Human rights defenders doubt law enforcers’ report on investigation into militants’ attack on Ingushetia

During the investigation into the attack on Ingushetia by a militant grouping led by Shamil Basaev, law enforcers were detaining people from Chechnya in refugee camps, human rights defenders recalled. They called the investigation system involving classified witnesses questionable.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that in July 2015, the court sentenced Ali Taziev to a second life imprisonment. According to the investigators’ version, on the night of June 22, 2004, Ali Taziev participated in an attack of the militant grouping led by Shamil Basaev on public facilities in Ingushetia. Investigators have identified 131 participants of the attack, 68 of them have been convicted, 52 have been killed, and 11 others are put on the wanted list, the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) reported on the 20th anniversary of those events.

Eyewitnesses spoke about what happened in Ingushetia on the night of the attack by the militant grouping led by Shamil Basaev.

Dali Khamkhoeva was then in the rank of Sergeant and served in the duty department of the republic’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). When she took over her shift on June 21, 2004, Dali Khamkhoeva could not foresee that she would have to provide assistance to her colleagues, in particular, Uruskhan Oligov, who was wounded in the leg.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the republic and called us, who held the line for about five hours, heroes. He promised to reward us,” Dali Khamkhoeva noted. However, MIA’s officials expressed their indignation by the plans to reward Dali Khamkhoeva, saying that she was “simply fulfilling her duties.”

Dali Khamkhoeva notes with resentment that no one remembers those who courageously fought with two hundred militants.

According to an activist from the “Memorial” Centre for Human Rights Defence*, the night shooting on June 21 did not particularly alarm him. However, what he saw on the streets of Nazran in the morning shocked him: many people were killed, mostly men, often very young. The human rights defender states that the attack highlighted the presence of the armed underground in the republic.

There were also some amazing escapes from real death. The human rights defender said that Musa, a top-ranking MIA’s employee, miraculously managed to survive when facing gang members at an intersection near the airport. The militants opened fire on him, and a driver of a passing car, who opened the door for him, helped him escape. Bullets riddled the car boot, but the driver and Musa himself managed to drive away.

Human rights defender Magomed Mutsolgov has expressed his distrust of the results of the investigation into the militants’ attack on Ingushetia. The human rights defender also notes that the number of Chechens, living in refugee camps in Ingushetia at that time, who were groundlessly arrested and then convicted, could be many times greater than recorded.

At present, it is hardly possible to find the people who, according to investigators’ version, were participants of the militants’ attack on Ingushetia, suggests an employee of the “Memorial” Centre for Human Rights Defence (CHRD)*. “Some have gone to another world, others have long been abroad, and the most venturesome ones marry women of other nationalities and change their surnames,” the human rights defender noted.

*As reported on the website of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the reason for including on March 1, 2024, the unregistered “Memorial” Centre for Human Rights Defence (CHRD) into the register of foreign agents was the spread of “inaccurate information aimed at creating a negative image of the Russian Federation, as well as the Russian Armed Forces.”