Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [88]
Murdalov was very unlucky. The Khanty-Mansiysk detachment have an atrocious reputation in Grozny. In the Militia Unit’s headquarters Zelimkhan was handed over to Major Alexander Prilepin, Head of the Criminal Militia and better known by his code name of “Alex.” Also to Investigator Zhuravlyov and officer Sergey Lapin, alias “The Cadet.” The latter had this name shaved on the back of his head. A later inquiry established that it was they who personally presided over and took part in the torturing of Zelimkhan.
In the early hours of January 3, The Cadet dragged Murdalov to a cell in the temporary holding block, where he was seen by other prisoners.
His fellow cell-mates saw the results of the militiamen’s sadistic orgy. The bone was sticking out of Zelimkhan’s right forearm. His right ear had been cut off. His ribs had been broken. He was unconscious. The prisoners began saying a prayer over him, in the belief that he was dying. They demanded a doctor who, after inspecting the victim, pronounced that urgent surgical intervention was essential. The officers refused, declaring that the man had shown himself to be a real Chechen, tough, unwilling to surrender, and therefore perfectly able to survive without medical treatment.
On the morning of January 3, the prisoners heard someone warn over a radio link, “The Prosecutor is at the frontier …” The response to this unannounced inspection was, “Let him wait.” (“The frontier” is how they referred to the Unit’s security checkpoint.) A doctor came, injected Zelimkhan for a long time, and he was dragged away by the arms. In the evening the prisoners were informed that Murdalov had been taken to hospital but had escaped. Nobody believed this, and they assumed that as Zelimkhan was plainly in no state to move, let alone run, he must have died that morning. In order to avoid repercussions, his killers had evidently hidden the body. The October District Office is surrounded by ruined houses from which explosions are constantly being heard. Nobody knows who causes them or why but, as the whole of Grozny knows, the area is suffused with the stench of corpses.
Once Murdalov had been dragged away, the Prosecutor was allowed into the cell and registered that there was nobody there by the name of Murdalov. He apparently did not think to enquire why he had been denied access for such a long time.
The Prosecutor appeared in the October District Interior Affairs Office only because he had been forced to go there by Zelimkhan’s parents, Rukiyat and Astemir Murdalov, who had pulled all the strings at their disposal. They are well known in Grozny. From then on until now, it was the parents, not any lawyers or investigators, who have conducted the real inquiry into the circumstances of their son’s abduction, and who have effectively compelled the Grozny Prosecutor’s Office to do its job of opening Criminal Case No. 15004 into his abduction, torture, and subsequent disappearance.
A telling detail: the Khanty-Mansiysk Militia Unit terrorised not only the citizens of Grozny but also the Grozny Prosecutor’s Office. When one of the militiamen involved in the Murdalov case was summoned by the Prosecutors, a militia brigade armed to the teeth surrounded the building for the duration of his questioning. They smashed furniture in the corridors, and kept grenade launchers targeted on the building, promising to burn it to a cinder if their comrade was not released. There was no reaction to this from General Headquarters in Khankala, as if this is just how soldiers of the Joint Military