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Fear of torture and ill-treatment; Incommunicado detention; ‘Disappearance’ of Ruslan Alikhadzhiyev

Amnesty International Urgent Action Bulletin, AI Index: EUR 46/42/00, 13 September 2000

The speaker of the separatist Chechen parliament, who was arrested by Russian soldiers earlier this year, is reported to have been tortured in a Moscow prison, and possibly to have died as a result. The Russian authorities at first confirmed that they had arrested him, but have since denied having him in custody.

Ruslan Alikhadzhiyev, the speaker of the Chechen separatist "Republic of Ichkeria" parliament, was taken from his home in the Chechen town of Shali on 17 May, by a Russian force that included several armoured vehicles and two helicopters. He was reportedly taken to a Russian military intelligence (GRU) facility in the Chechen town of Argun. At a 25 May press briefing the deputy chief of the Russian army general staff, General Valery Manilov, apparently confirmed that he had been captured.

Chechen separatist sources claimed on 2 September that Ruslan Alikhadzhiyev had died of a heart attack on 31 August, after torture in the Federal Security Service (FSB)-run Lefortovo prison, in Moscow. The FSB denied that Alikhadzhiyev had ever been held in the prison, in a 7 September public statement, and said they could not confirm the claim about his death. The previous day they had confirmed to Associated Press that Alikhadzhiyev had been arrested.

The Prosecutor General's office had earlier told Ruslan Alikhadzhiyev's Moscow lawyer that no criminal charges had been filed against him, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs has reportedly said his name is not on its computerised register of people officially detained in the Russian Federation. Alikhadzhiyev's lawyer told Amnesty International that the Russian Prosecutor's Office in the Chechen Republic informed him on 3 August that the Shali district Prosecutor has begun a criminal investigation into the kidnap of Ruslan Alikhadzhiyev by Russian forces.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Ruslan Alikhadzhiyev was a Chechen field commander in the first Chechen War of 1994-1996. After the Russians withdrew, he was elected to the separatist parliament of the "Republic of Ichkeria", and became the speaker. He was reportedly not involved when the fighting resumed in September 1999, and stayed at his family home in Shali until his arrest. He had apparently called for a cease-fire and for the two sides to negotiate and make compromises. The Russian authorities have so far ruled out such negotiations and are continuing their military campaign for control of Chechnya.

Russian forces are still reported to be detaining people in Chechnya and holding them without access to their relatives, lawyers or the outside world. People who have survived such detention have testified to Amnesty that detainees are regularly and systematically tortured: they are beaten with hammers and clubs, raped, and tortured with electric shocks and tear gas. Some of the larger Russian detention centres or "filtration" centres, such as that at Chernokozovo in northern Chechnya, have recently come under limited monitoring by international organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). However, there are reports that, since this monitoring began, Russian forces have increasingly kept prisoners in new, secret and unofficial places of detention, including pits dug in the ground at military checkpoints. Russian forces and detention centre guards are said to frequently demand payment in weapons, money or provisions from the relatives of Chechen detainees to secure either their release or, in some cases, the return of their corpses.