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.

Fatima Dzhaniyeva was driving with her mother and two brothers in the Ingush city of Nazran when their car suddenly exploded.

Dzhaniyeva, who is pregnant, and one of her brothers were hospitalized with heavy wounds, while her mother and second brother died at the scene.

Investigators believe that the attempted assassination may be connected with the murder of her husband, opposition activist Maksharip Aushev, in October.

One investigator said that a bomb had been placed under the driver’s seat either directly inside of the car or within the undercarriage.

“It’s obvious that it was a well planned assassination attempt,” said the investigator.

Maksharip Aushev was gunned down in his car by unknown assailants in the Kabardino-Balkaria territory of the Northern Caucasus on October 25. He died at the scene. His cousin, Tauzela Dzeitova, was hospitalized with heavy wounds, but passed away on December 6.

Aushev was a prominent businessman in the Russian republic of Ingushetia who turned to activism after his son and nephew were abducted in 2007, an incident that he blames on the republic’s security forces. His colleague, former Ingushetia.org editor Magomed Yevloyev, was murdered in August 2008. Aushev had been determined to form an opposition movement that would use all lawful methods to stop bloodshed in the troubled North Caucuses.

Tauzela Dzeitova was a cousin of the former activist, and was with him when Aushev’s car was sprayed with machine gun fire in the Kabardino-Balkaria territory of the Northern Caucasus on October 25.

Aushev died on the scene from bullet wounds, while Dzeitova was heavily wounded. Doctors at the Kabardino-Balkaria state hospital performed five operations on Dzeitova, but classified her condition as serious. She regained consciousness at the end of October, but investigators refrained from questioning due to her fragile condition.

With the death of Dzeitova, there remain no known witnesses to the attack.

Maksharip Aushev was a prominent businessman in the Russian republic of Ingushetia who turned to activism after his son and nephew were abducted in 2007, an incident that he blames on the republic’s security forces. His colleague, former Ingushetia.org editor Magomed Yevloyev, was murdered in August 2008. Aushev had been determined to form an opposition movement that would use all lawful methods to stop bloodshed in the troubled North Caucuses.

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.

The Moscow Times
Wednesday, February 20, 2008. Issue 3846. Page 8.
The Senseless Rule of Law
By Yulia Latynina

On Thursday, Maksharip Aushev was arrested in Ingushetia. His arrest could become a political catastrophe — not only for Ingushetia, but for the Kremlin’s interests in the entire Caucasus region.

The whole story began on June 17, when security agents detained Aushev’s nephew, Magomed. They did not press any charges against him, but they allegedly tortured him and forced him to write a statement saying he had cooperated with the agents and had received money from them. After this, Magomed was released.

Rather than keep quiet, Magomed filed a complaint with Ingushetia’s prosecutor’s office. On Sept. 18, security agents again detained Magomed and this time took Aushev’s son as well, who had been riding in the car with him.

The cousins were allegedly tortured for several hours and questioned as to who had put Magomed up to writing the letter to the prosecutor’s office. The walls of the cell in which they were held were covered with blood and the signatures of people who had disappeared.

Agents allegedly broke the young men’s ribs, and drove them into the mountains to witness what is called “Snickers” in certain circles. This is where police tie explosives to a corpse and detonate it, blowing the body into little pieces, which are then eaten by wild animals so that the victim’s identity will never be established.

This torture had no practical value in gaining evidence; the henchmen were just having fun. But their sadism backfired when people in Nazran took to the streets demanding the release of the pair. As a result of this public outcry, the cousins were released.

After that, Aushev traveled to Chechnya, where he learned the details of the abduction of his son and nephew: They were held in a death camp in a village in the Urus-Martan district and had been abducted by the chief of the local police, whose last name was Dzhamalkhanov and who apparently was acting on the orders of Ingush authorities. Most amazing is how easy it was to establish the name of the abductor and exactly where the torture was conducted. The young men’s tormentors leaked information like a sieve.

When this information became widely known, Aushev turned into a local hero, at which point he was arrested. Federal agents first used a flamethrower to burn down the house of Aushev’s brother. When Aushev returned to the gutted building later that evening by himself, the local authorities grabbed him.

This incident shows very clearly that the attempt by the Ingush to seek justice from President Vladimir Putin would be like Jews turning to Hitler for protection. Russia has sent a clear signal to the people of Ingushetia: They should go up into the mountains instead of demonstrating in the streets.

With Aushev’s arrest, Russia has also made it clear that it is not Ingush President Murat Zyazikov who is a puppet of the Kremlin. Rather, it is the Kremlin that is hostage to every decision made by Zyazikov: While Zyazikov is unable to defeat the rebels in the republic, he is extremely capable of destroying those who are trying to fight for justice.

People like Aushev are Russia’s last hope. He conducted himself like a brave warrior. He did not adopt the terrorists’ methods but fought his battle within the boundaries of the law. I don’t think Putin likes these kinds of fighters.

The people in Nazran showed that they can make their voices heard, while their president has shown that he can sometimes make decisions independently of the Kremlin. Aushev has shown through his actions that the path chosen by terrorists is senseless, and Russia has shown that the “rule of law” — about which we have heard so much lately in the news — is equally senseless. History shows us that when the people of the Caucasus are faced with a choice between two senseless paths, they’ll choose the one that offers the greatest glory.

Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.