The Chechen president, who has been denounced by rights organizations worldwide for his alleged personal involvement in individual cases of murder, torture, and other rights abuses, won an earlier civil case against Orlov in which the Memorial director was forced to pay a fine. Kadyrov then promised to stop suing human rights activists after he was criticized by his mother for disrespecting his elders. With Tuesday’s announcement, that promise appears to have been broken. Radio Free Liberty/Radio Europe reports on the Russian federal government’s misunderstanding of human rights organizations:

Well-known Russian rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina says the federal government is ignorant about the operations of human rights groups in the North Caucasus, RFE/RL’s Russian Service reports.

Gannushkina, of the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Civic Assistance Committee, was reacting to reports that a Moscow court has charged Oleg Orlov, the head of the rights group Memorial, with defamation of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

She told RFE/RL that “the dangerous part of human rights work comes from the local governments, not outside organizations.”

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in a meeting human rights activists on July 6 that he believes people need to be able “to send the government a signal” about the problems in the North Caucasus, often by going through NGOs.

But Putin warned that some NGOs in the North Caucasus are “supported by outside funds,” hinting that they are being financed by political organizations abroad.

Gannushkina said such an accusation is not new. She added that activists do not follow orders from anyone, though she admitted that most of the funding for NGOs comes from foreign and private companies.

Gannushkina said that “unfortunately” her organization’s biggest financier, Mikhail Khordokovsky [sic], “is in jail.”

In a statement on Thursday to the Russian news agencies Interfax and RIA Novosti, law enforcement sources said that the murder had been solved and a killer had been identified. The killer has not, however, been detained, and a search is currently underway. Investigators, the sources said, are also still working to establish the identity of the person who ordered the murder.

Oleg Orlov of the Memorial human rights center, where Estemirova had worked, has already refuted the announcement. Speaking to Gazeta.ru, Orlov said that his colleagues at Memorial have spoken with representatives of the groups investigating Estemirova’s murder, and that these representatives denied that the announcement was true. “They said that they haven’t established the name of the murderer,” said Orlov.

While Gazeta.ru was able to obtain an unofficial confirmation from sources in the Chechen Investigative Committee that the culprit has been identified, all official sources proved to be unreachable on Thursday. The Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General of Russia refrained from commenting, and the official representative of the Chechen Investigative Committee was out of the office and did not answer her cell phone throughout the course of the day. The newspaper was also unable to reach the press secretary of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who had promised to monitor the course of the murder investigation.

The 50-year-old Estemirova had been the lead member of Memorial’s office in the Chechen capital of Grozny, and had worked to investigate kidnappings and murders of people in Chechnya. She was kidnapped herself not far from her home in the capital on June 15 of last year, and was later found shot dead in the Nazranovsky district of Ingushetia.

Memorial, which soon after announced that it was shutting down operations in Chechnya, blamed Estemirova’s murder on President Kadyrov, claiming that the volatile situation in the republic was the president’s responsibility. Kadyrov successfully sued Orlov for slander, and a Moscow city court fined Orlov 70 thousand rubles (about $2300). In the beginning of February, after experiencing pressure from public officials and a particularly public dressing-down from his mother for failing to respect his elders, Kadyrov dropped all further suits against other human rights activists, including the prominent 82-year-old Lyudmila Alexeyeva.

The news of Estemirova’s murder had a powerful resonation throughout the world. In particular, United States President Barack Obama issued a statement calling on the Russian authorities to investigate the murder and punish those responsible. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said that he did not believe that Kadyrov had participated in the tragedy, and considered the murder to be an act of provocation against the government.

Kadyrov, however, gave several interviews after the murder in which he spoke out harshly against the slain activist. Defending himself on Radio Liberty and saying that he took no part in the killing, the Chechen president said that he “had no reason to kill a woman who nobody needed.” Referring to her place on a public council under the Grozny city administration, he added that “she has never had any honor, dignity, or a conscience, and all the same I named her as a council representative.” He also did admit that he had later dissolved the council.

When asked if he thought the murder would ever be solved, Orlov stated that the politics tied up in the Estemirova’s case made it hard to say. “In naming this or that person as having participated in the murder, or in naming the person who possibly ordered the murder, the investigators and prosecutors are invariably stepping into a type of political realm,” he told the Kasparov.ru online newspaper.

Memorial member Aleksandr Cherkasov noted the 2002 murder investigation of an outspoken Chechen village leader, Malika Umazheva, as a cautionary tale. An official investigation blamed the killing on militants who it turned out had long been dead, and also on people who had only issued confessions under torture. Memorial’s own investigation established that Umazheva had been murdered by federal security forces, likely in retaliation for the leader’s fervent criticism of the ongoing Russian federal raids in her village.

According to the report, Isa Yamadayev says in the letter that his life is in danger, and he asks for personal support from the president. “One after another my brothers are killed. In 2003 militants killed Yamadayev Dzhabrail. In 2008 in Moscow they killed Ruslan Yamadayev; in the United Arab Emirates my brother Sulim Yamadayev was shot. Now the hunt is open for me,” he says.

Yamadayev refers in the letter to common speculation in the press that the Kremlin has given carte blanche to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, and therefore closes its eyes to the murders of political opponents in the region.

“Is it really so that now, without analysis, all opponents of Kadyrov are declared enemies of Russia and can be killed? Human rights advocate Natalya Estemirova of Memorial, killed in 2009, Movladi Atlangeriyev, kidnapped in Moscow in 2007, and then killed in Chechnya, the president of Konvers-Group Aleksandr Antonov and his anonymous guard, killed in Moscow in 2009. They are what, also enemies of Russia?” the letter asks.

Yamadayev says that he sees only one answer to this question: That President Medvedev is not informed of the true state of affairs concerning the investigation of these crimes.

At the end of his letter, Yamadayev expresses certainty that he will also be killed, and asks Medvedev “to stop this mad conveyer of death.”

The Yamadayev brothers were former allies of the Kadyrov family in Chechnya, but their relationship took a turn for the worse after the death of former President Akhmad Kadyrov in 2004. Relations between the clans spoiled altogether after a crash between the Kadyrov motorcade and a convoy driven by Badrudi Yamadayev.

Several months after the crash, Ruslan Yamadayev was shot and killed in Moscow. In March 2009, unknown persons shot Sulim Yamadayev; one of the suspects had close ties to President Ramzan Kadyrov. The Times newspaper in London cites Sulim’s killing as the sixth violent murder of Kadyrov opponent in a row. Isa Yamadayev had stated in May that he believed his life to be in danger.

The Kremlin-backed Kadyrov regime in Chechnya has recently come under fire for murdering members of opposition forces, a charge that both the Kadyrovs and the Kremlin deny. Nevertheless, the murdered Yamadayev brothers are among a number of other recently targeted opponents. Former Kadyrov bodyguard Umar Israilov was assassinated in Vienna after becoming a critic of the regime. Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, the president of a breakaway Chechen republic, was killed in exile by Russian military intelligence in 2004.

“This step will continue to lead Chechnya out from Russia’s legal framework,” journalist and researcher Vladimir Voronin told the Kasparov.ru online newspaper.  Voronin said the order was at once a populist measure, and a step that will allow Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov to maintain a large deal of freedom and independence from the federal center for Chechnya.

The counter-terrorism operation in Chechnya was initiated in September 1999, after a series of apartment bombings left hundreds dead in Moscow.  The Kremlin linked the bombings to Chechen terrorist groups.  Military operations had started earlier, in the summer of 1999, after a group of Chechen insurgents invaded the neighboring Republic of Dagestan.  Active combat continued until 2000, when a largely defeated insurgency turned to low-scale bombings and clashes.

In recent years, Ramzan Kadyrov has consolidated power in the Republic, using strict military control and a wash of federal money to help rebuild Chechnya.  Rights activists have alleged that Kadyrov’s regime has worked outside the law, using tactics including torture and kidnapping against perceived enemies.

Grigory S. Shvedov, the editor of the Web-based news service Caucasian Knot, told the New York Times that the on-the-ground situation in Chechnya remained tense.

“The number of bombings, terrorist attacks and murders as in the past remains high; they occur every week,” Shvedov said. “It is a fairytale that Chechnya has become a stable region.”

Yamadayev was a former Chechen rebel and warlord who switched over to the Russian side and went on to lead the “Vostok” (East) special military battalion.  He was widely believed to be a leading opponent of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who has consolidated power in the beleaguered North Caucasus republic in recent years.

According to Dubai police, Yamadayev was shot from behind in the underground parking area of a luxury residential building where he was staying, dying instantly.

Major General Dahi Khalfan Tamim told Reuters that, “the case is clear and there is no confusion over what happened. An organized criminal group was behind the assassination.”

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has fought two wars against separatists in Chechnya, a primarily Muslim region.  Many former rebel leaders, including Kadyrov and Yamadayev, eventually joined the Russian army, going on to become top leaders and decorated officers.  Although authorities have severely cracked down on militants, a low-level insurgency continues in the area, particularly in the neighboring Republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan.

Yamadayev was one of a group of powerful brothers who made up the Yamadayev clan.  As Kadyrov pushed out opponents in Chechnya, the clan clashed with the president in a power struggle waged in the courts and the streets.  In April 2008, some of Yamadayev’s forces were involved in a shootout with Kadyrov’s men after a road collision, which by some estimates left 18 people dead.  After the incident, Kadyrov publicly accused Sulim Yamadayev in a series of crimes, calling for his arrest and prosecution.

In May 2008, Yamadayev was relieved as commander of the Vostok battalion.  Three criminal cases were also launched against the former warlord.

On September 24th 2008, one of Sulim’s brothers, former State Duma deputy Ruslan Yamadayev, was shot to death in Moscow.  At the time, the Kommersant newspaper reported that Sulim Yamadayev was trying to go underground, switching apartments repeatedly and surrounding himself with bodyguards.  No suspects have been apprehended in the shooting.

Yamadayev is the sixth Chechen who opposed Kadyrov to be murdered outside the republic in recent months.  Three more Chechen exiles have been shot to death in Istanbul, Turkey since September.  Another, Umar Israilov, had accused Kadyrov of torture before he was publicly assassinated in Austria in January.

Kadyrov has strongly denied involvement in any of the murders, describing them as an attempt to destabilize Chechnya and discredit him.  He called Sulim Yamadayev’s death “tragic.”

“I signed the order due to the fact that alcohol encourages the growth of criminality and immorality in society,” Kadyrov said.

The law makes Chechnya the most restrictive region in Russia for alcohol sales.  Kadyrov’s critics have said the president is turning the mostly Muslim region into a strict Islamic state.  Past orders include compelling women working in the government to wear headscarves and long skirts.

Mikhail Savchin, Chechnya’s public prosecutor, said the bill does not contradict standing Russian laws.

“According to federal law, federal subjects have the right to impose limitations on the time when alcoholic products containing ethyl alcohol of more than 15 percent may be sold,” Savchin said.  “The president’s order does not contradict the law, but we must take into account all the minuses which may arise from restricted sales of spirits.”

Savchin said the decree may lead to court cases against the government, as the public notes an effect on business and the local economy.  The public prosecutor said alcohol producers may lose business and that revenue may be lost as funds flow into neighboring regions with less restrictive laws.  The growth of illegal alcohol sales is also possible, he said.

Kadyrov dismissed criticism of the order, and said he had discussed the plusses and minuses of the edict with regional leadership, and that public opinion was on his side.  “I am convinced that there are far more plusses than minuses,” he said.

“Everything that brings harm to society must be eradicated, that is my belief,” Kadyrov told RIA Novosti.  “I am not against the outflow of cash into neighboring regions.  We will supplement our budget by other means, restoring agriculture, tourism, industry, sport.  We will produce high-quality cognac and wine so that those who drink will at least not damage their health.  Our mosques, gymnasiums and schools should be overflowing, not our alcohol stores.”

Umar Israilov, 27, a former Chechen rebel who later became a bodyguard to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, was chased down as he left a Vienna grocery store, and shot twice to the head, according to witness accounts. Israilov had obtained political asylum in Austria, and filed a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2006 over allegations of widespread torture and kidnappings on the part of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. Several days before he was killed, Israilov approached police with a concern that he was being followed.

“Until the investigation is complete, we cannot say for certain that this was a contract killing,” said Oleg Orlov, a director of Russian human rights group Memorial.

“None the less, one gets the impression that the [murder] is connected with the fact that Israilov was a complainant to the European Court, and that he accused authorities and President Kadyrov personally. The intention is precisely to force victims to abandon their complaints,” he went on.

According to the New York Times newspaper, Israilov said in an interview that he was personally tortured by Kadyrov, and that he witnessed a number of abductions and torture perpetrated by Kadyrov and his men between 2003 and 2005. Kadyrov, who became president in February 2007, has led Chechnya with an iron fist, and has long been accused of human rights violations by observers.

In a separate case, the ECHR in Strasbourg compelled Russia to pay out 81 thousand euros ($106,000) over the disappearances of two Chechen men in 2002 and 2004. As the Ekho Moskvy radio station reports, citing Agence France-Presse, one of the men was arrested by Russian soldiers, while another was led away by armed men claiming to represent the Federal Security Service (FSB). Neither have been heard from since.

The court called for Russia to pay 35 thousand euros to each of the mens’ families, and 11 thousand euros in court fees. While the verdict does not find Russia guilty of the abductions, the ruling does say that Russia failed to investigate the cases sufficiently. The Strasbourg court also found that Russia violated several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights on torture and inhumane conduct, as well as the right to freedom and the right to life.

Both sides will have the right to appeal the verdict for a period of three months.

–

Read more about disappearances in Chechnya from Human Rights Watch.
Read more about Ramzan Kadyrov from the LA Times.

The Yamadayevs have been at odds with Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, and preliminary conclusions do not preclude Kadyrov’s involvement in the murder.

Yamadayev, 47, was behind the wheel of a Mercedes S600. As he stopped at a red light, an unidentified attacker approached the vehicle and fired shots through the window, according to RIA Novosti reports. Yamadayev died on the spot, and his passenger, General-Colonel Sergei Kizyun, was heavily wounded. Investigators are searching for an Audi 80, which may have been used by the attacker to flee the scene.

According to Issa Yamadayev, Ruslan’s brother, he was returning from meeting in the presidential administration. The former lawmaker may have discussed problems being faced by the Vostok (“East”) battalion, a special forces unit he helped found within Chechnya.

A criminal investigation has been launched by the Interior Ministry.

Both Kadyrov and the Yamadayevs are former Chechen rebels, who fought against Russian troops for independence during the first Chechen war. They later switched sides, and joined together to bring Chechnya back into Russia’s fold. Ruslan and his younger brother Sulim Yamadayev, the former head of the Vostok battalion, were awarded Hero of Russia medals for their efforts against Chechen insurgents.

The Yamadayevs are widely believed to be the only force within Chechnya that operates outside of Ramzan Kadyrov’s oversight. Ruslan Yamadayev’s death may mark a final step to Kadyrov’s complete control of the embattled Caucasus republic.

In April of this year, soldiers in the Vostok battalion came head to head in an armed confrontation with Ramzan Kadyrov’s personal guard when they blocked passage for Kadyrov’s motorcade.

Since then, Kadyrov has intensified a legal and media assault on the battalion and the brothers, who have kept a low profile. Chechen law enforcement announced that Sulim and Badruddi, the youngest brother, were being sought for war crimes. Kadyrov announced on state television that the Yamadayevs were criminals, and called for their arrest. Sulim Yamadayev was subsequently rid of his position in the armed forces, after which Kadyrov called off the investigation against him.

According to a source quoted in Kommersant, Sulim Yamadayev had recently tried to go underground, switching apartments several times, and never leaving his home without stepped-up security. Ruslan, who never hired bodyguards, was always in the company of highly-ranked military personnel, and apparently believed this was a certain guarantee of safety.

Kommersant’s source noted that a special operation against Kadyrov’s enemies was started on September 17th, when Bislan Elimkhanov, the commander of the Zapad (“West”) battalion, was attacked in Grozny(Rus).

Russian lawmakers, meanwhile, tried to pin the blame on Georgia. Alexander Torshin, the First Vice Speaker of Russia’s upper house, the Federation Council, said the attackers wanted to kill Sulim Yamadayev. Sulim had led the Vostok battalion as it swept into the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali in late August.

Kadyrov, Torshin said, would be the last person interested in such a murder.

Far before the incident, starting early this year, a media war was launched against the Vostok battalion and its leaders, the Yamadayev brothers. The Chechen Government’s website ran allegations that Vostok soldiers were responsible for a swath of serious crimes, including kidnappings, murder and torture. Magomed Khanbiev, a deputy in Chechnya’s Kremlin-friendly Parliament, was quoted as saying: “Of course, there might be normal soldiers in this battalion, but most of them do drugs, commit murders and kidnap people, thus scorning our traditions.” On state-run television, President Kadyrov called the Yamadayev brothers criminals, and called for their prosecution.

The stories made no mention that Kadyrov’s own troops have been consistently accused of the same crimes by local human rights organizations.

Sulim Yamadayev, the commander of the Vostok battalion, is one of the only local military leaders that was not appointed by Kadyrov. His clan, including brothers Ruslan and Badruddi, provides one of the last remaining counterweights to Kadyrov’s complete consolidation of the local police and military troops.

Both the Yamadayevs and Kadyrov formerly fought as rebels against Russian troops during the two tragic military campaigns over Chechen independence. While the Yamadayevs have close ties with Russia’s military establishment, Kadyrov is backed directly by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As Putin prepares to leave office, Kadyrov seems intent on retaining complete control of the former breakaway republic, with or without Kremlin sponsorship. Since the road incident, the struggle has intensified.

On April 20th, an assault on a representative of Chechnya’s human rights ombudsman left two young girls dead and three men injured. Immediately, before any investigation unfolded, Ombudsman Nurdi Nulkhazhiev accused the Vostok battalion of responsibility. “We cannot confirm that the Vostok battalion were involved in the incident, but we have solidly-founded suspicions that they were, and consider it imperative that investigators look into this version,” he told Interfax.

Hundreds of Vostok soldiers were also reportedly deserting their ranks and trying to enter other military units, according to the Kommersant newspaper. The soldiers claimed that they were forced to break the law, and go against the interests of the the Government and the people during their service.

Ruslan Yamadayev was furious: “These people were forced to make such claims – some with threats, others with payments,” he told Kommersant. According to Yamadayev, both his relatives and the battalion’s soldiers are under “powerful pressure” from authorities. “Every day, local television speaks about the horrors that the battalion’s soldiers and commanders supposedly performed. All this, of course, scares people, and compels them to write statements.”

Ramzan Kadyrov is often credited with bringing stability to the Chechen Republic, and he has led a strenuous reconstruction effort paid for by the Kremlin. The 29-year-old president has used his commando militia to consolidate power, has led an active amnesty campaign for former rebels, and has enacted some elements of Sharia law. Still, while the republic is no longer at war, murders and assaults are frequent, and commonly go unsolved. Some experts claim that much of the violence and criminal element in Chechnya has simply been pushed into neighboring regions.

According to Svetlana Gannushkina, the head of the civil assistance committee under the Russian president, “We can see a new wave of applications of [Russian nationals] to Western countries asking them for a [political] asylum.”

At a news conference, Gannushkina revealed that in the last three months alone, a total of 1,200 Russian nationals had requested asylum in the airports of Paris, France. Six hundred of those were from Chechnya.

“People buy transit airline tickets via Paris and ask for a political asylum there without going to the countries they were bound for as per their tickets, mainly Morocco,” she said.

On January 15th, the Memorial human rights group released a report on conditions in the Chechen Republic, which concluded that the region was now under a totalitarian regime led by President Ramzan Kadyrov. Under Kadyrov’s regime, women aren’t allowed in public without headscarves (under a government “battle for morals”), and 80 percent of television coverage focuses on the president. Oleg Orlov, a Memorial activist, commented that after many years of bloody conflict, the region was now in relative peace, with a lower number of kidnappings and crime. He attributed this result to the continuing work of Russian and international human rights activists.

Meanwhile, in Gannushkina’s words, refugee camps have been forcing inhabitants out into the streets. Chechen residents living in nearby republics are being personally pressured into returning to Chechnya by Kadyrov:

“For instance, people aren’t hired for work, and are forced to regularly register their fingerprints. Their social rights are being violated,” she said.

According to the activist, the French Interior Ministry has an order which states that Chechens should not be extradited from France.