Ibragim Yevloyev, of no relation to his victim, was the former police officer sentenced late last year to two years in a penal colony for what was ruled to be the “accidental” killing of Magomed Yevloyev.

Relatives of the slain opposition leader had filed a complaint on December 11, 2009, demanding that the court give Yevloyev a harsher sentence. They maintain that Yevloyev was murdered intentionally, and his father, Yakhya Yevloyev, has been particularly outspoken. In a December interview with Gazeta.ru, Yakhya asserted that the light sentence had been a result of pressure on the judge from former Internal Minister Musa Medov, an uncle of the accused officer.

“Judge Tumgoyev admitted to me that Medov called and asked him not to punish his nephew,” Yakhya said at the time.

Instead, the Ingush High Court decided on Tuesday to swap the part of the Russian criminal article that Yevloyev was found guilty of for another part of the same article. Now, instead of being officially guilty of “negligent homicide owing to the improper discharge by a person of his professional duties,” he is only guilty of “negligent homicide.” The change results in a much lighter sentence – two years of house arrest.

Human rights groups have stood with Magomed Yevloyev’s relatives since the murder in mid-2008 in maintaining that the killing was intentional and the criminal investigation a sham. The family’s lawyer, Musa Pliyev, has been attempting to initiate proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In light of a chain of murders of Ingush oppositionists that followed Yevloyev’s killing, Pliyev said he is convinced that authorities have issued “a license to shoot down other human rights advocates.”

Magomed Yevloyev was the founder and owner of Ingushetia.ru, an opposition website based in Russia’s volatile Caucasian republic of the same name. On August 31, 2008, Yevloyev wound up by coincidence on the same airplane as Murat Zyazikov, Ingushetia’s notoriously corrupt then-president. A quarrel allegedly broke out, and, upon landing, Yevloyev was detained and dragged into a car. His personal guards attempted to chase the motorcade, but Magomed had already been shot in the temple inside the police vehicle.

The website was then taken over by Ingush oppositionist Maksharip Aushev, who was murdered by unknown assailants last October.

Ibragim Yevloyev, of no relation to his victim, was sentenced on Friday in the Karabulak City Court in Ingushetia. He was not present for the decision. The court ruled that the murder was accidental and had occurred due to the officer’s “carelessness.”

Relatives of Magomed say that they are contesting the court’s decision, but his father, Yakhya Yevloyev, said that “I know that it won’t change anything radically.” He explained the light sentence as the result of pressure on the judge from former Internal Minister Musa Medov, the uncle of the accused officer.

“Judge Tumgoyev admitted to me that Medov called and asked him not to punish his nephew,” Yakhya told journalists.

Magomed Yevloyev was murdered on August 31, 2008, not long after arriving at the Magas Airport in Ingushetia from Moscow. By accidental coincidence, he had wound up on the same plane as Murat Zyazikov, the profoundly corrupt ex-president of Ingushetia who was fired by the Kremlin two months after the killing. A quarrel allegedly broke out on the plane, and upon arrival Yevloyev was detained and dragged into a car, a scene witnessed by Magomed’s friends and relatives who had come to greet him at the airport. His personal guards attempted to chase the motorcade, but Magomed had already been shot in the temple inside the police vehicle.

The person who shot Magomed Yevloyev turned out to be Ibragim Yevloyev, Medov’s nephew and chief of security. According to police, Magomed had been detained in order to be brought in for questioning related to a case in which he was a witness. They say a fight broke out in the vehicle when Magomed tried to resist, and that Ibragim accidentally shot him when Magomed attempted to take the officer’s weapon.

The investigator who signed the order to bring Magomed in for questioning says that he only did so under the orders of his superiors, and not until after Magomed had already died.

Friends and relatives of Magomed, as well as human rights groups, insist that the case had been a sham from the beginning, since the murder was intentional and had been ordered by Zyazikov. The family’s lawyer, Musa Pliyev, is attempting to initiate proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In light of a chain of murders of oppositionists in Ingushetia that followed Yevloyev’s killing, Pliyev says he is convinced that authorities had issued “a license to shoot down other human rights advocates.”

Pliyev has asked Strasbourg to make the case a priority, so that relevant documents might be presented before authorities have a chance to destroy them. While he is also contesting Friday’s decision in the court in Karabulak, the lawyer expressed certainty that it would not be successful.

Another lawyer and anonymous source told Gazeta.ru that any reliance on the Russian court system would be futile. “I said from the very beginning that there was no point in waiting for the court’s decision on this case. The case has not been uncovered, and the investigation did not answer the main questions – who ordered the murder, what was the motive, and so on.”

The lawyer added that the responsibility for these failings lay with the government’s investigative agencies. “Of course, now we can disparage the court,” he said, “but I wouldn’t want to blame the court. While the courts in our country are dependent on the government authorities, this is what their decisions are going to be.”

The Ingush President has pledged full support for the investigation, but his ability to control the violence in Ingushetia is in doubt.

The Russian republic of Ingushetia borders Chechnya in the North Caucasus. Ingush security forces in charge of controlling spillover insurgent violence are blamed for hundreds of kidnappings and extrajudicial murders, but are rarely investigated.

“They killed this man two hours ago, but he walks among us here on film.”
Yulia Latynina
October 26, 2009
Yezhednevny Zhurnal

On Sunday, October 25, 2009, in the North Caucasian city of Nalchik, one of the most influential people in the Republic of Ingushetia was killed – Maksharip Aushev; the killers peppered his car with machine guns. It happened on the day after Maksharip appeared on Marianna Maksimovskaya’s REN TV news show and gave a piercing indictment of former republic president Murat Zyazikov.

“Nobody has established yet who to suspect,” said Yakhya Aushev, Maksharip’s father. “You could get bogged down in the fact that he just recently was speaking out against Zyazikov. Not long ago, a team from REN TV was photographing their [the Zyazikovs’] mansions, and there was an incident with Ruslanbek Zyazikov. It was as if there were forces hunting him down.”

Ruslanbek Zyazikov is the cousin and former chief security detail of former president Zyazikov.

“I have a feeling it’s because of us,” says Marianna Maksimovskaya. “Maksharip saved our film crew literally ten days ago.”

Leonid Kanfer’s film crew was shooting a story in Ingushetia on the corruption of the former president. Among other things, they filmed their mansions in the village of Barsuki. When the film crew returned to the hotel, armed men came for them.

“They beat up the driver. Ruslanbek Zyazikov beat him personally,” said Maksimovskaya. “Our journalists called Maksharip, he arrived by himself, drew out a Stechkin [automatic pistol], and in Ruslanbek’s eyes brought out our cameraman and correspondent to the presidential administration, where they their testimony was taken.”

On Maksimovskaya’s program, Maksharip had said that the republic’s old leadership gave money to militants and sabotaged the actions of the new president; he gave as an example the fate of Construction Minister Ruslan Amerkhanov. According to Maksharip, he was appointed by new president Yevkurov and shot in his own office after refusing to continue business as usual.

Two hours after Maksharip’s murder, a rerun was aired of “The Week with Marianna Maksimovskaya.” “They killed a man, but he walks among us here on film.”

Two people managed to remove former President Zyazikov: the first owner of Ingushetia.ru, Magomed Yevloyev, and the second owner of the site, Maksharip Aushev. Both are dead.

Warnings and Tanks

The site Ingushetiaru.org had reported on September 12 about plans to murder Maksharip. “The would-be murder was commissioned to a member of one of the ORB-2 units to be committed at the moment of Aushev’s departure outside the republic,” the site asserted [ORB-2 (Operations and Search Bureau) is a federal police bureau in Chechnya accused of flagrant and widespread violations of the law, including torture of civilian detainees].

Maksharip was stopped three days later on September 15 at the post office, alongside which stood federal BTR tanks and Gazelle light trucks. Men from the BTR attempted to apprehend Maksharip, but were beat off by friends and chance bystanders – including the vice chairman of the government of the republic.

Having barely escaped, Maksharip phoned the president of the republic, Yunus-bek Yevkurov. The president called the security forces to a meeting the next day. It became clear that the BTR had been placed so as to not fall within view of any cameras. However, authorities now assert that had been a routine security check, and that Maksharip, who had been warned about plans of an attempt on his life, simply lost his nerves. Furthermore, he for some reason presented the Russian inspectors with his son’s identification, and not his own.

Forty days later he was shot.

How Maksharip Became Engaged in Politics

Maksharip Aushev was not a professional politician. He became engaged in politics after a “death squad” abducted his nephew Magomed on June 17, 2007. Magomed was taken out to the forest, tortured by being shot point-blank while standing in a waist-deep hole (first being outfitted with two bulletproof vests), and then freed upon signing an agreement of cooperation. Instead of cooperating, Magomed submitted a written statement to the prosecutor’s office.

After that, Magomed was of course doomed, and was abducted once again on September 18, 2007. As he had been together in the car with Maksharip’s son – his cousin – both were abducted.

They were tortured for several hours in the Chechnyan village of Goyty, and afterwards brought to the mountains for “snickers” – a practice in which a murdered corpse is bound with explosives and blown up; animals eat up the scattered pieces of meat, and the person disappears without a trace.

While they were being tortured, however, Maksharip assembled a rally in the city of Nazran. The authorities spooked and freed the Aushev boys.

Maksharip began to investigate who had abducted his son and nephew, and determined that it was Urus-Martan District Department of Interior Ministry Chief Ramzan Dzhamalkhanov, who it appears was acting on order of the Ingush Interior Minister Musa Medov – in any event, it was after a personal phone call from Medov to Dzhamalkhanov that the boys were freed.

Whatever the relationship was between the Aushev family and regional militants (and at that time, thanks to the activity of president Zyazikov and his “death squads,” the militants had sympathy or approval from practically everyone besides their targets), it is important to note that Maksharip was actually a legal oppositionist. He did not run off to search through the forest; he investigated the kidnapping of his son, made the results public, and demanded the resignation of Zyazikov. He did what befits a father and a man, and he would not have gotten into politics if politics had not gotten into him.

In the Caucasus, where yesterday’s terrorists now lead anti-terrorism detachments, where family ties mean more than beliefs, and reputation means even more than family ties, Maksharip was one of the central figures in negotiations between the authorities and the militants; or at that time, if I may, between the authorities and the people.

As a legal oppositionist, Maksharip was a thorn in the side of the authorities. He was arrested on February 14, 2008, and the circumstances of this arrest were truly fantastical. Several dozen people accompanied by two BTR tanks arrived at Aushev’s village of Surkhakh, incinerated the house of his brother with a grenade launcher, and sat in wait for Maksharip to arrive on the scene. Maksharip did come, but so many people were with him that the men decided not to arrest him. They sat in ambush until evening, when Maksharip returned alone.

The authorities, however, made a strategic mistake: they had not dared to kill Maksharip immediately upon his arrest. The plan fell to pieces. This mistake was corrected for the following notorious murder – that of Maksharip’s friend and ally, Ingushetia.ru owner Magomed Yevloyev.

The Murder of Magomed Yevloyev

On August 31, 2008, Ingushetia.ru owner Magomed Yevloyev flew from Moscow to Ingushetia and by accidental coincidence wound up sitting in business class with President Zyazikov.

A quarrel arose between Zyazikov and Yevloyev, and Yevloyev left for a different cabin. According to the investigation undertaken by Yevloyev’s relatives, President Zyazikov called his chief of security and cousin Ruslanbek Zyazikov immediately after the argument and ordered him to take care of Magomed.

Ruslanbek then set out to find Ibragim Yevloyev, chief of security for Interior Minister Musa Medov, who had been at a wedding at the house of Medov’s uncle. Ruslanbek, Musa and Ibragim met Magomed Yevloyev at the airport; Magomed was dragged out of the cabin and put in a Volga armored car.

Seeing what was going on, Yevloyev’s armed followers – who were also Aushev’s – took off after him, but went for the wrong part of the motorcade. They were able to cut two armored Volgas away from the motorcade, dragged out Medov’s guards, and began to beat them. They cried out that “the blood is not on us!” which Aushev thought referred to the guards’ previously victims. In fact, it referred to Magomed Yevloyev. It seems that Ibragim Yevloyev shot Magomed in cold blood in the temple even before the motorcade left the airport.

The investigation of this murder itself became possible when the victim’s father, Yakhya Yevloyev, declared blood vengeance on Zyazikov. Almost immediately, participants of the murder, including the chief of police and President Zyazikov himself, came out of the woodwork and began dumping blame for the crime on each other. Topping of the list of Yevloyev’s murderers, published on Ingushetia.org, is Ingush President Murat Zyazikov.

Ten days after Magomed Yevloyev’s murder, Ruslan Zyazikov’s brother Bekkhan was shot by unknown assailants. It is important to note that Ruslan Zyazikov is the son of Uruskhan Zyazikov, who was kidnapped by militants on March 23, 2007. It was precisely after this abduction that “death squads” began abducting anyone who could possibly be to blame. A five million dollars ransom was apparently paid for Uruskhan.

The murder of Magomed Yevloyev was more than the Kremlin could tolerate. Zyazikov was removed two months later, and named in his place was Yunus-bek Yevkurov.

Yevkurov’s Appointment

That there is disorder and lawlessness in Ingushetia has long since been obvious. But the depth of the rot that was discovered when Yevkurov’s took office simply cannot be described. Ingushetia.org reported, for example, on the following incident: in December of last year in the central mosque of Nazran, around three thousand people had gathered, demanding that Ruslanbek Zyazikov return stolen budget money and swear on the Koran that he had not given the money to militants. Ruslanbek did not go to the mosque, but he did admit to a crowd that showed up outside his house that he had paid militants thirty million rubles a month to not harm his relatives.

The strategy of the new president was utterly severe: forgive those who may be forgiven, and kill those who had ought to be killed. And no corruption.

Yevkurov’s strategy split the opposition. Oppositionist Kaloy Akhilgov became press secretary for the new president. But oppositionist Magomed Khazbiev, a close friend of Maksharip, continued to indict Yevkurov as a murderer.

The strategy split not only the opposition, but also the militants and the security forces. Paradoxically, these latter two implacable opponents had one thing in common: they both favored a continuation of uncontrolled violence – the militants, because it builds a base for Islamic revolution, and the security forces, because it makes it so easy to earn stars for one’s uniform. They, as well as others still, needed for the deciding tool in the republic to be the axe of the slaughterer, not the knife of the surgeon. For them, violence that was targeted or deemed necessary would not be sufficient.

If militants have left Zyazikov untouched (which you’d figure, for 30 million rubles a month), then Yevkurov, having taken it upon himself to root out corruption and uncontrolled violence, now faces assassination attempts that have befallen him as if from a bucket. The first of these attempts was preceded by a fully incomprehensible – but undoubtedly very historically important – special operation on December 6, 2008. On that day in the town of Barsuki, another Magomed Aushev (please excuse the abundance of Aushevs in this story), right-hand man of the chief of Ingush militants in the village of Magas, was killed. Although actually, while Aushev was thought to be dead, he was really hiding in Barsuki (Zyazikov’s native city). He also at that time apparently had negotiations with President Yevkurov concerning possible surrender, as well as about a meeting that Maksharip Aushev would mediate.

Because of these negotiations, word spread by phone that Magomed Aushev had been killed by federal troops, who subsequently killed his brother Adam. Militants grabbed hold of the incident to blame the “kafir and apostates” of Yevkurov in the entire matter, and assassination attempts came one after another. It was a miracle that the heavily wounded Yevkurov survived after guards dragged him from his blazing car in June.

While Yevkurov lay in the hospital, a suicide bomber blew up a local police station in Nazran. The terrorist act shocked the Kremlin. Medvedev fired then-new Ingush Police Chief Meyriev and appointed Deputy Interior Minister Arkady Yedelev as coordinator for all security agencies in the Caucasus. The appointment was very strange, considering the reputation Yedelev enjoyed in the Caucasus. He is considered a man close to Chechen President Kadyrov and a patron of Musa Medov, that same former Ingush Chief of Police who figures in at number two after President Zyazikov on the list of Magomed Yevloyev’s murderers.

The murder of Maksharip Aushev is testimony to the fact that, aside from obvious discrepancies between Ingush President Yevkurov and the militants on the creation of a Caucasus Emirate, there exists another less obvious but very deep discrepancy between President Yevkurov and part of the former elite – the part wanting violence and impunity.

The murder of Maksharip Aushev is not one of those murders where everything is immediately clear. Like Yakhya Yevloyev, father of the murdered Magomed, said to me on Sunday: “Tomorrow, information should come out.” But this is a landmark murder. Whether or not President Yevkurov can find Maksharip Aushev’s murderers will determine who is in control of the republic. And for Yevkurov, this question is one of life and death – politically and literally.

The source of Aushev’s fears was backed by colleague Musa Pliev, aid to the Ingush president and representative of the family of another slain oppositionist. According to Pliev, the current murder investigation must change its focus to consider a political motive. The five possible motives outlined by authorities, which Pliev called “absurd and baseless,” include criminal associations, promises of aid to demonstrators who faced possible prosecution, and an extramarital affair. Pliev asserts out that Aushev was never associated with any criminals, and that the demonstrators Aushev supposedly promised to help have long since been freed. The woman he is accused of having an affair with is a cousin, and was a passenger with Aushev when their car was sprayed with machine gun fire on Sunday.

Ingush President Yunus-bek Yevkurov blames the murder on the republic’s security forces. In an October 26 interview on the Echo Moskvy radio station, Yevkurov said that he took the news of the murder “with severity,” that the crime aimed to destabilize the republic, and that it had been directed against him personally. The president has pledged to put all possible resources behind the investigation.

According to Yevkurov, the leaders of the republic had nothing to do with the murder.

While Aushev supported Yevkurov’s efforts, he had lost faith in the president months before he was killed.

According to Aushev’s writings, President Yevkurov “has fallen under the influence of the security forces, which have continued these six months [since he assumed power] to abduct, torture, and kill people…not a single time did he speak of how the tyranny of the security forces was inadmissible, but with their own actions they made clear who was in charge.”

Tatyana Lokshina, Deputy Director of the Human Rights Watch Moscow bureau, agrees that the murder calls into question Yevkurov’s ability to protect the pluralism in the republic that he supports. She stated that citizen activism had become “practically a form of suicide” in the Northern Caucuses, and called on the Kremlin to act.

The Kremlin installed Yevkurov as president of Ingushetia after removing grossly unpopular Murat Zyazikov a year ago this week. Zyazikov and his family face personal and financial ruin if the Prosecutor General decides to bring criminal charges of embezzlement.

Aushev’s murder marks at least the fifth activist killing in the Northern Caucuses this year alone, in a region plagued by government corruption and violence. Security forces in charge of controlling the insurgent violence spilling over from neighboring Chechnya are widely accused of abductions and extrajudicial killings that remain largely uninvestigated. As of July of this year, 170 persons have been kidnapped in Ingushetia, and while abductions have recently lessened, murders have increased. Magomed Yevloyev, former head of Ingushetia.ru (since changed to Ingushetia.org) and close ally of Aushev, was shot and killed by security forces while detained on August 31, 2008.

Maksharip Aushev’s car was shot with approximately sixty bullets as he and cousin Tauzela Dzeitova drove through the Kabardino-Balkaria territory in the Northern Caucasus on October 25. He died in his car of bullet wounds, while Dzeitova was hospitalized and has undergone several operations. He had been the victim of a failed kidnapping attempt on September 15 shortly after leaving a meeting with government authorities.

Aushev was a prominent businessman in the Russian republic of Ingushetia who turned to activism after his son and nephew were abducted in 2007, which he blames on the republic’s security forces. He had been determined to form an opposition that would use all lawful methods to stop bloodshed in the troubled North Caucus region. More than two thousand people attended his funeral on October 26.

“If this practice is not stopped today, it will soon spread to the whole country,” Alexeyeva said. The human rights leader was referring to the constant “disappearances,” abductions, and murders of ordinary people in the North Caucasus region.

Alexeyeva also speaks about the murder of opposition leader Magomed Yevloyev, who was killed in police custody on August 31st. Yevloyev, who ran the Ingushetiya.ru news portal, died of a gunshot wound to the head after he was detained by security forces at the Magas airport. His website has since conducted their own investigation of the events leading to his death, and has published a list of the 14 people they consider responsible.

The list is topped by Ingush president Murat Zyazikov and includes a series of other high-ranking government officials. Yevloyev’s family had earlier called for a blood feud against those responsible for the murder. Since then, one of Zyazikov’s cousins, Bekhan Zyazikov, was killed when his Mercedes came under fire in Nazran.

—

Alexeyeva was interviewed by Novye Izvestiya on September 22nd.

Lyudmila Mikhailovna, you talked with Murat Zyazikov, the president of the republic. What did you speak about?

– I asked Zyazikov why innocent, peaceful people who are not involved in armed combat are killed so often in Ingushetia. He said that these arrests are not performed by Ingush authorities, but by Federal ones. These people are driven to Vladikavkaz, and he is not a position to track them, because this is a different republic. After this, I met with the Minister of Internal Affairs, and with Ingushetia’s public prosecutor, and they confirmed that the federal authorities are engaged in the abductions.

You spoke with relatives of people who were abducted. Are they also convinced that these were operations by the federal authorities?

– Yes, they also said that these were, most likely, not Ingush authorities, but federal ones. And I had the chance to confirm this, because on the evening of September 17th, I got a call at the home where I was staying, and was told, that there was a “zachistka” [lit. cleansing] happening on one of the streets. I immediately drove there with Valery Borshchev, another member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. There were soldiers in masks. We weren’t allowed in. As we waited for the officer in charge, we spoke with the soldiers. They were all, undoubtedly, Russians, and there were evidently Muscovites among them, judging by their pronunciations and awareness. The superior presented himself as Vitaly Mikhailovich Ivashov, colonel in the Russian Army. He did not let us enter the house, and said that this was a special forces operation to neutralize terrorists, although there were no audible shots. Afterwards, we learned that they checked the paperwork of one person in this house, but that they left him, and did not take him away. The locals said that they didn’t take him because we had walked up. This was already the fourth time they had searched this house. The residents asserted that the first time, they took all the valuables and money from the house.

-The people who drove us there, meanwhile, called someone in the government, and told him that they were worried because we were gone for a long time. When we came out of there, the Minister of Internal Affairs, [Musa] Medov called me on my cell phone and said: “Don’t go anywhere, I’ll sent my guards.” They were scared that in the heat of the moment, we would also be arrested there. I asked Medov: why are you worried, if these are your people? And he replied: these are not my people, this is the FSB with its mobile squadron. I then asked what exactly a mobile squadron was, and I was explained that these are federal troops, who are located in Ingushetia for such operations.

If everything is like this, why doesn’t the president of the Republic raise this issue before the country’s leadership?

-You can ask Zyazikov about this.

Did you speak with the president about opposition meetings? Why are they dispersed by force?

-He believes that the opposition is directly tied with the terrorist underground that is killing Ingush militsiya officers and civil servants, including relatives of Zyazikov himself. I am convinced that this is not the case. The protest actions and signature collections are absolutely genuine. I would say that the atmosphere right now in Ingushetia is how it was in 1937, when every person went to bed not knowing if he would wake up in the morning in his own home, or if they would would be seized in the night, driven somewhere, tortured and then killed. The only difference between 1937 is that everyone was indiscriminately seized then, and now it is principally men aged 15 to 30.

Why them in particular?

-Evidently they believe that this age group is a reserve for terrorists. But by their actions, they are increasing the terrorist resistance, if it exists. I imagine myself in the place of a young person, an Ingush who lives in such fear. Maybe it would be better to go into the woods, go into the mountains and be calm knowing that you won’t be grabbed like a rabbit? Two, three, four people disappear in the republic every day, where the population is 450 thousand.

What do the authorities say about the murder of Magomed Yevloyev?

-They say it was an accident. I told Zyazikov, that not one person I met believes that Yevloyev’s death was a matter of chance. The president said: I am that first person, and I believe that this was a tragic accident.

Which version of events does the public prosecutor propose?

-The public prosecutor said, that besides the version of involuntary manslaughter, the versions of whether this was a political murder or a contract killing are being investigated.

Do Magomed Yevloyev’s relatives believe this investigation?

-I met with his father and uncle. They hold themselves very stoically, speak businesslike, without emotion. They are leading their own investigation, are confirming what they know from everyone who was in the car. They say that many people among the authorities are willingly giving information, asking that they are not referred to publicly. The criminal investigator told them that the summons Yevloyev allegedly received, which he allegedly did not appear at (this was why he taken from the plane for questioning as a witness), were prepared during the two hours before his death. That is to say, when they knew that he boarded this plane and was flying to Ingushetia. Now they are saying that this investigator will be suspended for abuse of authority. Why did he give a summons to bring Yevloyev in as a witness during a non-working day [Magomed Yevloyev was killed on Sunday, August 31st -NI]? He did not come to work on his own, he was called in, someone ordered him to do this. But if the investigator, even if illegally, wrote an order for detention on Sunday, then the order should in no case have been exercised by the guards of the Minister of Internal Affairs. They had their own people for this. But Medov, who was disrupted as he was at a wedding, came with his guards. Quickly, over the telephone he gathered his guards and came to [the airport] with them. This is a small republic after all, what happens there at night appears by day.

But declarations of blood feuds have already sounded…

-This was an emotional outcry. What kind of blood vengeance can they have? They are normal, educated people, who studied in Moscow. Yevloyev’s father and uncle, who are attending to this, they want to know who is guilty and put them on trial, as it should be in the 21st century.

Do the local residents support the opposition’s demands for the president’s resignation?

–No, they are asking that their loved ones be found. They frenetically say, as they said at the time in Chechnya: “We are not interested in social problems. Not housing, not unemployment, we somehow endure all this, if only people didn’t disappear.” Right now, this is the major nightmare and concern and problem. Am I going to ask them: what about Zyazikov? I’m sick of this Zyazikov, the people have different concerns. I brought a whole bag full of declarations [describing abductions], with which I plan to go to the head of the Southern Federal District, [Vladimir] Ustinov, to find out once and for all, where these people are located. If they are being driven out to Vladikavkaz, and Zyazikov doesn’t know, then the head of the SFD must know, because Vladikavkaz is also in his jurisdiction.

translation by theotherrussia.org

—

—
Yevloyev, who was shot in the temple on August 31st after being detained by police in Ingushetia’s largest city, Nazran, died short afterwards at an area hospital. Police maintain that he was killed accidentally, but supporters said his death was intentional.Yevloyev was the owner of Ingushetiya.ru, one of the Republic’s few media outlets not connected with the state. The site was a frequent voice of criticism of Murat Zyazikov, the president of the Republic, and its administration, and was known for its investigations of corruption. Since it was launched in 2001, the site has faced a number of lawsuits, and was ordered shut by a Moscow District Court in June. Its editor-in-chief, Roza Malsagova, fled Russia to seek political asylum in France, saying she feared for her life.

Yevloyev was flying to Ingushetia from Moscow on the same flight as Zyazikov, and was detained quickly after he disembarked. Two of his supporters, Magomed Khazbiev and Maksharip Aushev, tried to free the opposition leader, chasing after the police motorcade in their own cars. Khazbiev acknowledged that the two beat up several militsiya officers and took away their arms and identification. Khazbiev and Aushev have now been charged for assaulting police and stealing weapons, charges that carry a maximum of 5 and 12 years jail time, respectively.

Zyazikov has maintained that he did not argue during the flight with Yevloyev, as was reported earlier. Still, a source within Russia’s presidential administration told the Vedomosti newspaper that the scandal may lead to Zyazikov’s resignation. “There is a bad situation with Zyazikov,” the source said. “We will keep thinking about it.”

Yevloyev’s family, meanwhile, has made calls to avenge his death, and police categorically refused to give the name of the suspect in Yevloyev’s killing, citing concerns for his safety.

Opposition activists in the region said Yevloyev’s death was not an accident, and accused Ingushetia’s Interior Minister, Musa Medov, of direct involvement. A criminal investigation has been started, on charges of manslaughter.

“Magomed was not killed accidentally,” said Kaloi Akhilgov, the attorney for Ingushetiya.ru. “He did not put up any resistance during the arrest, knowing that there was no point in doing so. He couldn’t fight back in the militsiya car either. Consequently this was a deliberate killing, and we will press for the criminal case to be transferred under this article [of the criminal code].”

Vigils to honor Magomed Yevloyev’s memory have been held in Moscow (photos and video) and Finland (video).

—

Video transcript:

[Magomed Yevloyev speaking]

Hello. I just now heard Timo Kiravuo’s report on the topic of website blocking.. in Saudi Arabia, and came to the conclusion that just about the same formula is being used against the Ingushetiya.ru website at the present moment. So, a so-called stopping plug, though a little bit differently, is established on the routers. When a person opens the IP address of Ingushetiya.ru, a page appears that says it’s impossible to display the page. Certain providers do this.

Ingushetiya.ru was created by me in 2001, in order to illuminate at least a little bit the situation of the Republic. In our Republic, only state-run mass-media outlets were operating. Two newspapers, one state television channel, and several small regional media outlets. We did not have any other media sources that could cast any light on the situation, that could speak about the cultures and traditions of the people of Ingushetia.

From the first moment the site was created, we adhered to a policy of objectivity. If something good happened, we would write about the good. If it was bad, we would write about the bad. But we displayed everything as it really happened in our Republic.

And we didn’t expect it ourselves.. When I was making the site I didn’t have any plan to make it such an well-visited resource, we wanted to make it an ordinary site which would display the situation. But from the very start, we became an actively popular site, and reached almost 40%– 30 to 40% of the population of Ingushetia. Because people didn’t just look at it on the internet, people would print the materials and distribute them on paper.

Starting in 2003, I was a person who had no relation, neither to human rights work, nor politics. I was engaged in a law practice. And then starting in 2003 I started sensing that speaking the truth about the country, and speaking the truth about the situation is accompanied by persecution, problems for business and everything. And all this, from 2003, the persecution started. They started to persecute me, and the site, accusing it of inciting ethnic hatred, of inciting..publishing extremist materials.

Over the course of two-three years, around 8 criminal cases were launched against me and against the people working with the site.

As it was, we didn’t have journalists. We had one employee who was considered a journalist, and two times, his building’s courtyard was pelted with grenades. His house was fired on.

There were other moments.. And the lawsuits, of course, started in 2004 and 2005. There were suits for the site’s closure.. on the closure.. on the cessation of its broadcast on the territory of Ingushetia. So, for the first time in all of Russia, the issue of filtering a web-site’s IP address was raised, I think, on the territory of Ingushetia.

In November 2007, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ingushetia obligated, not under the basis of the law or any kind of court decision, simply obligated all the providers, the three internet providers that work on the territory of Ingushetia to block access to the Ingushetiya.ru website. Which they did.

After the blocking system was introduced, our traffic across Ingushetia increased two times over. So, they gave us good publicity, and people started, people learned to get around the block using anonymizers, using… they started to buy.. the companies, the satellite companies that provide internet access.. these companies made a fortune in one month, because around 2000 satellite dishes were purchased to connect to the internet.

Ingushetia’s prosecutor’s office continued its battle with the site, and to legalize the blocking system used by local providers, won in a local court, the Nazran Regional Court, won a court decision on limiting access to our site.

Those judicial decisions were made in secret, without the participation of a representative of our site. There was a moment when we thought that the courts had taken our side, because Russia’s Supreme Court dismissed two appeals from the Ingush prosecutor on the site’s closure. However, the Ingushetia Prosecutor’s Office brought a lawsuit on my place of resident in Moscow, the Kuntsevo district of Moscow, and two weeks ago, well, a week ago, the Kuntsevo district court carried out a decision to close the Ingushetiya.ru website. The Kuntsevo district court in Moscow.

The decision hasn’t come into force yet. We have appealed it. But considering how boldly the Prosecutors are acting, and how the courts are behaving, who for some reason are very afraid. And depending on the Prosecutor’s Office, it seems to me that the decision on closing Ingushetiya.ru will be enacted.

And in Ingushetia, and those who know the site, and who watch it is a huge audience, and they all understand perfectly that the site’s prosecution is taking place for strictly political reasons. For the fact that it presents opposition forces, and raises problems, speaks the truth, and is absolutely not under the control of local authorities.

In practice, the people we deal with say that [authorities] are taking away a source of truth, and are pushing people, the people of the Republic into visiting more extremist websites, which can be freely opened in Ingushetia. That is to say, the rift between the public and the authorities is increasing. And people are pressed into actual extremism and other methods in the struggle for justice. To armed struggle, the departure of the youth to the mountains. That is to say, they are taking away the legal methods of learning the truth about the situation.

Even if we close the site, as they say, nature abhors a vacuum, I am absolutely certain that, because we have enough Ingush abroad, a site will appear which… for this audience who visited this site, well a site, а severely extremist site.

That’s why, essentially, the actions of the Ingush Prosecutor’s Office and the courts lead to, and I told this to the Kuntsevo court, lead to the growth of extremism and the escalation of the situation.

We also believe that the whole situation happening in the Republic: the explosions, the terrorist attacks, and at the same time the extrajudicial executions, the kidnappings. This whole situation, when it is displayed on only one internet resource, on ours. There is not a word, if you look now at the… there’s an official Ingushetia website. There is not one incident, not one fact of human rights violations, there is not one publication on that site.

That is to say, the government wants the people to know nothing about this, and wants to keep lining its pockets, because the corruption there is severe. And it thinks that by closing the site, the problem is solved. Well, I’m done.

To the question of which media outlets will remain if Ingushetiya.ru is closed, I’ll answer that if Ingushetiya.ru is closed, there will be not be any independent media left. But if the decision will go into effect, and I will be compelled to close it, I will write in the news column of the site, that the Ingushetiya.ru website is closed, and the court order is executed. And if it continues to operate, I will say, I will answer.. that I don’t know why it’s running.

translation/subtitles by theotherrussia.org

Magomed Yevloyev, a fierce critic of Ingush President Murat Zyazikov, was detained Sunday as he landed in Nazran, Ingushetia’s main city. Police claimed that he tried to resist arrest, and was shot in the ensuing scuffle. Yevloyev’s attorney, meanwhile, said his client went peacefully into custody, and that he was shot while driving with police, and thrown from the car near a hospital. The opposition figure died while receiving care.

Yevloyev was the owner of an online news portal, Ingushetiya.ru, which was known for independent news and reporting from the republic. The website aired many views critical of the current Ingush administration, and reported on government corruption. Authorities had repeatedly targeted the site, which was branded “extremist” and ordered shut by a City Court in June. Its editor-in-chief, Roza Malsagova, fled Russia to seek political asylum in France after a number of politically-motivated criminal cases were launched against her. Malsagova said she had received threats from officials.

Ingushetia, which has a predominantly Muslim population, has experienced rising levels of violent crime, with frequent attacks on militsiya and security officials. Zyazikov’s administration has responded with a heavy hand, and has been accused of using excessive force against civilians and opposition activists.

A number of rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, the Moscow Helsinki Group and Memorial, have called for a full investigation of Yevloyev’s death.

Local activists, meanwhile, said that Zyazikov may be directly involved. Yevloyev’s relatives have apparently called for a blood feud against Zyazikov and Ingush Interior Minister Musa Medov, vowing to avenge Yevloyev’s death.

Ingushetiya.ru continues to publish material, and has relocated its servers to the United States.

—

Further reading:

Ingushetiya.ru editor-in-chief Roza Malsagova accuses Murat Zyazikov of direct involvement in Magomed Yevloyev’s death in an open letter, published on the website.

An Open Letter to Murat Zyazikov, President of Ingushetia

Appealing to a murderer, whether an Ingush or the president of the republic, who shoots his own citizens in broad daylight, is immoral. There is no doubt that it was precisely you who gave the order for yet another extrajudicial execution. Doing this, you wanted to silence us, if you could, as during the times of the inquisition, you would have poured molten tin in our throats. I, the “commissar in a leather jacket,” as you deemed to call me, am telling you that God’s court will surely judge you. For every drop of spilt blood in the republic, you will have to answer before the Almighty, but first – before the Ingush, and if there are still men on this earth, first you will stand before them. Unlike you, Yevloyev was never a coward, he didn’t hide, he didn’t run away through back-door pathways. When militsiya officers were being shot, he didn’t hole up in the “President-hotel,” tucking in his rat’s tail. Giving interviews left and right about the “land of inter-ethnic friendship” and the “investment potential,” you assert that you know nothing about contract killings in the republic. Name at least one solved murder during the years of your tyrannical rule. What, did they solve the murders of the six-year-old Rakhim Amriev, Apti Dolakov, Kalimatov, Yandiev, Chakhkiev?.. Hundred have been killed during the time of your “rule,” with no one found responsible, with no killers. Only “terrorists” and “members of armed gangs!” Yevloyev wasn’t yet 37, and he leaves three small children, two of them sons!

If you still had something human in you, you would have at least though of them, before orphaning young children. “I am not saying that a blood feud is good, but it is a deterrent. It’s simply that if a person goes for it, he knows very well what he’s doing. Of course, it’s difficult afterwards for people to let him alone without a reaction, but none the less, there is no accidental moment.” (“Conversation without rules” [a Russian television show], featuring Ingush President Murat Zyazikov.) I think that you realized what you were heading toward, when you made the order to execute Yevloyev!

The independent Ingushetiya.ru news portal will continue its work in its current state until Zyazikov shoots us all, or until he is removed. There is no alternative.

Magomed Yevloyev will be put into the ground on the first day of the holy month of Ramadan.

Roza Malsagova, editor-in-chief of the independent Ingushetiya.ru internet-portal.

translation by theotherrussia.org.