Acts of intimidation - the abduction of journalists and of a human rights activist

4.10. Acts of intimidation - the abduction of journalists and of a human rights activist

In the evening of November 23, 2007 the security guard team of the hotel Assa was, as usual, consisted of four armed officers of the patrol and traffic police of the Ingushetian Ministry of Interior. According to the hotel staff, at about 9:00 pm, after receiving a certain phone call, the Ministry of Interior officers guarding the hotel left for somewhere in a car that was specially sent after them. After that, the only remaining security forces were represented by several unarmed staff members of the hotel.

At that time among the hotel guests were two Deputy Ministers of Interior of RI who were sent there shortly before to Ingushetia from other regions of Russia. It is hard to imagine that these officials could have been allowed to spend a night in an unguarded hotel. At least one of the deputy ministers, Sergey Seliverstov, was at the hotel at the moment when the guards were being removed and the hotel staff had notified him about it. The only explanation for what has happened could be preparation of a special operation at the hotel by some state security service.

Shortly after 11 p.m. a "Gazel" minibus with armed men inside stopped by the hotel entrance. There was in all probability a second car because the group of men in camouflage and masks numbered about 15 people. They entered the hotel hall and, holding the people at gunpoint, ordered all the men of the hotel staff, including the unarmed guards, to lie down on the floor. The women were forced to stand near a wall with their hands raised. The armed men identified themselves as officers of the Directorate for Combating Terrorism and proceeded to examination of the guests' register. They then separated into two teams and went to two rooms located on different floors.

Room 215 on the first floor was occupied by Oleg Orlov. At around 11:30 pm he heard a quiet knock on the door, in response to the question "Who is there?" a quiet female voice gave an indistinct reply. Believing that it was someone of the hotel staff, he opened the door, the next moment the door was flung open by a sharp blow from the outside. Three people jumped into the room pointing their assault rifles at Orlov. The intruders were wearing black masks with slits for the eyes and the mouth. They ordered him in a loud voice: "Face down on the floor!", after which Orlov was thrown down on the floor. His hands were wrung behind his back. Someone started asking questions: "What is the purpose of your visit to Ingushetia?" - "It is a work-related trip", "The purpose of your trip?" - "Check it in the documents. My purpose is monitoring of the human rights situation. You are taking me for someone else, you are being completely mistaken",-"Where are your documents?"-- " In the pocket of my jacket, in the wardrobe."

He heard the door of the cabinet being broken. Orlov saw, with a corner of his eye, that his jacket and coats were being thrown on the bed. His attempts to explain the intruders that their behaviour was inappropriate were met with a slack blow to his leg.

Then the order came: "Get all the stuff into the sack". Orlov was raised to his feet, had a black plastic bag put on his head and was dragged out, his arms twisted behind his back. Orlov was wearing jeans, a light shirt and slippers put on bare feet. His request to allow him to put on something more substantial or, at least, socks was ignored. He was dragged out of the hotel and pushed into a vehicle, which was, apparently, a minibus.

At that moment he heard how some other arrested people were being taken out of the hotel and put into the same minibus. Someone sitting inside the car, apparently, one of the armed group, asked them a strange question: "And who, the bloody hell, are you?" -"We are REN-TV correspondents. Why are we being detained?", "There was information that the hotel had been mined. Which of you brought in the explosives?" - "We are correspondents, we do not have any explosives", "We will take you to the police department, the Superintendent will interrogate you and then you will be released."

Someone outside yelled: "The hotel is clean, we can go". Several people jumped into the car and it took off.

As it turned out later, the abduction of the REN-TV correspondents unfolded according to the same scenario. Thw three correspondents of the Ren-TV channel who came to Nazran to give coverage of the social and political situation in Ingushetia on the eve of the elections gathered in Room 311, where the cameraman Karen Sakhinov was staying. They had spent the entire day filming, in particular, they went to the village of Chemulga, where on November 9, during "a special operation" carried out by FSB officers a child of six was killed. On November 24, an unauthorized rally against the arbitrariness of the "siloviks" was expected to take place and the reporters had intended to cover it in their report about it. Somebody knocked on the door of their room. The events after that were pretty similar to what had happened in Room 215 differing in two minor details only. First, Stanislav Goryachikh attempted disobedience and was beaten. Secondly, the armed masked men were purposefully searching for something among the journalists' belongings. Several times someone asked: "Got it?" Until, finally, the answer was heard: "Here! We've got it". Then all the three correspondents were dragged downstairs with bags on their heads.

The car with the abducted men was travelling for more than an hour. All attempts of the abducted to express their indignation or, at least, to ask questions were suppressed wuith the rude command: "Silence!". After some time, an order came: "Duck your heads! Bend down! Remain this way! "This was accompanied by a mighty blow from behind. It seems that at that point the car was approaching a police post. However, no-one at the post stopped it. It shall be noted, however, that in the evening, on the eve of the expected rally, there were many police posts on the roads of Ingushetia, especially on the roads leading in and out of Nazran - the law enforcement forces were transferred to a heightened security regime. Unhindered journey of the car with many armed men inside was only possible in the event that it belonged to some security service. Meanwhile, the car was no longer travelling on the outskirts and countryside roads but on a decent motorway: Orlov, who was sitting near the window, could distinguish the headlights of other cars and the street lights on the roadside through the black plastic bag on his head.

Then the lights along the highway disappeared and the car turned and slowly moved on on a bad road. It became quite clear that they were not going to the police department. The car stopped, the door opened, and the order followed: "Take them out one by one. Do away with them, don't forget the silencer".

The journalists were pushed out of the car first, Orlov was thrown out after them. The abducted men fell down on the ground. The abductors began to beat them on their heads, legs, their hands if the were trying to cover their heads with them, on the kidneys, in the groin. However, the degrees of cruelty with which the four were beaten varied. Orlov and Sakhinov got away with minor injuries and bruises. Vysotsky and Goryachikh received a more harsh lot - they had bad wounds on their faces, sharp pain in the sides and back and Vysotski even passed out for a brief period of time.

Then another order came: "Lay, don't move, whoever raises his head before we leave, will be shot. **** off from here so that we see no more of you! ". The car started off. The black bag on Orlov's head had already partly come off, he raised his head and saw a light-coloured (white or beige) "Gazel" vehicle moving away from them on a muddy and bumpy countryside road.

All the four got to their feet. The staff members of REN-TV asked Orlov who he was, he explained. They were in an empty field covered with scarce snow, lights were seen in the distance. Following the countryside road by which the abductors had left appeared not quite sensible. They decided to walk through the field toward the lights. All the four were dressed lightly, two members of the REN-TV crew were barefoot.

The lights turned out to be several bulbs illuminating a large area of houses under construction, no people were to be seen. Several times Vysotsky had lapses of memory and would start asking where he was, what had happened, who were the people walking along with him.

Finally, all the four reached a petrol station. It turned out that they were in the territory of RI in stanitsa Nesterovskaya, the journalists and the human rights activist came to the nearest village police department. The police officers went out to identify the place where the four men were thrown out of the car taking Orlov with them.

Then the victims were interviewed in stanitsa Ordzhonikidzevskaya, at the Sunzhensky district department of internal affairs, and later at the Nazran municipal department of internal affairs, and after that by the Department of Investigations of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor's Office.

The policemen, on the one hand, had shown sympathy and understanding but at the same time the officers of the municipal department of internal affairs, obeying the orders from above, kept the journalists at the police station until the evening under various pretexts. The authorities were apparently trying to prevent the media from covering the rally, which was expected on that day.

In the evening, the President of the Republic of Ingushetia invited the REN-TV journalists to a meeting with him. The Chairman of the Council of the HRC Memorial Oleg Orlov, who had been abducted together with them, was not invited. The meeting was also attended by the Minister of the Interior and the Public Prosecutor of RI. The President criticized the Minister, ordered him "to trace the criminals without any delay and return the stolen equipment", to provide the correspondents with armed protection and immediately issue to them new documents substituting the stolen identity cards.

Back at the hotel it turned out that the belongings from Rooms 215 and 311 had been stolen. Among them were computers, all the equipment of the journalist crew including the filmed material, personal documents, money, documents collected in the course of their trip to Ingushetia, mobile phones as well as the journalists' jackets, coats and suitcases. It appears that the abductors took away the clothes because the pockets could have possibly contained documents. Two other rooms in which the abducted journalists were staying had not undergone the same search procedure, nothing had been stolen from them.

The Department of Investigations of the city of Nazran of the Investigative Division of the Investigative Committee of the Public Prosecutor's office of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case on November 24 pursuant to Part 2 of Article 139 (violation of the inviolability of home), Part 1 of Article 144 (Obstruction of the Lawful Professional Activity of Journalists ) and Paragraphs 2 "a", "d" of Part 2 of Article 161 (robbery committed by a group of persons in a preliminary conspiracy, with the use of coercion that is not dangerous to human life or health, or with the threat of use of such coercion) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. On the same day, all the four men were recognized as victims in this criminal case.

Obviously, the Articles of the Criminal Code pursuant to which criminal proceedings were initiated, do not adequately describe what has happened. The investigators have "overlooked" the fact that an "abduction" (Article 126), "Threat of Murder or Infliction of Grave Injury Health" (Article 119), "battery" (Article 116) and "Intentional Infliction of Injury of Average Gravity Health" (Article 112) had taken place. It is hard to imagine that firearms aimed at a person could be considered as non- life-threatening violence. Meanwhile, assault with the purpose of robbery committed with the threat of life-threatening violence is not classified as "robbery" but as "robbery with violence" (Article 162 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

But the main inadequacy in the evaluation of the crime lies in the denial of the obvious on the part of the investigators: of the fact the crime was committed by representatives of the state power. The investigators did not qualify these criminal acts as "committed with the abuse of the official powers". The request of the lawyer representing the victims on re-qualification of the criminal case, in particular, on supplementing the articles of the Criminal Code incriminated to the abductors with Article 286 (exceeding of official powers) was rejected by the investigator.

The question arises: what did all this mean?

There is no definite answer to this question so far.

The events of the night to November 24 were very similar to a public demonstration.

Who exactly were the people who abducted the journalists and the human rights activist and what were their goals?

There are several theories.

The explanation offered by the President of Ingushetia claims that this was an action of "certain destructive forces" aimed at destabilizing the situation in the republic. The President is trying to vaguely allude at someone.

But if there is no clear answer, this means that the leaders of the republic are not in control of the situation. If the answer is in fact known, this may only mean that the leaders of the republic do not want to take upon themselves the risk of publicly announcing it, thus themselves contributing to further destabilization of the situation.

The authors of this report believe that the case is quite clear: the journalists and the human rights activist were abducted by representatives of some state security structure. All the circumstances of the crime point to this explanation. Obviously, the abductors were professionals, using the pattern of operation which was usual for them and had been used on many occasions. This crime once again showed how brazenly, demonstrably and flagrantly the "siloviks" can make lawlessness reign in Ingushetia.

It may be that the crime was directly linked to the upcoming rally and to the material filmed by the reporters in Chemulga. Perhaps that crime was committed by those who were in charge of the "special operation" in the village of Chemulga, which led to the death of a child - those who were breeding lawlessness, compelling people to hold an unsanctioned rally. After all, firstly, the "siloviks" seized the tapes which were "untoward" for them, and, secondly, they did everything to ensure that the journalists and human rights activist are unable to cover the events surrounding the rally in Nazran.

However, it is possible that the criminals had a longer-term goal - to try to thus "isolate" the republic not only for a particular day, but for long. Those who are behind the lawless violence in Ingushetia, want to make the region as closed as possible for outsider observers - journalists, human rights activists and international organizations. In such a situation they will be able to safely proceed with their current practices defying the law and the human rights norms. That is why they have shown: no-one and nowhere in Ingushetia could be protected from their violence. That is why they have chosen the period in time when special attention was focused on Ingushetia and the victims of those crimes were people, whose abduction would be widely covered by the media. According to the same logic the site of abduction was chosen the usually guarded hotel "Assa" - a safe place hsoting most journalists, human rights activists, members of international organizations. As a result, quite in accordance with the criminals' plan, visiting Ingushetia will become difficult for any outside observers.

In connection with the above-described it is also worth remembering the threats received by the head of the Ingushetian human rights organization "MASHR", Magomed Mutsolgov.

On May 2, 2007, the web-site "Ingushetiya.Ru" published a letter of an unidentified officer of the security structures⁶¹ in which he warned the head of the Ingush human rights organization "MASHR" Magomed Mutsolgov of the provocation which was being prepared against him.

According to the author of the letter, he had become a casual witness of two unidentified officers of the security services saying that "there is a special decision approved by the leaders of the republic to do all that is possible in order to close down the organisation "MASHR". Moreover, the task of pinning by all possible means any criminal responsibility on Mutsolgov, no matter for which crime: he may be accused of hooliganism, planting firearms or drug-dealing. As I understand, recently Mutsolgov's organization and he personally had repeatedly been checked by various agencies and departments, who were duplicating each other's actions. Despite a large number of check-ups it was not possible to detect any violations with regard to its activities. All this is so serious that I am sure: they are prepared to go at any lenghts including actual elimination of Magomed Mutsolgov".

This information was, in turn, widely distributed by the HRC Memorial.

The social organization "MASHR" has been operating for less than two years. Over this perood, the Prosecutor's Office, the FSB and the Registration Chamber have checked this organization over 10 times, on both formal and informal level. These checks did not reveal any violations. In addition, during this time, Magomed Mutsolgov has repeatedly received threats from unidentified persons and advices from "well-wishers" to give up on his human rights activities and engage in "something else".

The keen interest of the authorities and law enforcement agencies in Magomed Mutsolgov is due to his activities. The organization headed by him collects information concerning the abductions, torture and killings in Ingushetia. In 2007 they issued a report on this subject.

In the spring unidentified persons were noticed keeping the office of the organization under close surveillance. According to Magomed Mutsolgov, near the premises in the town of Karabulak where the office of "MARSH" is located, cars with tinted glasses the passengers of which were unidentidied individuals wearing camouflage uniforms were regularly observed.

Of course, the anonymous letter and the cars cannot on their own be considered a proof of the fact that a provocation is being prepared. But the realities of today's Ingushetia compel us to take such information into most serious consideration. We cannot exclude the possibility of that the publication of such information on possible "provocation" against the head of "MARSH" has forced the people, who had been preparing it, to abandon their intentions.