Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [108]
“Witness N.G. Malyukin (the then medical officer at the Interior Affairs Temporary Office) testified that on January 2, 2001 at about 9:00 p.m. he examined Murdalov in the holding cell. He was present in the cell with Murdalov until midnight. During this time Murdalov had several fits. All the muscles of his body contracted violently, he clenched his teeth, and rolled his eyes. He ceased breathing and was unconscious. Malyukin gave Murdalov four injections. At about midnight he left the cell.”
“Witness K.D. Khadayev (a cellmate) explained to the court that on the evening of January 2 Lapin, with three or four others, brought Murdalov to the holding cell. Murdalov could not stand. His right ear had been ripped and was hanging off by the skin. His arm had been broken and his clothing was soiled. A doctor examined Murdalov, and he heard the doctor telling the senior officer, Prilepin, that Murdalov had a compound fracture of the arm, cranio-cerebral trauma, crushed testicles, and was in need of urgent surgical intervention because he would not survive with such injuries. The doctor left. Half an hour later the individuals detained with him in the cell began shouting for the duty officer and informed him that Murdalov was dying. The officer advised them to pray for him, in accordance with Muslim ritual. Murdalov remained in this moribund state until the morning of January 3, when Lapin, Prilepin and several other officers dragged him away. He was incapable of standing. The witness was certain that with such injuries Murdalov must have died and that the militia officers hid his body. Lapin was exceptionally brutal in his torture of detainees. Detainees Dalayev and Gazhayev told him they had been tortured with electricity, clubs and hammers by him. Dalayev had flesh torn from his chest with pliers, had dogs set on him, and was beaten as a nail was hammered into his collar bone. While being tortured he was asked where resistance fighters could be found.”
“Witness S.K. Batalov testified that in the course of checking the statement by plaintiff Astemir Murdalov, members of the Prosecutor’s Office discovered on territory adjacent to the October Interior Affairs Temporary Office the bodies of three boys who had been seen riding bicycles in the vicinity. The bodies were mutilated, with their eyes gouged out and their scalps removed. A separate criminal case has been opened in respect of the unidentified individuals who conspired with Lapin to commit these crimes.”
“On the morning of January 3, Lapin, fearing that the physical injuries he had inflicted on Murdalov would become known, conspiring with officers not identified by the investigation, signed Murdalov’s name on an order for his release from the holding cell in the box for the detainee’s signature; and also on the record of the personal search of Murdalov in the box confirming items returned and received. Then officers of the October Interior Affairs Temporary Office not identified by the investigation, acting with the knowledge and consent of Lapin, took Murdalov from the holding cell and drove him away to an unknown destination.”
It is clear what happened. The witnesses’ testimony, accepted by the court, leaves no possibility of doubt, but where is the victim? That is the overriding question. Zelimkhan Murdalov remains one of the disappeared, and the trial has done nothing to clarify that issue. For over four years, many people did everything they could to bring about this verdict. They tracked Lapin down when he was on the run. They discredited medical certificates when he tried to pretend he was too ill to appear in court. They endured the thuggish behaviour of Lapin and his colleagues from the Khanty-Mansiysk Interior Affairs Directorate at the hearings. What was it all for? A sentence of 11 years in a strict-regime labor camp?
Of course