The special operation in the house of the Aushev family, illegal detention and torture of Magomed Aushev

4.4. The special operation in the house of the Aushev family, illegal detention and torture of Magomed Aushev.

The target special operation took place at about 7 a.m. in the village of Surkhakhi. Ruslan Khavazhevich Aushev, born in 1980, residing at the Aushev St., 28, was killed as a result of this operation.

The press-service of the law enforcement agencies reported that during the special operations “one of the leaders of the Wahhabi underground, Ruslan Aushev, was killed”. According to the UFSB spokesman for RI Alexander Cherepanov, Ruslan Aushev who was among those behind the attack on Ingushetia on the night from 21 to 22 June 2004 and the school siege in Beslan, had long been wanted by the law enforcement authorities. They blocked him in the village of Surkhakhi. "The house where, according to our operational information, this bandit was hiding, was surrounded by a dense cordon. The special police forces wanted to avoid shooting and suggested that the militant surrenders, but he opened fire". Then, according to Cherepanov, the special police forces opened heavy fire in response but the fire from the house did not stop because the gunman was hiding in a specially equipped and fortified place on the attic; the operation resulted in, Aushev being killed.²⁴

Soon after the incident the staff members of the HRC Memorial visited the scene, interviewed the relatives and the neighbors of Ruslan Aushev as well as the witnesses. As a result, the picture of the events in Surkhakhi was somewhat different from the one presented by Cherepanov.

Early in the morning houses No 30 and No 28 on Aushev St. were blockaded by about eighty officers of the security forces, most of them wearing masks, who were brought in two armoured personnel carriers, six Gazel minibuses and several passenger cars. They spoke only Russian but some of them had a strong accent. The “siloviks" immediately proceeded to penetrating into the two houses.

Ruslan Aushev's family lived in house No 28 and their relatives live in house No 30.

According to the owner of house 30, Isropil Abdul-Mazhitovich Aushev, born in 1955, he was sitting in the yard and telling his beads, when suddenly armed men appeared in the courtyard having climbed in over the fence. They immediately aimed their guns at him, ordered him to pull up his shirt and to turn around with his back to them. Only after that the house owner was asked who he was and who was in the house. Isropil gave his name and said that there were only members of his family in the house. Pushing Isropil in the back with blow guns, the soldiers entered the house following him and ordered everybody to go out. The inhabitants of the house, apart from Isropil himself, were his sister Khadizhat, his nephew Magomed Osmanovich Aushev and Mikhail Aushev with his wife and six children. When all went out, everyone, including women and children, was put to the wall and searched. The men were taken away and were ordered to lie face down on the ground. Then, pushing Isropil in front of them, the "siloviks" carefully inspected the house, the attic and the adjacent buildings, reporting after checking each of the rooms on the radio transmitter: "All clear." The search took about one and a half hour, after that the main group of "siloviks" entered the yard.

House No 28, owned by Khavazh Khamoyevich Aushev, was also searched in a similar way. At about 5:30 pm more than two dozen "siloviks" surrounded his house and ordered the owner to come out. Khavazh and his eldest son Timur came out holding up their hands. They were handcuffed, taken under the shed and put onto the ground. “The women and children were taken out of the house and accompanied to the neighbors' house, after that the premises were thoroughly searched.

According to the members of the Aushev family, the youngest son of the owner, Ruslan, had been living here quite openly for a long time and before the Morning Prayer on June he was also at home. But after that he left for somewhere - Khavazh said he did not know where he went. It is clear that when the "siloviks" arrived, Ruslan Aushev made an attemp to escape and hide himself in the house of his relatives who were also his next-door neighbors.

Why was he trying to escape? It is likely that Ruslan Aushev could have a connection with the militants. However, as it turned out, the law enforcement authorities were not even aware of the fact that Ruslan Aushev was “long wanted" by them. After his death, a correspondent of the Ingushetiya.Ru web-site was told by an officer of the Nazran district department of internal affairs that Ruslan Aushev was not on the wanted list. ²⁵.

At about 7 o'clock one of the "siloviks" standing in the cordon opened fire from a grenade launcher at the attic of house No 30 (owned by Isropil Aushev). Intensive shooting broke out. For 20 minutes the attic was exposed to fire from automatic weapons from all sides, including the yard and house No 28. After that, the "siloviks" started beating Isropil and kicking him with the butts of their guns accusing him of lying. He tried to argue that they have just carefully inspected his house themselves and found no-one, how could he know that someone had got into there.

Isropil Aushev, his nephew Magomed Osmanovich Aushev, born in 1982, and the two sons of Mikhail Aushev, Hassan, born in 1986, and Hussein, born in 1988, had their fingers on both hands tied together behind the back with wire and were taken away from the courtyard. Magomed was put onto the floor of a Gazel vehicle. Hassan and Hussein were pushed into the armored personnel carrier. The detainees were being kicked and beaten with iron pipes. Isropil was brought back into the yard for identification of the body of the murdered person in the attic. That person was Ruslan Khavazhevich Aushev, resident of house No 28, who was probably hiding in the attic of the neighboring house. The right hand of the body was missing as was part of the left hand, the body itself had multiple shrapnel wounds and lacerations. It appears that he was shot dead from the grenade launcher. Ruslan was allegedly found with the aid of special infrared scanners, according to what the "siloviks" had told Isropil themselves.

Following the identification Isropil was forced to sign a protocol. The protocol, however, did not contain any mention of that after the search certain documents and property belonging to the Aushev family were missing: passports, birth certificates, the vehicle registration certificate, the military service record cards, 40,000 rubles, two tape recorders, five gold rings, a ladies’s gold watch, a gold chain and others belongings.

In the house of Khavazh Aushev 300,000 rubles and 5,000 dollars, some gold and jewelry, etc were missing after the search.

According to Khavazh Aushev, when the shooting was over, the "siloviks" ordered him to shovel two hundred sheaves of hay to make sure that there was nothing and nobody under them. He was shown two opaque plastic bags and told that they contained some objects from his home which were being taken away. Khavazh was forced to sign some papers in the presence of two officers acting as attesting witnesses. During the search the "siloviks" smashed almost all windows, broke the doors, furniture and were throwing the belongings around.

Before leaving, the armored personnel carrier of the "siloviks" smashed the gate of house No 30, crushed the car parked in the yard of Hassan Aushev, then the armoured personnel carrier heavily damaged the house itself which was built of sun-dried brick. They took with them the body of Ruslan Aushev but returned it back to the relatives four hours later.

At about 11:30 am Isropil Abdulmazhitovich Aushev, Hassan Mikhailovich and Hussein Mikhailovich Aushevs were taken in the armoured personnel carrier to the UFSB for RI building in the town of Magas. There they were interrogated until 5:00 pm and after that released.

Magomed Osmanovich Aushev was taken to the UFSB building separately in the Gazel minibus. Then, according to Magomed Aushev, the "siloviks" said that they would take him to Vladikavkaz and hand over to their Ossetian colleagues.

On the way to Vladikavkaz he was being kicked in the head and in the kidneys. When they were stopped by traffic police posts Magomed could hear that the "siloviks" identified themselves as FSB officers and were freely allowed to continue their journey. He also heard them talking among themselves about intending to change the number plate on the car. At a certain moment, the car stopped. One person in the convoy brought a black bag, which was put on Aushev’s head. After their arrival, the bag was pulled off his head and Magomed was brought into a large building. Aushev believes that it was the FSB or the UBOP (Department for Combating Organised Crime) building in Vladikavkaz. Most of the people who were there, spoke Ossetian. Magomed was brought into a damp room on the fourth floor. Wires were tied to his toes and the current was turned on. While this was being done, water was also poured on Aushev. The "siloviks" did not ask any questions. They claimed from the very beginning: they know that Magomed was concealing Ruslan Khavazhevich Aushev in his attic, that he knew the place where the cache with weapons, which they had found near the Alkhanchurtsk's canal, was kept. They said that they would force him to confess it. Someone in the room wanted to call a certain Vitya: "His relatives were killed in Beslan, he will know how to talk to you “properly”. Fortunately, "Vitya" was not found around. Magomed had the bag put back on his head, was taken away from the building, pushed into a car and taken to an unknown place. There Aushev was pushed into a hole about 1.5 meters deep and water was again poured on him. Then the men began to imitate the burial of Aushev throwing soil into the hole and saying: "In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit". One of them said: "If we return the body to the Ingush, it is better for it to be fresh." All through doing this, the executioners were telling their victim that he would disappear without a trace and that they had buried many people in the same way before him. Then the executioners dragged Magomed out of the pit, put two bulletproof vests on him and opened point-blank fire at him from a pistol. They took turns in shooting.

Aushev was not killed but taken to that same building where he was interrogated earlier. They again connected electric wires to his toes and with the comment "We are now going to listen to Kolya Baskov (singing) (a Russian singer who started his carrier as an opera singer)", they began to torture him with the electric current. After that they beat him with rubber truncheons on his kidneys and feet. Magomed was again forced to confess to having been concealing Ruslan Khavazhevich Aushev and other crimes that he had not committed. Then Aushev was asked about some people unknown to him. Some time later, a very big sturdy man entered the room. He was wearing rubber gloves. The man threatened Magomed that unless he signs the statement that they were going to give him, all that had happened before will seem a mere nothing to him. But if he agrees, they would release him. Magomed had no choice but to agree. He signed a few papers without reading. Then the “siloviks” gave him the receipt which claimed that on June 1, 2007 Magomed Aushev received from the military officers 35,000 rubles for hanging a piece of blue cloth on the gate of his house if Ruslan Aushev comes to visit him. The same document alleged that he had received the money on the night of June 17, 2007. In actual fact, there had never been any question of such an agreement, Magomed Aushev never received any money nor hung anything on his gate. However, perfectly realizing how hopeless his situation was, Magomed signed that paper also.

After that the “siloviks” gave Magomed a cell phone number. Aushev was instructed to call this number and fix a meeting on June 18 at 1 pm in the vicinity of the bus station of the city of Nazran. Otherwise, they promised to kill his brothers and abduct himself even if he decides to leave for his parents' home in the city of Yakutsk. To make their threats sound more credible, the "siloviks" cited several cases in which the detained people were released under the same conditions and later disappeared without a trace or were killed having failed to observe the agreement. They gave a few names: Oligov²⁶, Mutaliev²⁷, Mutsolgov²⁸.

When they finished interrogating Magomed Aushev, they put a black bag on his head, put him into a car and took away to an unknown destination. This time Magomed again heard the "siloviks" speaking about the need to change the number plates on the car To do that, they stopped at a certain location. Magomed also remembers that on their way their car hit a boy on a bicycle. The "siloviks" spent a while settling this conflict, speaking Russian and Ossetian. Then Magomed was thrown out of the car. When he pulled the bag off his head, he saw that he was lying on the side of the Ali-Yurt - Surkhakhi thoroughfare.

The HRC Memorial publicized the facts of human rights violations against the members of the Aushev family, including the fact of coercion with the use of torture of Magomed Aushev into secret collaboration with the FSB. A letter describing the above-mentioned facts and containing a request to hold an enquiry on them and, if they are confirmed, initiate criminal proceedings was addressed to the Prosecutor General. On August 10, the RI Prosecutor's Office in Nazran sent a reply indicating that "on June 17, 2007, at approximately 6 o’clock, when the officers of the UFSB for RI were conducting search in house 30 on Aushev St. in the village of Surkhakhi <…> Ruslan Khavazhevich Aushev, resident of 28, Aushev St., who was hiding in the attic, using a PM pistol <…> offered armed resistance to the UFSB officers. R;H.Aushev was wounded,by the fire opened by the officers after which he brought into action an explosive device of unknown origin and was killed on the spot. "

With regard to the armed resistance offered by Ruslan Aushev, a criminal case had been initiated, then closed due to the death of the person to be charged. "The District Prosecutor's Office has made a decision to send the materials concerning the unlawful acts of the UFSB officers manifested in violence against H.M. Aushev, I.A-M.Aushev , M.O. Aushev, Kh.Kh Aushev and in stealing their documents and belongings after the described events to the Military Prosecutor, military baze 04062 located in the stanitsa Troitskaya of the Sunzhensky district of the Republic of Ingushetia." ²⁹

The Military Prosecutor's Office did not reply to the inquiry from the HRC Memorial while the repeated inquiry addressed to the General Prosecutor's Office of Russia received an unexpected, amazing reply from the Nazran Interregional Investigative Division of the Department of Investigations of the Investigative Committee of the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Ingushetia. It turned out that following the inquiry from the Memorial an additional inspection had been conducted which was followed by an order to transfer the materials to the Department of Investigations of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation for the Chechen Republic. According to the ruling, "the enquiry upon these facts has established that on June 17, 2007, at about 5 am, unidentified law enforcement officers (italicized by the HRC Memorial), following the operational activities in the house located at 30, Aushev St., the village of Surkhakhi, Nazran district, Republic of Ingushetia, delivered M.O. Aushev, residing at the above address, onto the territory of the Chechen Republic (italicized by the HRC Memorial) where he was subjected to violent treatment.

Note that the officers of the UFSB for RI who, accor ding to the reply received from the Deputy Prosecutor dated August 10, searched the house of the Aushev family, turn into "unidentified law enforcement officials", as stated in the documents of the Investigative Division five months later. And this was, as stated above, despite the fact that the FSB had publicly acknowledged its participation in this special operation as well as that the members of the Aushev family were subjected to interrogation in the building of the UFSB for RI in the town of Magas.

Also the records of the Investigative Division inexplicably claim that Magomed Aushev was taken not to Vladikavkaz but to Grozny instead. Everything in Aushev's story points to Vladikavkaz - the time that the journey took, the conversations held in the Ossetian language and the threat of his interrogators. For the investigator all this does not appear to be of any importance, he has his own intricate logic: he refers to the fact that later, on September 18, Magomed Aushev was abducted by unidentified persons in Chechnya (see Section 4.5. of this report for more information on this abduction) and, according to the words of Magomed Aushev, the abductors were the same people that abducted him on June 17. Therefore, it now becomes the task of the local Department of Investigations of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation for the Chechen Republic to find those “non-unidentified persons” in Chechnya, The main motivation here is the desire to close this dangerous case as quickly as possible and not to let anyone suspect that the FSB officials could be involved in something illegal.

Thus, the structures of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor's Office as well as the Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Ingushetia itself have shown themselves unwilling to investigate the illegal activities of the FSB and other law enforcement agencies in the territory of Ingushetia, and thereby they contribute to the destabilization of the situation in the Republic.

The HRC Memorial does not question the legitimacy of the special operations conducted by FSB officers in cases of obtaining operational information concerning involvement of a certain person in the guerilla activities. However, it is unacceptable that the special operations in the village of Surkhakhi were accompanied by gross violations of human rights and of the norms of the Russian law.

Subsequent events have shown that these violations of legitimacy brought about a chain of events with direct consequences for the Republic of Ingushetia.

On June 25, the residents of the village gathered to hold an unauthorized protest rally.

On June 27, they forcibly prevented the abduction of an inhabitant of the village by FSB officers. And when, in September the "siloviks" tried to take vengeance on Magomed Aushev abducting him together with his second cousin, this led to mass riots in Nazran (see Section 4.9. of this report). Magomed's uncle, Maksharip Aushev, who was never engaged in politics before these events, became one of the organizers of the protest actions.