Slain Exile Detailed Cruelty of the Ruler of Chechnya - NYTimes.com
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Slain Exile Detailed Cruelty of the Ruler of Chechnya
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By C. J. CHIVERS
Published: January 31, 2009
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Umar S. Israilov saw the men who had come to kill him. They
confronted him in the neighborhood where he lived in hiding in
Vienna. He must have sensed their intentions, because he ran.
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For more than two years, Mr. Israilov,
a Chechen in exile, had formally
accused Russia’s government of
allowing a macabre pattern of crimes
in Chechnya. Even by the dark norms
of violence in the Caucasus, his
accusations were extraordinary.
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Josef Polleross for The New York Times
Umar S. Israilov’s funeral Jan. 22 in
Vienna. He accused Chechnya’s
president of torture.
Multimedia
A rebel fighter turned bodyguard of Ramzan A. Kadyrov,
Chechnya’s current president, Mr. Israilov had access to
the inner ring of Chechen power. Mr. Kadyrov’s career
has been sponsored by Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin
of Russia, who as president lifted him from obscurity with
unwavering Kremlin support.
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In written legal complaints, Mr. Israilov described many
brutal acts by Mr. Kadyrov and his subordinates,
including executions of illegally detained men. One
executed man, Mr. Israilov said, had been beaten with a
shovel handle by Mr. Kadyrov and Adam Delimkhanov,
now a member of Russia’s Parliament. Another prisoner,
the defector said, was sodomized by a prominent police
officer and at Mr. Kadyrov’s order put to death.
Mr. Israilov said he and others had been tortured by Mr.
Kadyrov, who amused himself by personally giving
prisoners electric shocks or firing pistols at their feet.
Mr. Kadyrov and Mr. Delimkhanov refused to be
interviewed for this article. A spokesman for Mr. Kadyrov
released a statement decrying “a large-scale and
purposeful campaign” to discredit Chechnya’s president
and government. The campaign, the spokesman said, was
the “deeply conspiratorial initiative of some ideologists of
terrorism and an armed criminal underground.”
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Since 1994, Russia’s wars against nationalist and Islamic
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Slain Exile Detailed Cruelty of the Ruler of Chechnya - NYTimes.com
FRIEND OF THE KREMLIN President
Ramzan A. Kadyrov of Chechnya, with
a golden pistol. He has been accused
of personally participating in torture.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/world/europe/01torture.html?scp=...
separatists in Chechnya have been fought with sinister
conduct by all sides.
Human rights organizations and independent journalists
have documented patterns of abduction, detention, disappearances, collective
punishment, extrajudicial executions and the systematic use of torture by Russian and
Chechen authorities, including Mr. Kadyrov. The separatists have unapologetically
employed terrorist attacks, including on children.
But the character of Mr. Israilov’s allegations was different. He had been an insider.
And with his father, Sharpuddi — who says that Mr. Kadyrov illegally detained him for
more than 10 months, and that his captors tortured victims with a gas torch — he filed
complaints to Russian prosecutors and the European Court of Human Rights in 2006
and 2007.
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The Israilovs’ filings, never made public, appear to have been the first formal allegations
based on the actions of Mr. Kadyrov, who has been celebrated by the Kremlin as a hero
for marginalizing the insurgency in the Republic of Chechnya since 2004.
Taken together, their accounts offer a window into Russia’s counterinsurgency
campaign and the climb to power of Chechens in Kremlin favor as the separatists’
influence waned. They also detail efforts by Chechnya’s government to suppress
knowledge of its policies through official lies, obstruction and witness intimidation.
Since last year, the Israilovs had cooperated with The New York Times, including by
providing copies of sealed court records.
Umar Israilov, 27, was a complicated figure: a participant in a particularly ugly war,
motivated at least in part by revenge. The Times spent several months evaluating the
allegations by him and his father, examining the charges against the wealth of
materials on Chechen human rights abuses, and interviewing supporting witnesses and
independent investigators who had examined the Israilov case.
In addition, the newspaper obtained corroborating statements from another
government insider and from another victim, who fled Chechnya but remain in hiding;
they said they saw Umar Israilov being tortured.
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Almost all of the people who assisted asked for anonymity, saying they feared reprisal.
Ultimately, The Times postponed publication of the Israilovs’ accounts out of concern
for the safety of witnesses and people who helped the investigation, some of whom
wanted to relocate.
The threats were palpable. Several of President Kadyrov’s critics have been silenced by
violence, including rivals, journalists and former detainees and their relatives.
Moreover, Mr. Israilov told Austrian authorities last year that an agent sent from Russia
by Mr. Kadyrov had threatened him. Under questioning by counterterrorism officials,
the agent told of his mission to retrieve the whistle-blower, according to a written
summary of his interrogation, and said Mr. Kadyrov kept a list of 300 enemies to be
killed.
On Jan. 9, after consulting with one of Umar Israilov’s legal advocates, The Times
notified Mr. Putin’s office that it sought interviews with Russian officials about these
allegations. Mr. Israilov was prepared to publicize his story.
Dmitri Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, declined to comment in detail, saying, “It’s not
wise to comment on any rumors.”
On Jan. 13, Mr. Israilov left his apartment, where he had been watching his three young
children while his pregnant wife was away, to buy yogurt at a nearby market. Outside,
he was confronted by at least two men.
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They argued, and one of the men tried to pistol-whip Mr. Israilov, according to Gerhard
Jarosch, a spokesman for Austria’s prosecutor. Mr. Israilov bolted. He still had received
no protection. In broad daylight on a Vienna street, he ran for his life alone.
One of his pursuers opened fire. Mr. Israilov fell, shot in an arm, a leg and the abdomen,
according to Mr. Jarosch. A short while later, he was dead.
A Young Rebel, Caught
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C. J. Chivers reported from Vienna; London; Moscow; Oslo; and Grozny, Gudermes
and Mesker-Yurt, Chechnya. Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from Moscow.
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A version of this article appeared in print on February 1, 2009, on page
A1 of the New York edition.
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Slain Exile Detailed Cruelty of the Ruler of Chechnya - NYTimes.com
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Slain Exile Detailed Cruelty of the Ruler of Chechnya
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Published: January 31, 2009
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After Sharpuddi Israilov was detained, he and Umar Israilov said,
Mr. Kadyrov and another Chechen official called Umar in Poland
and demanded his return to Chechnya. They apparently found his
Polish number on his father’s phone.
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Mr. Kadyrov was enraged, Umar
Israilov said, and told him of the
capture of his father and other
relatives. “I will kill them all,” Mr.
Israilov recalled Mr. Kadyrov saying.
“I will not come back,” Mr. Israilov said, and hung up.
Rebel, Presidential Bodyguard,
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Escape to the West
Umar Israilov’s defiance appeared to work. His relatives
were not killed. His sister-in-law and his father’s wife
were released. (Both have received asylum in Europe.)
Related
Critic of Chechen President Is
Killed in Exile in Vienna (January
14, 2009)
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as Chechen Leader (March 2, 2007)
His father’s detention, however, dragged on. He was
transferred to Gudermes and held until Oct. 4, 2005,
more than 10 months.
Mr. Israilov said he was not tortured again but shared
space with as many as 100 detainees, mostly fighters’
relatives or government fighters accused of minor crimes. Many were beaten or
subjected to shocks.
Among those he saw in custody, he said, was Khamad Umarov, the 72-year-old father of
Doku Umarov, then a senior rebel commander and now president of the separatist
shadow government.
Khamad Umarov’s kidnapping was reported at the time; separatist Web sites have since
reported that he died in custody.
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On the day the elder Mr. Israilov was released, he said, he was dropped in front of his
home. He was bearded and scarred and had lost about 45 pounds.
nytimes.com/autos
In early 2006, according to his complaint to the European Court, a Russian prosecutor
asked him to sign a statement saying that he had made up his story of detention to
cover for time spent away from home with a mistress.
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Mr. Israilov said he threw the paper in the prosecutor’s face.
Then he fled with his wife, Shovda Viskhanova, to Norway for asylum. By that time,
Umar Israilov had moved to Austria and received asylum there.
In interviews, both men said that though they been granted the possibility of peaceful
lives, they wanted to obtain justice and hold the Russian and Chechen governments
accountable. They filed separate complaints to the European Court of Human Rights in
late 2006.
The court, established by the European Convention on Human Rights, has become a
legal venue of last resort for citizens of countries that have signed the convention, which
include Russia. Chechnya, as a republic of Russia, is covered by Russian conventions
and laws.
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To hide their locations, the Israilovs provided only a post office box in a third Western
country. Unbeknownst to them, the court sought more information but could not find
them. The case was dropped and expunged from files, although the Israilov family is
resubmitting documents to have it reinstated.
In August, the Chechen who said he had been sent to Austria by Mr. Kadyrov found
Umar Israilov and asked him to withdraw his complaints or risk being killed and having
his family killed. Mr. Israilov refused, he and his lawyer said. The Austrian government
released the man and did not protect Mr. Israilov.
In the days since Mr. Israilov’s killing, Austrian police and counterterrorism officers
have arrested eight Chechens in the case. All had received or applied for asylum, the
prosecutor’s spokesman said. The suspects were still being questioned and the evidence
reviewed, he said, and their motives were not yet clear.
Umar Israilov, for his part, had all but predicted his fate.
“A guy from our village works as a commander in the kadyrovtsie,” he said at the end of
his final interview with a reporter last year. “He told it to my cousin: that I should be
very, very careful, because Ramzan promises a bounty for me.”
« PREVIOUS PAGE
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C. J. Chivers reported from Vienna; London; Moscow; Oslo; and Grozny, Gudermes
and Mesker-Yurt, Chechnya. Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from Moscow.
A version of this article appeared in print on February 1, 2009, on page
A1 of the New York edition.
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Slain Exile Detailed Cruelty of the Ruler of Chechnya
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Published: January 31, 2009
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That November, using a counterfeit passport bought with bribe
money, Umar Israilov and his wife, Madina Sagiyeva, fled to
Belarus. There, he said, he traveled to the border and presented his
fake passport and $20 to a Belarussian border guard, who let them
cross to Poland, where they asked for asylum.
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Retaliation
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Killed in Exile in Vienna (January
14, 2009)
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as Chechen Leader (March 2, 2007)
In late 2004, two weeks after Umar
Israilov deserted, a police supervisor appeared at a
construction company in Grozny where his father worked.
The officer told the elder Israilov that Mr. Kadyrov had
summoned him, and led him to a car where his wife sat in
the back. The police had already searched their
apartment, according to court filings, stolen about $6,000
of their savings and left their three children, ages 6 to 12,
locked inside. The police were looking for Umar and his
weapon.
Sharpuddi Israilov and his wife were driven to Tsentoroi,
where they learned that his son’s sister-in-law had also
been detained. Within minutes, Mr. Israilov was knocked
down, beaten and dragged to the weight room, according
to him and his wife.
He was handcuffed to a pool table and his legs were lashed to a fitness machine, Mr.
Israilov said. Eight Chechens began to beat, kick and stomp on him, he said. Three
teeth were knocked out.
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“They watched until the moment when I was about to pass out; then they stopped and
asked a question,” he said. “They did not want a corpse. They wanted information.”
He passed out. When he woke, the men told him they had learned that his son was in
Poland. They attached wires to one toe on each foot, he said, and began to shock him,
pouring water on him to intensify his pain. “They were laughing, watching my
convulsions,” he said.
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Among the half-dozen others in the room, Mr. Israilov said, was Supyan Ekiyev, one of
Mr. Kadyrov’s guards, who was accused of collaborating in an insurgent attack. He hung
by his arms from an exercise machine. His jaw appeared broken, Sharpuddi Israilov
said. His hands and legs had been burned by open flames. (The next week, his body was
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found near Grozny, “heavily distorted by torture,” according to Memorial, a Russian
human rights group.)
That night, Mr. Israilov said, Ramzan Kadyrov arrived to torture the prisoners.
By this time, the insurgency had passed its peak. A run of guerrilla operations in 2004
had been followed by terrorist attacks, including the siege at a school in Beslan, that
showed the rebels still had sizable forces and considerable resources.
But the terrorist attacks undercut the insurgency’s support and re-energized Russia’s
efforts to defeat it, expanding Mr. Kadyrov’s mandate.
Mr. Kadyrov, by then a deputy prime minister, was viewed as Chechnya’s presidentin-waiting. He needed only to turn 30, the post’s legally required age. He was 28.
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Mr. Kadyrov did not beat the elder Mr. Israilov that night. But watching Chechnya’s
most prominent man wander between victims — beating some, shocking others, playing
billiards — Mr. Israilov felt disgust. “He just came in to have fun,” Mr. Israilov said.
In Chechnya last year, The Times found another person, unrelated to the Israilovs, who
survived detention at the compound at the same time. The former detainee, clearly
terrified, corroborated details of the treatment, including the torture of another
detainee, and described abductions and the center’s grounds in the same manner as the
Israilovs, but did not want to be identified, citing a fear that relatives would be killed.
Sharpuddi Israilov’s allegations are also consistent with those of another Chechen in
hiding, who has asked that his identity remain undisclosed. The man, who filed a
complaint to the European court in 2007, said he was abducted from a bus in November
2004 and detained for a long period at a base controlled by Mr. Kadyrov, where he was
beaten, burned by a gas flame and subjected to electric shocks, according to the
European Human Rights Advocacy Center, a London-based organization that helps
Russians and Georgians seek justice in Europe.
« PREVIOUS PAGE
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C. J. Chivers reported from Vienna; London; Moscow; Oslo; and Grozny, Gudermes
and Mesker-Yurt, Chechnya. Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from Moscow.
A version of this article appeared in print on February 1, 2009, on page
A1 of the New York edition.
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Published: January 31, 2009
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On one occasion, he said, Mr. Delimkhanov, the Kadyrov associate
now in Russia’s lower house of Parliament, beat him with a shovel
handle just before Mr. Kadyrov twice fired a pistol near his feet. On
another occasion, Mr. Israilov said, he was connected to wires and
Mr. Kadyrov administered electric shocks. “ ‘That’s the thing,’ ” he
recalled Mr. Kadyrov saying with a laugh. “ ‘That’s the thing.’ ”
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He was also poked in the leg by
unknown men with a heated metal
rod, he said, and struck in the lip by a fragment of a
ricocheting bullet fired by another unknown man. (Scars
on Mr. Israilov’s lip and leg were visible.)
Others faced worse. On his third week in captivity, Mr.
Israilov said, a cellmate, Shamil Gerikhanov, was
sodomized with a shovel handle by a guard commander.
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A FATHER BEREAVED Sharpuddi
Israilov, right, at a Vienna mosque on
Jan. 16, three days after his son
Umar, in exile in Austria, was shot and
killed. Father and son said they were
tortured in Chechnya.
Multimedia
One night he listened, he said, as Aidamir Gushayev, who
had organized a rebel cell’s finances, was interrogated by
Mr. Kadyrov. The future president demanded money and
grew frustrated. Mr. Israilov heard a gunshot. For a
moment, Mr. Israilov recalled, there was silence, and then
there were bursts of automatic fire. “It sounded like each
bodyguard fired an entire magazine,” he said.
Mr. Kadyrov snarled, “ ‘Gazavat,’ ” he said. The word is
Chechen for holy war. It was also the guards’ slang, Mr.
Israilov said, for an area where victims were buried in
unmarked graves.
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Defector and Murder Victim
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Two Conversions
When Mr. Israilov was captured, the insurgency had
already lost Grozny, but it remained strong. To defeat it,
Russia and Mr. Kadyrov fought militarily.
Simultaneously, Mr. Kadyrov mounted a campaign of
inducements, amnesty offers, threats and violence against
rebels’ families to persuade separatists to change sides.
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In the summer of 2003, Mr. Israilov said, the guards led
him in shackles to a sauna, where Mr. Kadyrov made an
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offer: join the presidential security service and live. The
alternative, Mr. Israilov said, was clear. He accepted.
Mr. Kadyrov gave him a pistol, according to the court
complaint, and Umar Israilov began work in the
“kadyrovtsie” — the Kadyrovs’ troops.
Asked later why he did not turn the pistol against a man
he said had tortured him, Mr. Israilov replied, “Because I
wanted to live.”
The New York Times
As part of its defense against these allegations, Mr.
Kadyrov’s office said last month that it had no record of
Mr. Israilov’s having served Mr. Kadyrov. Russian
prosecutorial records from Chechnya, however, show that
Mr. Israilov worked in Mr. Kadyrov’s guard beginning in
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late 2003.
For about 10 months, Mr. Israilov said, he worked at Tsentoroi. During this time he saw
at least 20 illegally detained people tortured, he said, with Mr. Kadyrov participating in
several sessions. Many victims were the relatives of the boyeviki, the insurgents.
The sessions Mr. Israilov described aligned with a shift in Russia’s counterinsurgency
effort — away from mass detentions and neighborhood sweeps by the Russian Army, to
actions by Chechen units against rebels’ families, a form of pinpoint collective
punishment.
“Ramzan himself said that the best way to get boyeviki out of the forest was to do it
through relatives,” Mr. Israilov said. “It was basically his slogan.”
One day, Mr. Israilov said, he watched the commander who had sodomized his cellmate,
Shamil Gerikhanov, plead with Mr. Kadyrov to order the victim killed. “Take him and
finish him,” Mr. Kadyrov said. Mr. Gerikhanov was driven away and never seen again,
Mr. Israilov said; the rapist, whose first name was Alanbek, was promoted to be a police
commander in Grozny.
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In early 2004, Mr. Israilov was transferred to his home village to lead a police squad,
according to his court file.
Mr. Kadyrov’s stature in Chechnya was rising. His father was assassinated in May, and
Mr. Putin, then president, offered him condolences in a meeting broadcast on state
television — a clear endorsement of his role as Moscow’s Chechen strongman.
But as the war evolved from a Russian-Chechen fight to an internecine struggle, Mr.
Israilov’s father urged him to desert, saying his job required violence against his former
friends, who would retaliate. “I told him he could not keep that job without putting
everyone in danger,” Sharpuddi Israilov said.
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C. J. Chivers reported from Vienna; London; Moscow; Oslo; and Grozny, Gudermes
and Mesker-Yurt, Chechnya. Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from Moscow.
A version of this article appeared in print on February 1, 2009, on page
A1 of the New York edition.
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Past Coverage
Critic of Chechen President Is Killed in Exile in Vienna (January 14, 2009)
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Slain Exile Detailed Cruelty of the Ruler of Chechnya
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Published: January 31, 2009
Politics E-Mail
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(Page 2 of 5)
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For Umar Israilov, the pain of Chechnya’s wars began early. He was
herding cows in 1995 near his town, Mesker-Yurt, when it was
struck by Russian artillery fire. He hid until the barrage ended.
When he returned home, he found his mother’s shrapnel-riddled
remains. He was 13.
Enlarge This Image
C.J. Chivers/The New York Times
DEFECTOR KILLED AT AGE 27
Umar S. Israilov, a Chechen exile who
accused Mr. Kadyrov of rights
violations, was fatally shot in Vienna
last month.
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Mr. Israilov’s anger simmered, he
said, but when he asked to join the
rebels, they rejected him because of
his age. The first war lasted until 1996, when the
separatists won limited independence and the Russian
Army withdrew.
In 1999, during a nearly lawless period of Chechen
self-rule, Mr. Israilov attended a camp at Kurchaloi, his
father said. The camp was in a network of jihadist schools
run by Shamil Basayev and Ibn al-Khattab, rebel
commanders whose drift toward terrorism put them
among Russia’s most wanted men.
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The Russian Army blitzed Chechnya again in 1999. Mr.
Israilov assumed a support role for a guerrilla cell,
monitoring Russian troops to help insurgents avoid
ambushes and maintaining an arms cache in a cemetery.
The Russian military suspected him, he said, and troops
searched his relatives’ houses repeatedly. Eventually he
joined the insurgency full time.
Mr. Israilov insisted that he had never been in combat or
committed violence. Such claims are common among
former fighters; his could not be independently verified.
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8. Uncovering Lost Path of the Most Wanted Nazi
9. Well: Telling Food Allergies From False Alarms
10. Personal Health: Babies Know: A Little Dirt Is Good for
You
Go to Complete List »
Critic of Chechen President Is
Killed in Exile in Vienna (January
14, 2009)
Putin Picks Premier Tied to Abuse
as Chechen Leader (March 2, 2007)
Enlarge This Image
Russian prosecutors, in an attempt to have him
extradited last year, claimed he gave insurgents a rifle for
an attack on a polling station and helped rig an explosion
against a convoy in which a Russian soldier was severely
wounded.
nytimes.com/autos
Austria denied the extradition request, calling the
evidence insufficient.
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By early 2003, Mr. Israilov, then 22, was living in a
dug-out shelter in the woods. On April 15, he said, he and
two other fighters ventured out to buy food and were
arrested by pro-Kremlin Chechens.
Andrey Yugov/Itar-Tass
IN CUSTODY Members of Chechnya’s
Presidential Security Service with a
suspect in 2003.
An ordeal began. After being beaten for two days, he said,
the three captives were driven to a boxing club in
Gudermes and presented to Mr. Kadyrov. Mr. Israilov’s
clothes were bloodstained, his body bruised. His nose had
been broken.
Today, Mr. Kadyrov, 32, is Chechnya’s most powerful man. Marginally educated but
bristling with intensity and self-confidence, he is not just the republic’s president but
also the de facto commander of its sprawling security forces and arbiter of much of its
oil flow. He also leads an extravagant personality cult and has officially sponsored a
local resurgence in Chechen religion and culture.
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As he has seized power, he has borrowed from Stalinism, Sufi Islam and Chechen
nationalism to erode the insurgency, bend a frightened society to his will and rebuild
the republic at a blur.
Along the way, he has been cast by his critics as Russia’s most sadistic gangster.
He has been accused of crimes capital, carnal and municipal, ranging from murder,
torture and kidnapping to cavorting with prostitutes and exacting kickbacks from
government workers to build monuments to his father and himself.
He has always denied all the allegations. In interviews since 2004 with The Times, he
sometimes laughed at them, and while he called himself “a warrior,” he insisted that he
fought only for peace.
“I am a Muslim” he said in 2006, when pressed about allegations of kidnapping.
“A good Muslim would never commit a crime,” he said. “He will always be facing God,
and he will always do good to people.”
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He added, as he drove a reporter at high speeds through the Chechen capital, Grozny,
with assault rifles strewn about his car’s seats: “I am an official person. I am not a
bandit.”
On the day Mr. Israilov met him, Mr. Kadyrov was almost unknown. His father,
Akhmad H. Kadyrov, formerly a leading separatist mufti, had switched sides in 2000 to
ally himself with the Kremlin. The reward was a plum: an appointment to Chechnya’s
top administrative post.
Ramzan Kadyrov led his father’s bodyguard, a growing militia of former rebels known as
the Presidential Security Service.
The service, a free-wheeling regiment with military, police and intelligence duties, had
no basis in Russian law.
“We’ve caught some devils,” one of their captors said to Mr. Kadyrov as he stepped from
his gym, Mr. Israilov recalled. Mr. Kadyrov laughed and gave an order: “Take them to
the base.”
The Torture Chamber
The town of Tsentoroi was once a rebels’ redoubt. By 2003 it had become an informal
seat of power for rebels who changed sides.
Mr. Israilov was driven there, he said, and confined with other detainees in cells outside
a weight-lifting center. According to victims and human rights groups, the weight room
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was one of several torture chambers run by pro-Kremlin Chechens.
That day, Mr. Israilov recalled, officers from the F.S.B., Russia’s domestic intelligence
service, beat him and tried to force him to confess to killing at least 17 people. Mr.
Israilov said he refused as Mr. Kadyrov watched.
Mr. Kadyrov finally took over. “Ramzan slapped me in the face once; then his guards
beat me,” he said. “Ramzan said, ‘Stop it,’ and asked me questions. Then he began
beating me again.”
According to Mr. Israilov, he was beaten a few times a week for three months, often after
being tied to fitness machines. His torturers wanted information about other rebels, he
said.
1
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C. J. Chivers reported from Vienna; London; Moscow; Oslo; and Grozny, Gudermes
and Mesker-Yurt, Chechnya. Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from Moscow.
More Articles in World »
A version of this article appeared in print on February 1, 2009, on page
A1 of the New York edition.
Click here to enjoy the convenience of home delivery of The Times for less than $1 a day.
Past Coverage
Critic of Chechen President Is Killed in Exile in Vienna (January 14, 2009)
World Briefing | Europe: Russia: Chechen Blames Moscow For Torture (March 17, 2007)
Putin Picks Premier Tied to Abuse as Chechen Leader (March 2, 2007)
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