CHECHNYA LINKS LIBRARY

The Month in Brief - December 2005

December 1

Chechnya's Supreme Court sentenced four companions of Aslan Maskhadov, who were discovered along with the Chechen resistance leader in a bunker in Tolstoy-Yurt on March 8, 2005, to 5.5-15 years in prison.

The Chechen Electoral Commission declared the pro-Kremlin Russian political party Unified Russia the winner of the parliamentary elections that were staged in Chechnya by the Kremlin and Moscow-backed Chechen authorities on November 27. Independent monitors cast doubts on the organization and results of the elections, including the official turnout of 69,59 per cent.

Bilkhis Baydayeva, Vice-Premier of the Moscow-backed Chechen government in charge of social affairs, was removed from office by Alu Alkhanov, the Moscow-backed President of the Chechen Republic.

The Green-EFA group in the European Parliament (EP) and the Chechen World Congress organized in the EP building in Brussels a conference entitled "Countering Violence and Creating Justice in the Caucasus".

The European Court of Human Rights accepted Zura Alikhadzhiyeva's complaint about the disappearance of her son, Ruslan Alikhadzhiyev, who in 1997-99 headed the Parliament of the independent Chechnya and who was in 2000 kidnapped by Russian soldiers in the Chechen town of Shali and then never heard of, according to the December 19 announcement by Russian NGO Memorial.

A group of Chechen refugees staged a rally in front of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, calling for resolution of the Chechen conflict. Said-Emin Ibragimov, chairman of the International Association for Peace and Human Rights, started a hunger strike to support the call.

Rudnik Dudayev, chairman of the Security Council of the Chechen Republic, was found dead in his trailer in the heavily-guarded government compound in Grozny. The trailer was destroyed by fire.

The Chechen Parliament, which was formed in the November 27 elections staged by the Kremlin and the Moscow-backed Chechen authorities, held its first session. Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov and Akhmarkhadzhi Gazikhanov became heads of the lower and upper house, respectively. The event was attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The European Court of Human Rights accepted complaints filed by relatives of the victims of the February 2000 "mopping-up" operation in the Chechen village of Novye Aldi where Russian soldiers massacred dozens of civilians.

The lower house of the Moscow-backed Chechen Parliament decided to ask the federal authorities to rename the Chechen capital from Grozny to Akhmadkala, meaning "Akhmad's city" and refering to the assassinated Moscow-backed Chechen leader Akhmad Kadyrov.

Nikolai Patrushev, head of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), announced that Abu Omar al-Saif was liquidated in November in Dagestan. According to guerrilla sources, the Saudi-born "Imam of the Chechen mujahideen" blew himself up when surrounded by the Russian military in his hideout.

At least twelve schoolchildren and two teachers were hospitalized with symptoms of poisoning in the village of Starogladkovskaya in the Shelkovsky district, northeastern Chechnya. During the following days dozens of other schoolchildren and some adults, mostly girls and women, were hospitalized in other locations of the same district.

Sultan Bilimkhanov, deputy speaker of the Moscow-backed Chechen Parliament, was seriously injured in a car accident. He died on January 2.

A memorial to students and teachers who died in the Chechen conflict was opened in the courtyard of the Chechen State Pedagogical Institute in Grozny. Five students were killed there in December 2000.

No mistakes have so far been found in the conduct of the authorities and security forces during last year's Beslan hostage crisis, stated Russian Deputy Prosecutor-General Nikolay Shepel, when presenting his office's report on the tragedy.

Local authorities and police made mistakes in the prevention of last year's Beslan massacre and in the rescue operation, stated Aleksander Torshin, chairman of the Russian parliamentary commission of inquiry into the tragedy, when familiarizing the upper house of Russian parliament with the commission's preliminary report. Torshin, however, rejected the claims that tanks and flamethrowers used against the school raised the death toll.

Relatives of the Chechen children who were affected by the mysterious illness in the second half of December set up a committee to jointly call for the establishment of a true diagnosis and proper investigation of the case.

Compiled by Prague Watchdog. Along with these monthly summaries, we also publish weekly summaries, distributing them on Mondays to the subscribers of our free weekly newsletter.

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