No Accountability for Perpetrators

To date, not a single person has been held accountable for crimes committed in the 33 cases from Chechnya decided by the European Court and analyzed by Human Rights Watch. In numerous cases, evidence obtained by Russian investigators and cited in European Court judgments indicates the individuals directly involved in the violations; persons responsible for commanding the operations that led to the violations; or a particular military or other unit as being present or involved in the violations. Despite such powerful evidence, investigations have failed to lead to prosecutions of those responsible. Six of these cases are described below.

In numerous judgments on cases from Chechnya, the European Court found that the Russian authorities failed to effectively investigate even very strong leads or evidence indicating official involvement in human rights violations. It appears that this shortcoming has continued in some cases even after the European Court judgments. In four cases known to Human Rights Watch, described in detail below, the Russian government has rejected or ignored the court’s findings of violations, emphasizing its lack of intent to conduct full investigations and prosecute even perpetrators or commanding officers. 

The Disappearance and Presumed Death of Shakhid Baysayev

Russian federal troops detained Shakhid Baysayev during a sweep operation in Podgornoye (near Grozny) on March 2, 2000. Baysayev’s wife of 25 years, Asmart Baysayeva, has been looking for her husband ever since. Baysayeva obtained a videocassette in August 2000 containing footage of Russian riot police (known by the Russian acronym OMON)) detaining her husband. In April 2007, the European Court determined that “Shakhid Baysayev must be presumed dead following unacknowledged detention by State servicemen.” The court determined the investigation to have been inadequate, among other reasons, because investigators failed to identify or question the servicemen shown in the videotape detaining Baysayev.[22]

On March 20, 2008, the Investigative Directorate of the Chechen Republic reopened the investigation.[23] However, as of this writing neither Asmart Baysayeva nor her representatives have any further information about the status of the investigation and are not aware of any further efforts by the authorities to identify or question the servicemen shown in the video.[24]

The Disappearance and Presumed Death of Apti Isigov and Zelimkhan Umkhanov

During a sweep operation on July 2, 2001, in Sernovodsk, Russian troops detained hundreds of men, including Apti Isigov and Zelimkhan Umkhanov. Most of the men were released the same evening, but Isigov and Umkhanov disappeared. The Russian authorities’ investigation identified the Ministry of Internal Affairs detachments and their commanders involved in the abduction of Isigov and Umkhanov. Despite this crucial evidence, over the course of more than seven years the authorities repeatedly suspended the investigation allegedly because they could not identify the perpetrators. The European Court found this manner of proceeding “appalling” and offering “no prospect of bringing those responsible for the offence to account or of establishing the fate of the applicants' relatives.” The court noted that “the failure to bring charges may only be attributed to the negligence of the prosecuting authorities in handling the investigation and their reluctance to pursue it.”[25] 

Despite such strong indications from the court, since the June 2008 judgment, Isigova and Others, the applicants in the case are not aware of any meaningful steps by the Russian investigative authorities. The applicants have received only a series of letters indicating the case was being transferred from one investigative body to another, with the case ultimately ending up with the Investigative Committee of the civilian prosecutor’s office in Chechnya in April 2009.[26] Neither the applicants nor their representatives have been informed of any investigative steps since the European Court judgment.[27]  

The Disappearance and Presumed Death of Kharon and Magomed Khumaidov

In Akhiyadova v. Russia, the European Court found the Russian government responsible for the abduction and death of Kharon and Magomed Khumaidov.[28] On February 13, 2002, a group of armed military servicemen broke into the Khumaidovs’ home in the village of Makhketi. When the servicemen left, they took Kharon Khumaidov and his 25-year-old son, Magomed, with them. Witnesses observed that servicemen took the Khumaidovs to the building of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in Khatuni.

In August 2002, the prosecutor’s office determined that servicemen of the 45th regiment had been involved in the abduction. Despite this evidence and the July 2008 European Court judgment determining state responsibility for the disappearances, no perpetrators are known to have been identified. In response to a request for information sent by the Khumaidov family’s representatives, in April 2009 the prosecutor’s office of the Chechen Republic sent a pro forma reply indicating that the criminal case into the disappearance of the Khumaidovs was under the control of the prosecutor’s office and under examination by investigators.[29] 

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In at least four cases, the Russian government has disregarded or directly contested the European Court’s findings. These include one case in which the court named a potential perpetrator, and another in which it named those in command responsibility for violations.

The Disappearance and Presumed Death of Khadzhi-Murat Yandiyev

While watching an evening news broadcast on February 2, 2000, Fatima Bazorkina saw footage of federal forces detaining her son, Khadzhi-Murat Yandiyev. The video showed Russian Army Colonel-General Alexander Baranov yelling at soldiers saying, “Come on, come on, come on, do it, take him away, finish him off, shoot him, damn it...”[30] Russian servicemen are then seen leading Yandiyev away. He has not been seen since and his body was never found. In 2006, the European Court determined that the Russian government had illegally detained and killed Yandiev and had failed to conduct a proper investigation into his disappearance.

In the more than three years since the European Court’s judgment, the Russian authorities have refused to open an investigation into the actions of General Baranov and have on two occasions indicated that they do not respect the court’s judgment. In a March 24, 2008 letter to Bazorkina’s representatives, the military prosecutor’s office concluded that during the ‘preliminary’ investigation into Yandiev’s disappearance, “all violations of the European Convention, indicated in the Court’s judgment [in Bazorkina v. Russia], have been rectified.”[31]  The letter did not explain this conclusion, nor did it explain why an investigation that has been ongoing for nearly seven years has failed to lead to the identification and punishment of the perpetrators or to locate Yandiev’s body. 

On February 20, 2009, Bazorkina’s representatives wrote to the military investigative directorate responsible for the investigation into Yandiyev’s killing, requesting that the authorities launch a criminal investigation into General Baranov’s actions, which the court had found placed Yandiyev in a life-threatening situation.[32]

In its reply of April 3, 2009, however, the military prosecutor responded that “no evidence has been established during the investigation of potential involvement of Major-General A.I. Baranov in the abduction and killing of Kh-M.A. Yandiyev. In this connection, the request to launch a criminal investigation in relation to the latter [sic] has been denied.”[33]

The Killing by Bombardment of Zara Isayeva’s Son and Nieces

On February 4, 2000, a Russian military aerial and artillery bombardment of the village of Katyr-Yurt killed at least 46 civilians, including Zara Isayeva’s son and three nieces, and wounded 53 others. Russian forces had declared the village a “safe zone” for people fleeing fighting taking place in other parts of Chechnya. In 2005, the European Court found two senior military officers, Major-General Yakov Nedobitko and Major-General Vladimir Shamanov, responsible for the operation, which involved the “massive use of indiscriminate weapons” and which led to the loss of civilian lives and a violation of the right to life.

The court also found that the investigation into the operation had been inadequate. In particular, the court determined that government’s decision to close the investigation, based on a February 2002 military experts’ report concluding that the actions of the operational command corps (including Nedobitko and Shamanov) were legitimate and proportionate to the situation, was not consistent with the materials of the investigation file.[34]

Following the European Court’s judgment, in November 2005, the Russian authorities resumed the investigation into the operation in Katyr-Yurt, but closed it in June 2007, having found “no evidence of a crime.” None of the applicants in the case were informed about the closure, and learned about it only after the government submitted a memorandum to the European Court in another application involving the same events and investigation.[35] On May 25, 2009 the Ministry of Defense announced that Lt. General Shamanov had been appointed commander of the airborne troops of the Russian Federation.[36] 

The Killing of Khalid Khatsiyev and Kazbek Akiyev

Around noon on August 6, 2000 a Russian military helicopter opened fire, without apparent reason, at a car and a group of men who were mowing grass near the village of Arshty in Ingushetia (just across the border with Chechnya). Khalid Khatsiyev, a father of two, and Kazbek Akiyev, a father of four, were both killed in the attack. In its 2008 judgment, the European Court, unable to “perceive any justification for the use of lethal force in the circumstances of the present case” found that the Russian government had violated the victims’ right to life.[37]

Despite the overwhelming evidence of Russian federal military personnel involvement in the attack, the military prosecutors’ investigation established the identity of the federal pilots who participated in the attack only more than a year after the incident.[38] The identity of their superiors who had given the order to attack does not appear to have been established at all. Notably, in December 2001, the military prosecutor’s office issued a decision to discontinue the criminal investigation into the actions of an official who had ordered the attack, without indicating whether the identity of that official had been established. Furthermore, the decision ordered that the proceedings be discontinued on the sole ground that the circumstances justified the command to use lethal force; the decision made no assessment of that command nor did it provide any explanations.[39]

On March 30, 2009, the head of the Military Investigative Directorate under the United Group of Forces ordered all parts of the investigation into the killing ofKhalid Khatsiyev and Kazbek Akiyevreopened. However, without explanation or justification, the investigator responsible for the case reopened only part of the investigation, leaving in place the 2001 military prosecutors’ decisions to close the investigation into the pilots and their superiors.[40] In so doing, he ignored the European Court’s extensive and strong language regarding the failure of the investigation to pursue the helicopter pilots and their superiors responsible for the attack that killed Khatsiyev and Akiyev.[41]

In a letter to the applicants’ legal representatives, the investigator indicates his intent to pursue a few procedural steps only, based on his belief that “part of the Court’s findings in [the] Khatsiyeva and Others v. Russia [judgment], can be confirmed,” namely the procedural failures to grant any of Khatsiev’s relatives victim status in the criminal investigation; the absence of a forensic ballistic examination; and the failure to exhume the bodies of the victims for forensic medical tests.[42]

The investigator then suspended the investigation on April 30, 2009, the same day as his letter to the applicants’ representatives indicating the decision to reopen the investigation, although this letter did not inform them of his decision to suspend. The applicants learned of the suspension only in a May 14, 2009 in a letter from the Military Prosecutor’s Office of the United Group of Forces.[43] At least two of the victims’ relatives were interrogated by investigators during this brief resumption of the investigation, although the purpose of the interrogations was not clear to them, given the strength of the existing evidence.

The status of the investigation since the April 30 suspension is not known to the applicants or their representatives.[44] One of Khalid Khatsiev’s brothers, Nasip Khatsiev, told Human Rights Watch, that he and his family are still waiting for real results of the investigation: “The European Court judgment came in January 2008. ... We rather hoped for justice to be restored. We hoped that those military servicemen who shot peaceful people from the helicopter be punished. Although it’s clear what happened, ... nothing is being done.”[45]

The Disappearance and Presumed Death of the Aziyev Brothers

In the case Aziyevy v. Russia, less than six months after the European Court decision, the Investigative Directorate of the Republic of Chechnya sent a letter to the Aziyev family flatly rejecting the European Court’s findings.

On September 24, 2000, a group of eight military servicemen broke into Lech Aziyev’s home, kicked and beat him, and then detained his two sons, Lom-Ali and Umar-Ali Aziyev. The Aziyev family has had no news of their two sons since. In its judgment the European Court held that servicemen were responsible for the disappearance and presumed death of Lom-Ali and Umar-Ali Aziyev, in violation of the right to life guaranteed by article 2 of the European Convention.[46] 

The court strongly criticized the investigation, noting that the materials of the criminal investigation file “do not suggest any progress in more than seven years and, if anything, show the incomplete and inadequate nature of those proceedings,” including a failure to identify and question servicemen at a nearby checkpoint, to identify whether any special operations had been carried out at the time of the disappearances, or to question witnesses.[47] The court also concluded that “authorities’ behavior in the face of the applicants’ well-substantiated complaints gives rise to a strong presumption of at least acquiescence in the situation and raises strong doubts as to the objectivity of the investigation.”[48]

In addition, the court held that the manner in which the Russian authorities dealt with the Aziyevs’ complaints regarding the disappearance of their sons constituted inhuman treatment contrary to article 3 of the European Convention, that the brothers had been held in illegal detention, and that the family had not had access to an effective remedy for any of the violations.

However, in an April 29, 2009 letter to Lech Aziyev, the Investigative Directorate of the Republic of Chechnya flatly disputed the majority of the European Court’s findings, stating:

• “The materials of the criminal case file do not confirm that representatives of federal forces violated L-A. L. Aziyev’s and L-U L. Aziyev's [the brothers] right to life;” 
• The investigation had been effective and in accordance with European Convention standards because it had involved “numerous inquiries and requests through all force structures located on the territory of the [Chechen] republic, with the aim of identifying the persons responsible for the crime;” 
• “The materials of the criminal case file do not confirm that [the brothers] L-A. L. Aziyev [and] Y-A. L. Aziyev or [the father, Lech Aziyev] were subject to treatment in violation of Article 3 of the Convention from the side of the government;” and
• “As confirmed by the materials of the criminal case file, governmental organs of the Russian Federation did not impede the applicants’ right to effective remedy.”[49] 

While the letter rejects the Court’s findings, including the fact that federal forces were responsible for the disappearance and presumed death of the Aziyev brothers, it also stated that the investigation had been resumed on March 3, 2008 and listed a number of investigative measures being undertaken to find the missing Aziyev brothers and “identify those responsible for the crime.”[50] Since the February 2009 letter neither the Aziyevs nor their representatives have received any information from the authorities about the results of the investigation. Zulai Aziyeva, mother of the Aziyev brothers, told Human Rights Watch that she and her husband continue to hope for resolution in the case: “I want my sons back. That’s all we need. ... This is about our children. We’re two elderly people. We’re all alone. ... We want our boys—or at least to know what happened to them. We want this torment to be over.”[51]