tamara and, after introducing himself as a legal-aid lawyer, informed her that Turpal-Ali had been arrested on 31 August and found to have a grenade in his trouser pocket. He was accused of organising the explosion on Pushkin Square.
A little time later there was news of his brother, Turpal. They had also found a grenade on him, but in his case, interestingly enough, it was tucked into his waistband. Just imagine: a Chechen farm-worker, whom life has thoroughly taught to fear anyone in uniform, strides through the very centre of Moscow with a grenade bulging under his shirt while policemen stand all around.
Turpal-Ali's wife had sewn up his jacket pockets, but could not bring herself to spoil his trousers. She had sewn up every one of her brother-in-law Turpal's pockets. Hence the grenade under his shirt and conviction under Article 222:2, illegal acquisition, retention etc. of explosive substances. At best he could expect from two to four years imprisonment.
How did it happen? A simple, mundane and entirely contemporary event. Certain men, who did not introduce themselves, made the brothers face the wall with their hands behind their backs, and then put handcuffs on them. Fifteen minutes later witnesses were brought in to confirm that one had a grenade in his pocket, the other had one tucked into his waistband.
Don't imagine that the brothers were arrested together. They were in quite different places, but the same primitive and well-worn procedure was applied to both. Their arrest was the result of "active measures" and they were then labelled members of a "criminal gang". Indeed, they had been followed for several days (Turpal-Ali was right about that).
How convincing were the proofs that they had organised the explosion? Merely the grenades, and nothing else? Of course not.
Our Countrywoman
Galina Almazova is very well known among refugees in Moscow. At least, almost all those from Grozny and from Chechnya know her. She likes to hang about the office of the Civic Assistance Committee, the human rights organisation that helps those who have nowhere to stay and nothing to live on. She strolls down the queue there, making acquaintances and chatting to people. And she tells them all that she's "one of them", she herself is from Grozny.
Once acquainted, Galina Alrnazova frequently offers her help. She has a generous nature and appears entirely good-hearted, though, it must be admitted, a little pushy. There's another thing about her, and it's important: she never looks you in the eye. It's a noticeable trait.
This is the same Galya who Alimpasha and Ahmad saw and heard when they were each being held in different corners at the Tverskoe police station. She was in a lively discussion about something or other with the policemen, and talked to them as an equal.
It was Tamara's sister, Rosa Magomedova, who had brought Galya to their apartment. Rosa was director of the school in Chervlyonnaya village, in northern Chechnya, and taught history there. Now she rents one room in a town just outside Moscow and sells newspapers to earn a living since she can't return home. Her husband, Islam, used to be a policeman in the Sholkovskaya district police department and was twice held hostage because of his profession. The first time was under Dudayev, before the 1994–6 war, because he was someone who had "served Russia". The second time was in August 1996, as soon as the army left Chechnya, because he had "been with the federal troops".
Islam and Rosa got to know Galya in the queue at the Civic Assistance office. On learning their story, Galya was quick to ask if they, or anyone they knew, required weapons to defend themselves? She could help with this, she suggested. Later it became clear that Galya had "aided" many of her "fellow citizens from Chechnya" in Moscow in this way. Subsequently these people found themselves locked up for the illegal acquisition and possession of arms and explosives.
"I saw her at the fiat a couple of times," says Ahmad Djamulayev. " She was very brazen. She came round when Turpal-Ali was not in and introduced herself to me as his close acquaintance. She was ferreting about the shelves all the time, and wandering from one room to another. I even had to say to her: 'Don't take offence, but my wife will follow you around the flat until Turpal-Ali returns from work.' And Angelica walked behind her. I was there when Turpal-Ali told her not to come round again."
Tamara gives a deep sigh: "How much he did to help that Galya! I warned him, 'She's not a good person.' But he told me, 'She's one of us, she's also having a hard time of it, and we must help.' The investigator at the prosecutor's office was right when he said to me: 'Don't be kind to people and you won't be disappointed'."
Tamara will soon give birth. She is worn out by all these events and is not feeling well. But when the Moscow city prosecutor's office called her in for questioning she went immediately.
It was just as well that she did. The case against her menfolk, it turned out, was based on a denunciation provided by Galya, their acquaintance from Chechnya. In mid-August Galya was arrested in possession of a weapon. She was bringing it from Nazran to Moscow: that was her money-making business. Not for the first time, evidently, she bribed her way out of a charge by offering to provide the investigators with "information": the "entire Djabrailov family" had gathered in Moscow "to organise explosions". That was why Galya visited the apartment when Turpal-Ali was out, asking who everyone was, where they came from and why they were in Moscow.
The investigator was reassuring. He told Tamara: "We'll withdraw the explosion charge against your husband. It's clear it won't stick and that we've got the wrong person." But the grenade that was planted on him, well, that would be more difficult. If the police dismissed that charge, after all, it would be an admission of what they'd done. No one could agree to that, especially to save a Chechen. It's a simple and very contemporary tale.
Tamara has strictly forbidden her little four-year-old daughter Amina, who goes to kindergarten, to tell anyone that her father is in prison. The little girl finally gets accustomed to me, a new person in the apartment. Quietly she starts telling me what is most on her mind, how she is going to save her Daddy. The grown-ups explain that Amina. talks about this almost all the time now:
"I'll take him by the hand and we'll run away."
"Where to?"
"Far, far away . . ."
The Djabrailovs are the victims of a PR campaign by the State. All the loathsome business with their "countrywoman from Grozny" is merely the result. Who would make use of Galina Almazova's "talents" if this current ethnic obsession in our attitudes had not been encouraged? She would be in prison herself. But society is hungry for "bad" Chechens.
It's a very poor game to play, because it results in a stalemate. We are already half-way to another country, to the land of "supposedly". Supposedly there is a struggle against terrorism. It is intense, but it bears no results. Supposedly we now have strong leadership. We ourselves are responsible for that. And supposedly we are now a united nation. Supposedly.
MOSCOW
*
Two months later, Rear-Admiral German Ugryumov, deputy head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), told the Izvestiya daily (21 December) that "as of now" there was "not a single major terrorist act for which the main perpetrators have not been identified". Not all those responsible had been detained, he admitted; search warrants had been issued for the rest.
In late January 2001, when the FSB took over direction of the operation in Chechnya from the army, Ugryumov, who also heads the FSB's Second Section [defence of the constitutional order and anti-terrorism), was put directly in charge of the anti-terrorist campaign in the North Caucasus.