May 21, 2001
The past week has brought striking evidence of how enthusiastically we have got stuck into bringing back the Brezhnev era.
The influential Human Rights Watch group timed publication of its report about just one of the hundreds of civilian mass graves in Chechnya to coincide with the arrival in Moscow of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in an attempt to demand support from the international community, and in particular, of course, from the United Nations, for a proper inquiry. A great barrage of irate Kremlin comment, refutation and repudiation ensued.
Why were the state authorities squirming so nervously on their chairs, as if someone had put drawing pins on them? Can Secretary-General Annan’s visit be seen as a drawing pin? And why, finally, did the UN’s top diplomat remain silent – disgracefully so for someone in his position – when at least some human sympathy was called for, and a few words, even if couched in diplomatic terms, at least referring to the need to rein in the ongoing war crimes in Chechnya?
There is no doubt that we have observed the conclusion of a business deal on a podium of human bones. It was the signing of a contract between two major players, the Kremlin and the most senior official of the United Nations. So why all the edginess? Why this nervous burst of commentary from Putin’s court liars? It was all perfectly logical: the Russian side was not completely sure it had the upper hand and was very concerned that in the wake of the Human Rights Watch report the deal might be called off at the last moment.
But first things first. Let us look at the main points of the report, a highly detailed, almost forensic document about a mass grave discovered in January–February this year not far from Grozny and just across the road from Khankala, the main Russian military base in Chechnya. A total of 51 bodies were unearthed, and the way the mass grave was identified is entirely typical. The information about the first of the bodies, that of Adam Chimayev who disappeared on December 3, 2000, was obtained by the Chimayev family after a commercial deal: the relatives paid an officer who had been guarding Adam while he was held at the military base the rouble equivalent of $3,000 for information about the location of the burial site. After payment had been made, the family was allowed to collect the body.
The news rapidly spread through Chechnya, and the relatives of other Chechens who had vanished without trace flooded into Dachnoye. As a result 19 bodies were identified, leaving 34 unidentified. On March 10, 2001, without warning, the unidentified bodies were reburied by military personnel, who failed to retain biological specimens as is required in such cases. In its report, Human Rights Watch cites numerous accounts by witnesses about the behaviour of the Prosecutor’s Office and the relevant Russian government and presidential institutions at that time. It characterises it as “unsatisfactory.”
In essence, the behaviour of the Russian authorities proved that they wanted no investigation of the mass grave; they flatly denied it was anything to do with military personnel. But the human rights activists have also put the international community on notice for turning a blind eye to the Dachnoye scandal. The USA, the European Union, the European Parliament and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in effect did everything they could to hush the story up. Alvaro Gil-Robles, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, who was flying on February 27–29 on an inspection tour of Chechnya immediately after the discovery of the graves, did not even visit Dachnoye to meet the relatives of those who had been identified.
The report concludes that it is essential for the inquiry into the mass grave to be resumed, and that a special international commission should be created as a matter of urgency. Its first task will be to exhume the 34 hastily reburied unidentified bodies under the supervision of the International Red Cross, the OSCE Support Group, experts from the Council of Europe, and representatives of the UN Commission on Human Rights.
In order to understand what was behind the reactions of the Kremlin and Secretary-General Annan to all this, let us take a look at what is going on in the United Nations in spring 2001, primarily as regards Kofi Annan himself. We need to establish whether it is in principle possible to have an international protectorate in Chechnya under the aegis of the United Nations, and what the powers of the Secretary-General are.
It is worth mentioning that before anything was heard of the Human Rights Watch report, or any scandal had been raised in relation to it, Novaya gazeta was already trying to get answers to these questions in New York and, moreover, directly from UN headquarters. We were doing so in highly diplomatic, terribly behind-the-scenes centers of power, namely, the Security Council’s lounge where so-called international humanitarian policy is cooked up. Needless to say, Novaya gazeta’s correspondent was conducted to this privileged enclave, which is shielded from prying eyes, and introduced to the right people “unofficially.” I am immensely grateful to the person who acceded to my request, because he knew exactly the questions I wanted to raise and the real purpose of my raid on the Security Council: to discover what the United Nations could do to resolve the dreadful crisis in Chechnya.
My view, arrived at after discussing dozens of approaches to a peaceful settlement of the conflict with hundreds of people living in Chechnya – ordinary people and people in various official positions, people in Grozny and in villages, in the valleys and the mountains – is clear: given the way the situation has evolved up to the present, it is impossible to get by without an international protectorate. Third-party involvement is imperative. It is needed to temporarily separate the parties to the conflict, and today these parties are not by any means the resistance fighters and federal forces, as official Kremlin propaganda would have us believe. The conflict is between the federals and the civilian population. Intervention is needed to cool passions as far as possible, and to move towards a softening of positions.
But let us return to the UN in Manhattan. Most of the UN Security Council diplomats I questioned agreed that it would be practically impossible to get a resolution passed. Before the Security Council can mandate peacekeeping troops, the consent of both sides in a conflict must be obtained. In this case, the civilian population of Chechnya, daily bearing the brunt of violations of their human rights, cannot be recognised under UN definitions as such a party to a conflict. As for obtaining the consent of the Russian Government, that is out of the question.
There is, however, another approach for obtaining a UN mandate for peace enforcement, and it was under this protocol that events in Iraq and Yugoslavia proceeded, which later entailed major unpleasantness for the United States when it lost its place on the UN Commission on Human Rights. If we could have the Chechen crisis considered in terms of peace enforcement, the Security Council diplomats assured me, there would be no need to obtain the consent of the parties to the conflict.
But Iraq and Yugoslavia are not Russia. They are only members of the United Nations, while Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council and holds a veto. A decision under Article 7 [which covers crimes against humanity] is taken by the Security Council, and this meant that while such proposals could be introduced, the result, after protracted discussion, would be a foregone conclusion dependent on the viewpoint of the Russian Government. Most of the diplomats advised me that UN peacekeeping in Chechnya was out of the question, and that had to be faced as a given fact. The only means of influencing the situation and finding a way out of the deadlock would be the personal intervention of the Secretary-General of the UN.
So then we turned to Kofi Annan. Could we pin our hopes on him? Back then, in late April, Security Council diplomats already foresaw events taking the turn we have seen in Moscow in the last last few days: Kofi Annan, they felt, turns a blind eye to the human rights situation in Chechnya and, accordingly, also to the Human Rights Watch report. These, incidentally, were high-ranking diplomats working immediately under Kofi Annan, and they assured me that today he does not want to focus on the suffering in a tiny spot on the planet which is situated on the territory of the Russian Federation. After all, his prospects of getting a second term as Secretary-General are nil without Russia’s help.
What does all this add up to? There are occasions in life when everybody distances themselves from you. When the going gets really tough, even close friends slip away. You find you have no real allies, so you just have to go it alone. This is exactly what is happening with Chechnya: we must stop the war ourselves. Nobody is going to help us. Remember, we have been here before. It was the tacit willingness of the international community not to challenge the authenticity of the Chernokozovo “model” pre-trial detention facility in Chechnya, which gradually acquired the status of a sham Potemkin Village for receiving international VIPs, that led to later disgraceful developments. By the dozen, and later in their hundreds, people began not to be imprisoned but simply to disappear, after which their bodies might be found only by chance, buried in unspeakable circumstances.
Even if Moscow gives in to the pressure from Human Rights Watch and agrees to resume the inquiry into the mass grave in Dachnoye, it too will go the way of Chernokozovo. No matter how obscene it may sound, Dachnoye would become a model mass grave. The state authorities would find a way to wriggle off the hook. Before you knew it, foreign journalists and parliamentarians would be transported in droves to visit Dachnoye. That would be the end result of the report Human Rights Watch produced with the intention of putting pressure on the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Sad but true.
Meanwhile, what is going on in Chechnya? More of the same: a wave of atrocities, lies and terror. There are rumors that on May 13 in Urus Martan, Arbi Barayev himself – a field commander and brutal murderer – was detained but released the same day by the Commandant of the Urus Martan District, citing orders from his superiors. On May 14, also in Urus Martan, an unmarked infantry fighting vehicle drove up to the home of the Bardukayev family. Six men had been taken from this house during a security sweep in January. Three were released shortly afterwards, but for almost half a year the family knew nothing about the fate of the others. The officer who climbed down from the vehicle, using exactly the same methods as Arbi Barayev (you remember the severed heads of Western engineers lying in the snow?), showed photographs of the bodies of the Bardukayev brothers to their relatives, who confirmed their identity. The officer demanded $1,500 to disclose where they were buried. Exactly the same routine as with the body of Adam Chimayev in Dachnoye. Only here fewer bodies were involved, so the price was lower: not $3,000, only $1,500.
May 21, 2001
Man as he is rarely suits us. Like life itself. You keep wanting to substitute what you would like to believe for reality and either view it through rose-tinted spectacles or give it horns and a tail, depending on your personal inclinations.
Aslan Maskhadov today is a virtual person. He is neither really there, nor not there. Society has seen and heard nothing of him for a long time, so when the President of independent Ichkeria surfaces out of the blue with something to say, the majority take exception. The Maskhadov of late May 2001 is very different from the Maskhadov of the beginning of the war, let alone the President of Chechnya in 1997–8. Today he is an irreversibly exhausted, ageing officer, boxed into a corner, who understands a lot but can’t do much about it. He no longer has all the information at his fingertips and his conclusions tend to be vague. He is trying to retain his place in the history of his people but, tragically, does not know how to go about it. He is a fugitive from his former self.
But then, so are we all, we members of society who want our information objective. Some are keen to defend today’s Maskhadov, others to act as his prosecutors. The former paint him in rosy colors, while the latter portray him with scary horns; what they should do is just listen and take in everything he says in order to know the real situation, to understand what “they” on the other side are thinking, and how deep the gulf between us is.
As you may have guessed, there has been a debate at Novaya gazeta about whether this interview could or should be published. What people wanted to believe outweighed reality, and the text was emasculated. It was argued on the one hand that Maskhadov does himself no favors in the interview and we don’t want to make things worse for him by publishing it.
On the other hand the interview was seen as straightforward mischief-making by both interviewer and interviewee, because publication would lead immediately to sanctions from the state authorities on the grounds of seditious libel. Russia’s leaders have got so carried away by their own black propaganda, the argument went, that they no longer want to know the true situation in Chechnya and prefer to stick with the “Maskhadov with horns” invented by their own propaganda.
It was decided that the following paragraph should be cut from the interview. We offer it here instead, outside the interview, along with comments which would have been impractical within the context of the interview itself.
Neither Chechens nor the Chechen leaders would ever give orders, no matter what political benefit it might bring, to shoot their own citizens. It is contrary to our whole way of thinking, especially in our own village, especially our own relatives. That is the sort of thing you in Russia are capable of. We are not. As an excuse for military aggression, or in order to dub someone a terrorist, you in Russia can calmly give orders to blow up multi-storey apartment blocks full of your own citizens or commit all manner of terrorist acts in crowded places. These are timed to take place immediately before the opening of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, sessions of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and so on. Our culture is completely opposed to that sort of thing. The Chechen President does not wage war against his own people; neither does he wage war against the women and children of Russia. It is the President of the Russian Federation who indulges in that sort of thing, and takes satisfaction from it. Yes, satisfaction. We are fighting aggressors, mercenaries, contract soldiers, your General Shamanovs [accused of war crimes] and Colonel Budanovs [a rapist and murderer, supported by Shamanov but convicted after a long press campaign]. Those are the people we are fighting, and will continue to fight until we have destroyed them without pity.
What is this? Typical war paranoia? Maskhadov is profoundly affected by this, perhaps to the exclusion of all else. The censored paragraph only emphasises, however, the tragic nature of a situation where, on the other side of the conflict, the federals are no less paranoid in their determination to believe Maskhadov is the devil incarnate. Meanwhile, what is to become of those caught in the crossfire? The tragedy of Chechnya grinds on, and until we stop lying we are all complicit in the persecution of the guiltless.
[The agreed text of the interview with Aslan Maskhadov now follows:]
May 28, 2001
Our country is limping into the third successive summer of the Second Chechen War. There are thousands of victims on both sides, and perhaps one million damaged souls. Why is this war lasting so long? Are we really to believe that a large, well-equipped army continues to pursue a dozen field commanders through little Chechnya and for some reason can’t catch them? With the coming of spring the television brainwashing will start up once again, explaining how it is “leaf cover” which is the main obstacle to bringing the war to a victorious conclusion. As a country we have plainly lost our way.
Here we offer the viewpoint of the other side: an interview with Aslan Maskhadov, given at a time when every highly placed official in Moscow would claim it was impossible to meet him, in the very area where “everything is under control.” That is, in the very thick of the federal troops’ fortified positions.
What do you think comes next? How can the war be ended?
We are also wondering about this. Where do we go from here? How do we get out of the current stalemate? After all, we too recognise that there is a stalemate, and that the war is just useless, senseless slaughtering of each other – murder carried out with exceptional brutality, fuelled by extraordinary hatred.
There is no point trying to pretend that the military operation has ended, let alone been brought to a successful conclusion, and that now the FSB under the leadership of Patrushev will proceed to catch terrorists. That is laughable. The outcome of the military operation is that Marshal Sergeyev, the Russian Minister of Defence, has been removed from his post. Victors are not sacked, they are promoted.
Russia has lost the war. That much is clear even to the hawks in the Kremlin and to Russia’s leaders. The victorious blitzkrieg which the generals promised Putin has not come to pass. The Russian Army is exhausted, demoralised and disintegrating.
I have worn a soldier’s uniform for 25 years. I served in the Soviet Army, helped raise its fighting capability, was proud of it, and put my soul into it. I too wonder where all these psychopathic Kvashnins [General, Chief of GHQ] and Budanovs in this Army – which, at one time, we were all proud of – have come from. Where have all the criminals who serve in it appeared from? The labor camps? Are they contract soldiers? Are they looters?
Well, where have they come from?
An enormous military machine is now beyond the control of its generals. So what is to be done? Moscow has started flirting with “good” Chechen field commanders and “bad” Chechen field commanders, and is openly talking about who it is prepared to conduct negotiations with and who it isn’t. It is recruiting to its ranks puppets and traitors to their country.
From the experience of the last Chechen War we know that this is a dead end. Remember the incident with the former Minister of State Security, Geriskhanov. Anybody, no matter how great a celebrity he might be, commanding officer or field commander, has only to cross the line of what is permissible to find his status has changed to that of a traitor. He crosses that line today, and tomorrow he finds he has no one behind him, he is on his own. When that happens the traitor is no longer any use to anybody. Neither to us nor to our opponents.
How do you regard the possibility of peace negotiations conducted by the federal side with Field Commander Gelayev? You must know that recently the federal side has been publicising precisely such negotiations. Presidential Representative Victor Kazantsev made an announcement about it.
Gelayev, you say? Well, what of him? Anybody, including Gelayev, who oversteps the mark of the permissible must expect the same fate as befell Geriskhanov. For the Chechen side it is quite clear the war needs to be stopped. Chechens do not need it – it is mainly civilians who are being killed – but we are also aware of what awaits our people if we do not persist, if we give in, if we are brought to our knees. One Russian general, I do not know his name, said, “We need to destroy them all, down to the five-year-olds, then enclose them behind barbed wire and re-educate them.” I have heard other things said: “We should pass them all through filtration points, from ten to sixty years old.” That is, break everyone’s ribs and cripple everybody. Even “intellectual” people have said, “We need to build a Great Wall of China along the Baku highway.”
That is the fate facing my people. God forbid that we should lose. In order to save our people from genocide our only option is to defend ourselves. Only that. And defend ourselves we shall.
Who, in your view, is the principal enemy of peace negotiations between you and the federal side? Are negotiations possible at all? What might they yield?
My representatives are constantly putting out feelers to the Russian leaders, to the top officials, and my people tell them, “There’s been enough fighting. It’s time to sit down at the negotiating table.” Immediately we hear triumphalist yelling: “What do you mean negotiations?! Negotiations spell political death for us! How could we explain it to our people?” and so on.
My representatives then say, “But the war has to be stopped. Do you not realize that?” They reply, “Yes, the war needs to be stopped.” And the next question is, “But how?”
… In my view the overriding problem is that there is no official in the Kremlin we can talk to soberly and reasonably. Not even about the interests of Russia, about things that are primarily of benefit to Russia. You need to understand, there is nobody there to negotiate with!
But do you believe that negotiations are nevertheless possible? Or has the train already left the station and all that remains is for you to fight it out with each other to the bitter end?
Negotiations are both possible and inevitable. Wars are ended only by negotiation, and I am sure that is how this war will be ended too. Our proposals for a peace settlement are clear to everybody: sit down at the negotiating table without any preconditions and there, at the table, decide what to do next, how to improve relations. I believe it is crucial to found our mutual relations on the basis of the Peace Treaty signed on May 12, 1997. The second point in it states, “Mutual relations between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic will be built on the universal norms and principles of international law.” That is the most important requirement. Lack of clarity about mutual relations is the cause and excuse for all sorts of provocations and wars.
This defines my approach to the supposed negotiations and contacts with Nemtsov [Leader of the Union of Right Forces political faction]. I know nothing about them. I have given no authorisation for them to anybody for the very good reason that you cannot conduct negotiations with Nemtsov if he would like to build a Great Wall of China on the Baku highway.
What do you know about the causes of the recent much-publicised murder of Adam Deniev in Avtury? From early spring this year Deniev was presenting himself as the Deputy Head of Akhmat-hadji Kadyrov’s Chechen Administration, but after his death even members of the personnel department of the Administration were unable to find documentation of any such appointment.
I have no idea whose deputy Deniev was supposed to be among that lot. It is of no interest to us. The first possibility that comes to mind is that, realising the war is already lost, the Russian intelligence services are doing away with unwanted witnesses, as happened in the last war.
Another possibility: Deniev had 11 blood feud enemies in his native village of Avtury alone. They were likely to take revenge on him at any moment.
The Chechen side had no particular need of Deniev’s murder, although our intelligence services have him listed as a traitor and for that he would at some point have had to stand trial before a sharia court, in accordance with the Criminal Code of the Chechen Republic.
I see no sense in shooting at these people from the shadows or carrying out terrorist attacks on them. As regards the financial dimension, which the Kremlin has been making great play of, I have no knowledge that Deniev was preventing financial resources reaching our side.
One other recent accusation levelled against you is that you were involved in the brutal murder of a shepherd and three of his assistants on April 17 in your native village of Alleroy in Kurchaloy District.
I did receive operational intelligence that a reconnaissance group of Russian troops brutally murdered a shepherd and his three assistants in broad daylight on April 17, 2001 in Alleroy. They were murdered between noon and 4:00 p.m. hours beside the ravine where their bodies were discovered, and there were numerous prints in the mud from soldiers’ boots and gumboots. It appears that before they were shot they were forced to lie face down on the ground, and afterwards shot once more in the head.
The names of the murder victims are Khozhakhmed Alsultanov, a shepherd, 44, the brother of Saidakhmet Alsultanov who was a bodyguard of the President of Chechnya assassinated in 1998; Khozhakhmed’s son, Islam; and two nephews, Shamkhan and Shakhid Umarkhadzhiev.
Our preliminary investigation has revealed that on the afternoon of April 17 Kadyrov’s elder brother-in-law was celebrating a housewarming. Kadyrov also attended, with numerous bodyguards. Russian reconnaissance troops were observed in the south-east and north-east outskirts of the village and we imagine that the group which shot the shepherds did so at that time.
July 28, 2003
There were few people in Court 3 of Bow Street Magistrates Court, London on the morning of July 24, 2003. Although hearings were resuming in the case of The Government of the Russian Federation versus Akhmed Zakayev, the Russian side had already indicated that the day would be of little interest, as they always do when there is to be cross-questioning of a witness for Zakayev’s defence. This time there was a noticeable lack of members of our Prosecutor-General’s Office, who are usually only too eager to come to London. Sergey Fridinsky, Deputy Public Prosecutor for the Southern Federal Region, charged with ensuring the extradition of Maskhadov’s Special Representative, had decided not to fly in. Igor Mednik, Investigator of the Southern District Prosecutor’s Office and second-in-command of the Zakayev case, had also decided to ignore Zakayev’s defence witnesses.
How unwise. Mednik and Fridinsky would have been surprised to discover that a witness for the prosecution, a supposed victim of Zakayev, was instead appearing before Judge Timothy Workman as a witness for Zakayev’s defence. In the case materials sent from Moscow and prepared by Investigator Mednik, Duk-Vakha Dushuyev figures as Zakayev’s former bodyguard, who in December 2002 testified that in January 1996, on the orders of the individual whose extradition is sought, his other bodyguards had taken hostage two Orthodox priests, in Chechnya on a peacekeeping mission, in order to hold them to ransom. These were Father Anatoly Chistousov, who subsequently died in captivity, and Father Sergius Zhigulin, whose monastic name is Father Philip and from whom the court had already heard evidence.
Akhmed Zakayev, born 1959 in Kazakhstan, graduated from the Department of Choreography of the Grozny College of Culture and Enlightenment and the Voronezh State Institute of Arts. From 1981 to 1990, actor with the Khanpasha Nuradilov Grozny Drama Theatre.
From 1991, Chairman of the Union of Theatre Workers of Chechnya and Board Member of the UTW of Russia.
From 1994, Minister of Culture of Chechnya.
From 1995, from the beginning of the First Chechen War, Commander of the Urus Martan Front. Subsequently Brigadier-General, Aide to the President of Ichkeria for National Security, member of the delegation preparing the Khasavyurt Agreements [which ended the First Chechen War in 1996].
Stood in 1997 for the presidency of Chechnya.
From 1998, Deputy Prime Minister. From the start of the Second Chechen War, commander of a special operations brigade.
In March 2000, wounded and evacuated from Chechnya.
From 2001, Special Representative of President Aslan Maskhadov.
A request to Interpol for Zakayev’s extradition was issued by the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office. This led to his arrest for the first time on October 30, 2002 in Copenhagen. On December 3, 2002 he was freed by the Danish courts, which refused extradition on the grounds of inadequate evidence. On December 5, 2002 Zakayev arrived in London, where he was again arrested at Heathrow Airport but released on bail three hours later. After a number of technical sessions, the hearing of the case began at Bow Street Magistrates Court in London on June 9, 2003.
* * *
A short Chechen advances towards the witness box to the right of the judge. His legs are unnaturally straight and he is forcing his recalcitrant feet forward, trying not to look at anybody and doing his best to conceal the difficulty he has in walking. This is Duk-Vakha Dushuyev. Though we are in London, the Second Chechen War has trained me to recognise the problem immediately: Duk-Vakha walks exactly the way many other men in Chechnya do who have survived the “anti-terrorist operation” but been left with limbs first fractured and then badly set.
“What do I have to swear on?” the witness asks the translator, reaching the stand, and his smile doesn’t seem real. It is mask-like. “On the Bible or the Quran?”
“As you please.”
Having taken the oath, Duk-Vakha explains that he was born in 1968, so he is only 35, although he looks nearer 50.
Barrister Edward Fitzgerald, QC, begins the cross-examination for Zakayev’s defence:
“Did you testify against Mr Zakayev on December 2, 2002?”
“Yes.”
“Is this the testimony?”
Duk-Vakha is shown the case materials sent to London by the Prosecutor-General’s Office and confirms to the court that this is the record of his own questioning in Grozny by Junior Judicial Counsellor Konstantin Krivorotov, Investigator of Particularly Serious Cases of the Chechen Prosecutor’s Office. It reads:
“In approximately October 1996 I learned that it would be possible to become a bodyguard in the Ministry of Culture of the Chechen Republic. For approximately four months I took shifts guarding the building of the Ministry of Culture. In approximately February 1997 (name obliterated) invited me to work as Zakayev’s bodyguard. I agreed and from February 1997 to February 2000 was beside Zakayev virtually all the time. On one of Zakayev’s visits to Urus Martan, I was tasked with accompanying him together with (obliterated). Even before this I had observed a white metal chain worn by (obliterated) on his trousers. I asked him where he got this chain, to which (obliterated) replied that he had taken it from an Orthodox priest who had worn an Orthodox cross on it. (Obliterated) told me that in 1995 two priests had arrived in Urus Martan to negotiate the release of Russian servicemen. Zakayev ordered that the priests should be kidnapped with the aim of obtaining ransom of $500,000 to finance weapons and equipment for the resistance fighters.
“Carrying out Zakayev’s orders, (obliterated) recruited five or six members of Zakayev’s bodyguard to take part in the kidnapping. In order to implement the plan successfully (obliterated) himself changed clothes and had his subordinates change into militia uniforms. I asked (obliterated) who could pay such a huge amount for freeing the priests, to which I received the reply that the Pope was prepared to pay $1 million, and also $500,000 had been promised by [Russian Orthodox] Patriarch Alexiy II. I understood from his account that Zakayev failed to obtain the ransom. From the beginning of the counter-terrorist operation, that is from 1999, Zakayev was in charge of the so-called Chernorechiye Front which offered armed resistance to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on the approaches to Grozny. During that period I was constantly beside Zakayev. We offered armed resistance to Russian troops until February 2000 when there was a mass retreat from Grozny. At that time Zakayev was paralysed. That is where I saw Zakayev for the last time.”
“Yes, that is my testimony.”
“You said then that Mr Zakayev gave orders to kidnap two priests?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Is that the truth?”
“No, it is not true.”
“So why did you do that?”
“I was forced to.”
“But why? What preceded this?”
“I lived in Grozny. Some time in November 2002 I and a comrade were stopped at a checkpoint. We showed our documents. Two armoured military vehicles were standing nearby. Armed men in masks jumped out of them, pinioned us, not explaining anything, handcuffed us, put bags over our heads, and threw us into the vehicles. One of the soldiers sat on me and they took us off. We drove for 20 to 25 minutes.”
“Where did they take you?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I think it was Khankala. There I was lifted by the arms and dragged for some 30 metres. They told me to raise my legs, threw me into a pit and sealed it with a metal lid. They kept me there for about six days.”
“Were you interrogated during this time?”
“Yes, every day.”
“By whom?”
“I do not know exactly – I had a hood on my head the whole time – but they were Russians. Then I discovered they were from the FSB. I was dragged out of the pit and led to some premises. At the first interrogation they warned me that I should not use the words, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘No’ because if I did they would immediately kill me.”
“Did they know you were acquainted with Zakayev?”
“Yes. They told me to tell them how I had fought with Zakayev in Dagestan, and also in the Islamic Jamaat battalion which Zakayev commanded. ‘You cut the heads off Russian soldiers!’ When I said that had not happened, they said, ‘What difference does it make?’ and began their torture.”
“How were you tortured?”
“With electricity, and they kicked me, and probably used truncheons. I could no longer see what with. At one of the interrogations they asked whether I knew Zakayev’s telephone number. I said no. Zakayev was at that time already under arrest in Denmark. They told me that they had telephone equipment and the telephone number. They tied me to the chair, attached something to my feet, one dialled a number saying this was a call to my friend in Copenhagen, and the electricity started. That went on every day. When this procedure ended they threw me back into the pit, and I was there the whole time.”
“In November?”
“Yes, it was already winter. It was cold. The pit was too small to stand up in. Your head was pressing against the metal hatch, and you also couldn’t sit – there was water on the ground. Eventually I told them I would do anything they wanted. I could no longer stand the torture. You have to understand, I am human. Please understand.”
There is a shocked silence in the court. Everybody is motionless. The judge is no longer shuffling papers in front of him and, like everybody else, is looking directly at Duk-Vakha. Does he not believe him?
“They told me to sign a statement that Zakayev had ordered his bodyguards to kidnap priests. I told them, ‘I didn’t know Zakayev then and I don’t know what he did then.’ They said, ‘That doesn’t matter. We know. All you have to do is sign.’ They warned me that if I should ever think of withdrawing my testimony, ‘We will skin you alive.’ Then they drove me to the FSB’s Chechen headquarters in the center of Grozny. There, for the first time, they took the handcuffs off and the hood off my head. I signed what they gave me.”
“Including the bit about the Pope?”
“Yes.”
“While you were signing were you being filmed with a video camera?”
“They told me beforehand to learn by heart the text they gave me to sign. They warned me not to hesitate in front of the camera when they started asking questions. I would be pretending to reply. They led me into a room. There were seven or eight soldiers there and two civilians. One of them introduced himself to me as being from NTV, from the program Top Secret.”
“All this took place in the FSB building in Grozny?”
“Yes.”
“Where were you taken after the recording?”
“To prison in Grozny, but first to the court. They organised documents of some sort. I was in a very bad state, completely beaten up, covered in bruises, but the judge (in the Staropromyslovsky District Court) did not ask me anything, he just placed me under arrest for 10 days, to give time for my injuries to heal. After that they took me to the prison, but they wouldn’t accept me because they said I would die there and they would be held responsible. They took me that evening to a different prison which did accept me and I was there for two months.”
“Did you know that your evidence against Zakayev had been televised?”
“Yes, the prison guards told me it had been shown on all channels. Two months later I was taken back to court. There was a member of the FSB, a Chechen, there. I know him, we went to school together. He warned me, ‘Do you know why they are freeing you now? So they can kill you and blame it on Zakayev. They will say he murders people who give evidence against him. If you want to live, get out of Grozny today.’ That’s what I did.”
The British judge is very good at keeping his thoughts to himself. Judges are not expected to say much, just “Yes” or “No,” and possibly, “Mr Zakayev, the next hearing will be on such and such a date. If you are not here at 10 a.m. you will be arrested.” But the traditional British reserve was ruffled by this insight into Russian justice. The judge was moved to remark, “This is an extraordinary situation, a dramatic turn of events.” He demanded a prompt response to a number of fundamental questions. For example, why had the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office been assuring the court that witness Dushuyev was in danger from Zakayev and that this was why his name had been obliterated in the extradition papers delivered to Britain, when in fact Dushuyev was in prison and hence in the custody of those making these claims? Had the Prosecution deliberately misled the court? The judge was outraged.
Misleading the court constitutes grave professional misconduct in Britain. The system works in a way which means that Zakayev has defence lawyers and the Prosecutor-General’s Office has lawyers supporting its demand for extradition. They are appointed by the Crown Prosecution Service, which works with the Prosecutor-General’s Office. If it transpires that there has been a deliberate attempt to provoke a miscarriage of justice, which the lawyers of the Crown Prosecution Service failed to detect through being unduly trusting of their Russian colleagues, they [the CPS] will face a disciplinary investigation and penalties. This would be a severe blow to their reputations which the profession would not forgive, a blot on their entire careers. Britain does not tolerate such games.
Accordingly, the lawyers of the Crown Prosecution Service were also thrown into disarray. They found themselves obliged to defend their own reputation, which was in jeopardy. What the court was now discussing was this sample of Kremlin justice, and the fact that even in Stalin-era trials such a thing had been unheard of. The lawyers humbly asked the judge to allow them an adjournment until September 8, repeating, “These are very serious charges. We are not prepared … We have no comment to make today …” The judge however insisted on a reply “today, without fail,” and gave them just two hours to contact Moscow (probably Fridinsky). When Judge Workman heard the replies he would decide how the trial should proceed.
Two hours proved insufficient and Judge Workman relented, agreeing to give the Prosecutor-General’s Office until September 1 to provide explanations in writing, and warning that the case would resume on September 8. He added unambiguously that hearings would continue for no more than four or five days, after which he would retire to consider his verdict.
What have we just witnessed? We have tried to spill out into Europe our corrupt legal practice of fabricating cases whenever and however the state authorities decree, and we have fallen flat on our faces.
The Russian state didn’t get away with it in Britain. There was no way it could, because the British have no reason to allow this virus of ours to infect them. Who can blame them? But what of us now, the citizens of Russia, with our law enforcement gangsters ranged against us? The British will survive our invasion. They will merely note for the record the kind of people they are dealing with in the Russian legal system, and of course they will not extradite Zakayev.
But what about us? We citizens must make ourselves heard, not just keep our heads down. If you don’t feel moved to defend Zakayev, then at least rise to your own defence. The state system poses a deadly threat. Anyone can be tortured. These are terrorist acts perpetrated by the regime against us all.
September 11, 2003
In London, in Bow Street Magistrates Court, at the hearings concerning the extradition to Russia of Akhmed Zakayev which resumed on September 8, marvels of getting at the truth about the Chechen War through the law continued. This is something we rarely are treated to in Russia, hence our interest. On this occasion Mr Justice Timothy Workman was presented with information about the stranglehold in which the Russian Prosecution Service and other federal law enforcement institutions have the administration of justice in Chechnya, and why as a result of their stewardship we need recourse to the British legal system.
We remind our readers that the main event of the previous hearings in the Zakayev case on July 24 was the cross-examination of 35-year-old Duk-Vakha Dushuyev, formerly of Grozny, who was listed in documents of the Russian Prosecutor’s Office as a witness for the prosecution, but in court in London under oath began giving evidence as a witness for the defence, relating how in November–December 2002 he was tortured in Chechnya by members of the FSB who demanded that he give false evidence against Zakayev, to which he agreed. It was precisely this plotline which on September 8–9 received a sensational new twist.
Investigator Konstantin Krivorotov himself proved to have been “zombified” by the Russian Criminal Procedure Code. Junior Judicial Counsellor Krivorotov, Investigator of Particularly Serious Cases of the Chechen Prosecutor’s Office, no matter what he was asked in the Bow Street court, even if a question was entirely specific and required only “Yes” or “No” as an answer, responded with a long lecture on the subject of the Criminal Procedure Code, explaining how wise and benign it was, what blessings it brought to those arrested and under investigation, and what vast opportunities it gave representatives of the investigative agencies for treating suspects humanely.
Only, nothing to the point. It was futile to try to stop Investigator Krivorotov when he was in full flood on the theory of Russian law. He became irate, demanded that he should not be interrupted, and even wagged his finger threateningly at the courteous British lawyers.
Why was that, you may ask? Quite simply, Investigator Krivorotov had a different task. He had been brought here to flannel, to confuse, and to divert the case from details, because the details of the saga of Duk-Vakha Dushuyev are potentially lethal to the extradition case.
But everything in its place. Krivorotov, the ardent supporter of the Criminal Procedure Code, found himself in London only because of Dushuyev’s testimony. At the end of November 2002, when the Prosecutor-General’s Office, demanding the extradition of Zakayev from Denmark, sent supporting documentation of very low legal quality and Zakayev was about to be released, Dushuyev was caught at a checkpoint in Grozny and taken, hooded, to Khankala. Under torture, he was offered his life in exchange for bearing false witness against Zakayev. He was taken to the FSB building on Garazhnaya Street in Grozny, next door to the Prosecutor’s Office. Investigator Krivorotov wrote several statements which Dushuyev was told to sign. A television crew was summoned to the FSB building to record the “voluntary confessions of Zakayev’s bodyguard,” which were then shown on NTV. Dushuyev was held in prison for two months on a charge routine in Chechnya – “membership of an illegal armed group” – but this was then dropped on the grounds that he had supposedly confessed, and he was released. Dushuyev left Chechnya that same day and fled through a number of countries before deciding to find Zakayev’s lawyers and admit what he had done. Such were the events which brought him, and consequently Krivorotov, before Judge Workman.
“Tell me, Mr Krivorotov, would Mr Dushuyev have been able to reveal any ill-treatment of himself during the course of the investigation? Before this hearing in London?” James Lewis, a lawyer acting on behalf of Investigator Krivorotov, asks a question which seems important to him. Mr Lewis is acting for the British Crown Prosecution Service, which is supporting (such is the way things are done here) the demand of the Russian Prosecutor’s Office for extradition of Akhmed Zakayev.
“There is a clear procedure,” Krivorotov says, staying firmly in his theoretical realm. “Dushuyev had several opportunities to state that impermissible methods had been used against him. In the first instance at the Preliminary Investigation, to me. The Criminal Procedure Code …”
The courtroom is verging on despair. Only Sergey Fridinsky, Deputy Prosecutor-General of the Southern Federal Region, who has publicly vowed to have Zakayev returned to Russia, looks pleased. Today he is present in London and smiles into his moustache with satisfaction when Krivorotov gets on his hobby-horse.
“What was Dushuyev believed to be guilty of when you brought criminal charges against him?” By now it is Zakayev’s barrister, Edward Fitzgerald, asking the questions. He approaches in a roundabout way, and why this detail should interest him is unclear. “Was it illegal to be Zakayev’s bodyguard? After all, the government of which Zakayev was a member was recognised by President Yeltsin.”
“It is news to me that Maskhadov’s government was recognised by the President.” For the first time Investigator Krivorotov replies honestly. He is genuinely taken aback. Nevertheless he rapidly regains his composure. “Under the Russian Constitution there is no provision for the Minister of a self-proclaimed republic to have an armed bodyguard. Dushuyev was bearing arms at that time illegally. From 1999 Dushuyev was a member of an illegal armed group, the Chernorechiye Front. That is why charges were brought.”
“In other words, anybody who resisted the Russian troops in 1999 is considered to have committed a criminal offence?”
“Of course,” Krivorotov shrugs, glancing expressionlessly at Fridinsky and barking out the sentences he has memorised. “Anybody who opposes the federal troops is guilty of an act endangering society. In accordance with the Criminal Code.”
So the case proceeds, constantly returning inexorably to the central question to which Russia has no answer: what was and is actually going on in Chechnya from a legal point of view? Who is resisting whom there, and why? And how is the situation to be resolved?
This time Mr Fitzgerald is interrupted by Mr Lewis, to whose back the indignant Deputy Prosecutor-General Fridinsky has addressed a remark. Discussing the political aspect of the Prosecutor’s Office’s work is not permitted.
“Fine. Explain how Dushuyev was provided with a lawyer.”
Reader, you should know that Aisa Tatayev from the Staropromyslovsky District Legal Assistance Service was brought to Dushuyev many days after he had been held in a waterlogged pit in Khankala, from which he was periodically dragged for interrogation under torture. She advised him to “tell them everything they want to hear.”
“Defence lawyers can be chosen by the accused, or appointed by the court. I knew where I could find Tatayev at that moment, and he was summoned. That is, I personally invited Tatayev.”
“How did you write the record of Dushuyev’s interrogation? Did you write down everything he said?”
“I have my own method. I first listen to everything a person says, and then note it down, asking supplementary questions. Dushuyev came with an admission of guilt, I listened, and then wrote.”
The official version, sent to London over Fridinsky’s signature on the eve of today’s hearing, is that Khankala was never involved, that there was no torture, that Dushuyev had invented everything. He came to the Prosecutor’s Office in Chechnya on December 1, 2002 of his own volition, wishing to confess his guilt in having participated in an illegal armed group, and the topic of Zakayev came up only by chance during his questioning.
“Well why, in that case, in the record which you compiled is there very little about what Dushuyev did, and a whole page about what Zakayev did, based moreover on hearsay? You were supposed to be investigating Dushuyev’s crimes, were you not? This seems strange.”
Investigator Krivorotov again changes tack and heads for the thickets of the Criminal Procedure Code.
“Fine. But did you know about Zakayev’s extradition case?”
“Yes. I realized that the record of Dushuyev’s interrogation would be used in the criminal case against Zakayev.”
“Then why in that record is there no indication that the witness was himself under investigation?”
“What would have been the point of that?”
“You knew that Dushuyev would be filmed by a television crew? In the FSB building?”
“I supposed so. The relevant request had been received from the FSB Press Department.”
“In writing?”
“Verbally.”
“Dushuyev had been detained and was in your custody, and you handed him over to members of the FSB, and they took him to their own premises for filming. Is that correct?”
“Yes.” Krivorotov is losing patience. He again wags his finger at the court. “It is Dushuyev’s right either to talk to the press or not.”
“It did not occur to you that this filmed interview, where Dushuyev, on the basis of hearsay, accused Zakayev of serious crimes, of illegal arms trading, might harm Zakayev’s case?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“Does it not seem strange to you that Dushuyev was your suspect but that the FSB had access to him when it wanted? How did the FSB even know that Dushuyev was with you? Did you report that to the FSB? And if so, why?”
“No. I did not report it.” For the first time Krivorotov looks as though he is telling the truth. “When Dushuyev came to the Prosecutor’s Office with his admission of guilt, he was accompanied by FSB officers, and accordingly I released him to the FSB for filming.”
QED. Thus did Investigator Krivorotov slip on a banana skin. This admission was fraught with consequences: it meant that all the official documents, including those signed by Deputy Prosecutor-General Fridinsky, were untrue. The court could place no reliance on them because they had been found to contain lies. Moreover, it was evident from them that Dushuyev was right when he claimed that the Prosecutor’s Office in Chechnya did not work independently, that it knocked together whatever procedural papers were required, and thereby in effect legitimised the torture to which people were subjected by the FSB.
“I do not consider it substantive where Dushuyev came first, to the FSB or to us.” Krivorotov has suddenly realized what he has said. He explains that the majority of those arriving with an admission of guilt go first to the FSB, and then the FSB brings them to the Prosecutor’s Office to formalise their confession. But the more he goes on, the more obvious is the lawlessness perpetrated in Chechnya with the blessing of the Prosecutor’s Office.
“Do you really not know that people are tortured by the FSB in order to obtain the evidence they want?” Although Barrister Fitzgerald is calm, it is evident that he already knows he has won. It had seemed at times, at the hearings on Monday and Tuesday, that this was a dead end. One side said one thing, the other the exact opposite, and how could it all be reconciled? How could one find the highest common factor which alone would make the dead-end submissions comprehensible to the judge, and hence also relevant to the issue of deciding on extradition? Investigator Krivorotov’s inadvertent admission that it was precisely the FSB who had dragged Dushuyev in to him had been brilliantly engineered by Fitzgerald. A subtle, virtuoso victory over falsehood.
“I don’t know anything about torture.”
Krivorotov is invited to familiarise himself with the official conclusions of the European Committee on Torture on precisely this issue. The investigator is forced to claim that he does not see what is going on right next door to him, but only a minute passes, and once again we see the man mesmerised by the Criminal Procedure Code:
“We in the Prosecutor’s Office are under an obligation to take legal action where facts such as these come to light.”
Of course you are, but the whole point is that for years you have been ignoring it!
Thus it was that Investigator Krivorotov became a witness for the defence, and hence against any possibility of extradition. Why? It had been been proved in court that the law enforcement agencies functioning on the territory of Chechnya are totally arbitrary and lawless. That is why Krivorotov could treat his listeners in a London courtroom only to long explanations about how things are supposed to be. He knew only too well how they are supposed to be, but he also knew that how they are bears no relation to that. Poor wretch. Anything goes, and nothing seems wrong. Barbarity becomes the norm.
At precisely 1300 hours Greenwich Mean Time Judge Workman interrupted Investigator Krivorotov with the magic words, “One hour for lunch.” By tradition, nothing on earth takes precedence over the lunch hour. The same inflexible rules, however, require that a witness whose cross-examination has not been completed should not discuss matters relating to what he is being cross-questioned about with anyone. This meant that while everybody else was having lunch, Investigator Krivorotov stood as lonely as a statue at the courtroom door, smoking nervously. Deputy Prosecutor-General Fridinsky walked past him from the Italian restaurant across the road. Others involved in the case made their way back for the afternoon sitting. One couldn’t help feeling sorry for Krivorotov, and an exceptionally humane impulse prompted your correspondent to go over and offer him a sandwich. Lord, how he recoiled! “No!” He shook his head as if he had been offered an arsenic sandwich. “But I have two. I have more than I need.” “No!” Investigator Krivorotov blushed and turned away, as if we did not know each other. Something wasn’t right.
November 17, 2003
People can have entirely different perspectives: love Zakayev or hate him, support the Kremlin’s atrocities in Chechnya or fight them, rejoice at world leaders’ love of Putin or be horrified by it, but on November 13, 2003, shortly before noon Greenwich Mean Time, the entire Russian nation was given a good and deserved kicking by Europe. The Prosecutor-General’s Office had been asking for it for a long time. In Bow Street Magistrates Court, in the case of The Government of the Russian Federation versus Akhmed Zakayev, Mr Justice Timothy Workman delivered an outspoken and uncompromising judgment, beyond anything the most wild-eyed optimists had dared to hope for when they assured us that Zakayev would not be extradited.
The refusal of Judge Timothy Workman to extradite Zakayev was based firstly on the grounds that Russia lacks an independent judiciary, so there can be no confident expectation of a fair trial; secondly, on the fact that racism flourishes in our country; and thirdly, because what is going on in Chechnya is not a rebellion or an “anti-terrorist operation” but a full-blown civil war instigated by the Russian Government itself in contravention of its obligation to avert wars, to extinguish them, and not to foment them within its borders.
The verdict was announced not in the ordinary magistrates’ courtroom where the case had been heard but in a lofty ceremonial hall with something resembling a throne set at a considerable height. On this the judge seated himself. The translator promised on oath not to lie, and Mr Justice Workman began:
“The Russian Federation seek the extradition of Akhmed Zakayev in respect of some thirteen allegations of conduct which, had it occurred in the United Kingdom, would have amounted to the offences of soliciting persons to murder, three counts of murder, two counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, one count of false imprisonment and six counts of conspiring with others in a course of conduct which would necessarily involve the commission of offences of murder, wounding and hostage taking.
The judge continued:
“I am quite satisfied that the events in Chechnya in 1995 and 1996 amounted in law to an internal armed conflict. Indeed, many observers would have regarded it as a civil war. In support of that decision I have taken into account the scale of fighting – the intense carpet-bombing of Grozny with in excess of 100,000 casualties, the recognition of the conflict in the terms of a cease fire and a peace treaty. I was unable to accept the view expressed by one witness that the actions of the Russian Government in bombing Grozny were counter-terrorist operations.
“Having satisfied myself that this amounted to an internal armed conflict which would fall within the Geneva Convention, I reach the conclusion that those crimes which allege conspiring to seize specific areas of Chechnya by the use of armed force or resistance are not extraditable crimes because the conduct in those circumstances would not amount to a crime in this country. On that basis I propose to discharge counts 7, 8, 9 and 13.”
The next section of the ruling bears the highly eloquent title “Abuse of Process.” This is more to do with the professional methods of the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office, whose representatives were conspicuous by their absence. Rumors were circulating yesterday that Sergey Fridinsky, who was in charge of the campaign to extradite Zakayev and who had given the President his word that he would be returned, had been warned by the Crown Prosecution Service that an adverse ruling was likely, as a result of which the whole lot of them had decided to absent themselves from their public humiliation.
One can see their point. The evidence of prosecution witnesses was found not to be reliable. It is worth recalling who was in this group which Fridinsky had assembled: Akhmar Zavgayev, a Senator representing Chechnya, currently preparing to enter the Duma; Yury Kalinin, Deputy Minister of Justice responsible for the prison system; Konstantin Krivorotov, Investigator of the Chechen Prosecutor’s Office; Yury Bessarabov, Professor of Law at the Research Institute of the Prosecutor-General’s Office; and Stanislav Iliasov, Russian Government Minister for Chechnya. These individuals should not continue to occupy their posts after such public disgrace.
“The alleged offences on which Mr Zakayev is sought occurred in 1995 and in 1996. The offences would have been apparent to the Authorities at the time, and two witnesses assured me that they made statements to the Prosecution shortly after the event. It was not until some six years later that a decision was made to arrest Mr Zakayev, and it was not until October 25, 2002 that the Russian request for his arrest was circulated by Interpol. Throughout 2001 and 2002 Mr Zakayev acted as a peace envoy, travelling extensively, but his whereabouts were apparently known to the Russian Authorities. Indeed, on November 18, 2001 Mr Zakayev travelled to Moscow Airport in an attempt to negotiate disarmament. He met with senior Government officials who had themselves been reassured that there were no proceedings anticipated against Mr Zakayev. The existence of the decision to arrest Mr Zakayev taken two months earlier appears to have been overlooked. Mr Fridinsky, the Russian prosecutor in this case, has explained that they had no idea that Mr Zakayev was going to attend a meeting in Moscow. Whilst I do, of course, accept that Mr Fridinsky may not have known, I find it surprising that a warrant for such serious crimes alleged to have been committed by such a well-known person should not have been noticed by the Russian Immigration Authorities.
“In addition to the delay in arrest, it is apparent that there has been delay in the investigation and preparation of the Prosecution’s case. Although two witnesses told me that they had made statements soon after the events, those statements have not been produced or provided to the Defence. With one exception (an unnamed witness) who made a statement on March 13, 2000, the other 11 witnesses made their statements after Mr Zakayev was arrested. In respect of four of those witnesses, their statements were not taken until after the extradition request to Denmark had failed. Note that in the request to Denmark it was being alleged that Mr Zakayev was involved in the Moscow theatre siege and that he had murdered Father Sergius (now known as Father Philip). Both allegations were later withdrawn, and indeed Father Philip has given evidence before me.
“I have also noted that the Kremlin denied the existence of any criminal proceedings against Mr Zakayev when in fact a warrant was still extant. I have noted that the Russian Government continued to negotiate with Mr Zakayev despite the existence of the warrant, and that there was no attempt to extradite Mr Zakayev until the moment of the World Chechen Conference and the Moscow theatre siege. I have also noted the statements of the Russian foreign minister likening Mr Zakayev to Osama Bin Laden.
“When those factors are added together the inevitable conclusion is that it would now be unjust and oppressive to return Mr Zakayev to stand his trial in Russia.
“I found that the evidence given by Mr de Waal, Mr Rybakov and Mr Rybkin was truthful and accurate, and from their evidence I am satisfied that it is more likely than not that the motivation of the Government of the Russian Federation was and is to exclude Mr Zakayev from continuing to take part in the peace process and to discredit him as a moderate. I therefore find as a fact that the Russian Government are seeking extradition for purposes of prosecuting Mr Zakayev on account of his nationality and his political opinions. I take the view that Mr Zakayev is entitled to the benefit of the protection provided by Section 6(i)(c) [of the European Convention on Extradition].
“With some reluctance I have to come to the inevitable conclusion that if the Authorities are prepared to resort to torturing witnesses there is a substantial risk that Mr Zakayev would himself be subject to torture. I am satisfied that such punishment and detention would be by reason of his nationality and political opinions. I therefore believe that Mr Zakayev is entitled to the benefit of Section 6(i)(d) and should not be returned to face trial in the Russian Federation …
“I am therefore discharging the defendant.”
That is an end to it. The judge is silent, the courtroom animated. People are trying to congratulate Zakayev, but the case is not over yet. Edward Fitzgerald, Zakayev’s defence lawyer, rises to his feet. His concerns extend beyond the law to the financing of all this. Who is going to pay the legal costs? The judge calmly accepts the bills and invoices as is the way in Britain. This means it is clear who is going to pay. The costs of a court case which has lasted almost a year will be payable by the losing side, that is, by you and me, since it is we who employ the officials of the Prosecutor-General’s Office, officials who have failed to learn to work in accordance with the law but excel in carrying out political orders, as the London court has demonstrated.
Each has received his just desserts. Zakayev is free, his passport will be returned to him in the immediate future, and he will again be able to travel at will throughout the world. Representatives of the Crown Prosecution Service of Great Britain who, in accordance with the British judicial system, represented the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office, have strongly advised Mr Fridinsky against thinking of lodging an appeal because it would have no prospect of success and could lead only to an even more shaming outcome; all the charges have been rejected as without a basis in law, meaning that no new evidence would be accepted. The Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office has egg all over its face.
These, however, are only details. Three important truths were established in London on November 13. The first is that, for the first time in many years of a monstrous war, the federal authorities and the Chechens have been communicating with each other in legal language rather than the language of armed conflict, security sweeps, ambushes and explosions. The forum for this was a British court which demonstrated that it was concerned only with hard evidence and had no interest in political expediency.
The second is that it has been established in a court of law, not in the newspapers or on television, not in the drawing rooms of the establishment or at conferences, after lengthy examination of the evidence for and against now marshalled in several volumes, that, as most of us already knew but were unable to prove, what is happening in Chechnya is not an “anti-terrorist operation” but a war.
The third is that, after the London court ruling, it is impossible to go on pretending that our country is on the road to democracy. There are no reforms; instead we have authoritarianism, subservient courts, torture in places of detention and racial harassment. The framework of international relations is collapsing because it has been shown in court that the system the Russian regime talks about simply does not exist. Russia is a radically different country from the one which the politicians pretend exists. We have a brutal war, racism and violence as the means of resolving all issues.
That is the end of the story of the London court proceedings in respect of Akhmed Zakayev. The Government wanted to show the world how cool we are and how we stand for truth, but succeeded only in showing our true nature. The Russian Government is the laughingstock of Europe because it has no substance, only wild pretensions.
The fact that the court ruling was going to go against the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office became clear in Sheremetievo-II, the Moscow airport from which I was flying to London to hear the verdict.
I handed over my passport. The young frontier guard tapped at his computer for a long time and finally said,
“You have problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“You know yourself.”
“No I don’t.”
What had popped up on his screen was that the bearer of this passport was to be detained and subjected to general unpleasantness and all manner of additional and humiliating searches.
“Why?”
“That’s a military secret,” he replied. One would have liked to think he was joking but there was no hint of a smile.
The woman in charge of the shift arrived, a pretty girl, Yuliya Demina. She took away various things that she had no right to take: my passport, my ticket. She ordered me to stand in a particular place and not to move, and then she went away. She was gone for a very long time and the plane was about to leave. The young guardian of the border came out of his booth and prattled on again about “problems” which “you know yourself.”
“Are you going to have problems coming back in?”
“What do you mean?”
“You might not be allowed back in, for instance.”
It’s the usual approach in this, the era of the Second Chechen War. You can become nobody at any moment, especially if you have witnessed something. No laws are required to do that, as was proven in London, where I was permitted to fly to at the very last moment.