Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [105]
Until now this “warrior against terrorism” has openly defied the court and got on with his life. Despite the gravity of the crimes of which The Cadet stands accused, our own dear Interior Ministry quietly, without attracting unwelcome publicity, reinstated the accused as a militia officer, and now, while under bail conditions not to leave Nizhnevartovsk, he is once again working in the Criminal Investigation Department of the Nizhnevartovsk City Interior Affairs Office.
Despite this, at the November hearings The Cadet behaved like a seasoned old lag, insolently changing his story for the sixth time, utterly refusing to admit his guilt, and trying to blame everything on colleagues in the “anti-terrorist operation” who have since been killed. Very manly behaviour, don’t you think?
Maierbek Mezhidov is the Chairman of the October District Court in Grozny, and presides in the half-ruined building of the former Department of State Security of Ichkeria on Popovich Street. From the front this box-like building looks like an apartment block, but from the back you see it is little more than a façade. Less than half, on the ground floor, has been crudely repaired for the exercise of justice. Inside it is as cold as a refrigerator, and the sparse Soviet-era lightbulbs provide such meagre light that the reading Judge Mezhidov – already well on in years – has to do of reports, interrogation records and the like is a truly heroic feat in the cause of justice.
Another heroic feat is dispensing justice at all in a building which has been surrounded. Where else would you find anything like this? This morning, individuals in combat fatigues, with shaven heads and festooned with rifles, drove up to the court building in armoured personnel carriers and military trucks, and pointed their weapons at anybody entering or leaving the court. Some of us also got shouted at in colorful language.
These are bodyguards escorting the accused. The Cadet arrives with them and he departs with them. Even when he goes out for a smoke during the breaks, members of the brigade shield him with their bodies. The Commanding Officer of this Interior Ministry unit introduced himself as Oleg. He looks totally villainous, and cradles a huge rifle or grenade launcher in his arms. He explains that he is acting under verbal orders from the commander of the Interior Ministry troops in Chechnya to protect Lapin.
“Who from?”
“You know yourself,” Oleg spits out.
From Chechens, presumably.
From Aleta, the aunt of Zelimkhan Murdalov whom The Cadet tortured to death, who became ill when the court started reading out how and what the Khanties did to her nephew on January 2–3, 2001; from Astemir Murdalov, Zelimkhan’s father, who clutches the grey hair on his lowered head; from those victims of the Khanties who survived by a miracle and emerged from the torture chambers of the Interior Ministry’s Temporary Office in the October District of Grozny; from the wives and mothers of those the Khanties abducted, who are listening now to every word the judge or The Cadet say in the hope that some clue will slip out about the fate of their husband, son or brother.
All these Chechen men and women are huddled over to one side of the courtroom. Lapin’s personal brigade smirk in blatant self-satisfaction; it is a monstrous tableau of a state which encourages criminals in uniform.
The hearing finally begins. Only the breath of those present in the cold courtroom will gradually take the chill from it. It becomes warmer, but people are still shivering from the damp atmosphere when The Cadet demands to be allowed to speak. He sounds a complete gangster, and now denies all his previous