by Murat Gukemukhov

The murders of law enforcement officers have resumed in the republic during a politically delicate period

July 23, 2008
CHERKESSK

On the 17th of June, unidentified individuals shot and killed three policemen with Kalashnikov assault rifles in Karachaevsk, the second largest city in Karachai-Cherkessia.  The murders occurred in the café “Tower”, which is located near the building of the local police station.

A surviving witness identified one of the attackers as Ruslan Khubiev, a 29 year-old member of an armed group involved in the murders of policemen.  According to the Karachai-Cherkessian MVD (Interior Ministry), Khubiev took part in the killings of policemen as far back as 2005-2006, when there was an analogous murder of seven police officers and one member of the FSB (Russian secret service).

The Crisis of 2005-2006

The 2005-2006 murders of law enforcement officers coincided with a political crisis in the republic that broke out when the opposition, which was centered in Karachaevsk, demanded the resignation of President Batdyev.  These murders allowed the authorities to claim that the forces of international terrorism stood behind those who demanded the resignation of the president.   He also declared Karachaevsk a “nest of evil”, where the opposition spirit was particularly strong.  Consequently, a large-scale counterterrorism campaign was launched in the foothill regions of the republic.

All of the murders of those years were pinned on an Islamic group headed by Vakhtang Aliyev.  This group, according to the claims of the authorities, received foreign funding and was connected with Achemez Gochiyaev.  Gochiyaev is suspected in the notorious terrorist apartment bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in 1999 and Russian security services believe him to be hiding abroad.  The last members of Vakhtang Aliyev’s armed group were killed on December 25, 2006 in Cherkessk on the day of Ali Kaitov’s sentencing. 

The reason for this political crisis was a criminal scandal – the president’s son-in-law Ali Kaitov was incriminated in the operations of a criminal organization, as well as in the murders of seven businessmen at his country home on the 11th of October, 2004.  The victims’ relatives twice seized the president’s office, demanding his immediate resignation.

On March 24, 2007, at a press conference commemorating the 15th anniversary of the republic’s special services, the new head of the Karachai-Cherkessian FSB Colonel Valery Ostrovetsky announced that “after the liquidation of Vakhtang Aliyev’s groups, many followers of extremism have sobered up, and the armed terrorist underground has died out.  In Karachai-Cherkessia, the armed underground has been completely wiped out.  There exist only a few small groups, the minds of whom are fouled with ideas of creating an Islamic government with Sharia law.”

The police have but once publicized information about the membership of the Islamic underground in the past few years.  At the beginning of 2005, a report by the deputy minister of the Karachai-Cherkessia MVD stated that there were “296 followers of radical Islam and 64 members of unlawful armed groups,” after which the police continually warned of the growing threat of religious extremism, but categorically refused to comment on the numerical strength of terrorists and those suspected in connections with terrorists.

The militants who were killed in 2005-2006 numbered no more than a dozen.  If the MVD and FSB representatives are telling the truth, then it’s difficult to understand what happened with the other 150 militant fighters, much less to consider the 300 radical collaborators “small groups dreaming of an Islamic state”.

After the recent killings of police, however, it turns out that at least one member of that group, Ruslan Khubiev, nevertheless remains free.  It is also important that the murders have resumed at the very time when there is again a question regarding the republic’s leadership.

The Current Political Landscape

On September 2nd, 2008, the term of the president’s authority will come to an end.  According to law, federal authorities must bring forth a presidential candidate for the local parliament’s consideration before the 29th of July.

Over the past few years, the president of Karachai-Cherkessia Mustafa Batdyev has often spoken of the growing threat of Islamic extremism in this North Caucasian republic.  Some public figures have been inclined to believe that, in reality, Batdyev has exploited the fears of Moscow to strengthen his own power by disproportionately portraying the danger of Islamic radicalism in the republic.  Islam Krymshamkhalov, a deputy of the opposition in the national assembly, gave this assessment: “Attempting to save his presidential position, Batdyev began to openly blackmail the federal center, which boils down to ‘Only I can control the situation in this explosive republic.  I must remain president, or else there will be war.’”

This time Moscow seems to have taken preemptive steps to thwart possible attempts by the republic’s current leadership to stay in power, by destabilizing the administration. On July 24th, it became public that a criminal investigation was opened against the prime minister of Karachai-Cherkessia Alik Kardanov, for allegedly “exceeding mandate”. At the same time, in an extremely rare case in the North Caucasus, a special commission started an investigation, bringing criminal charges against high profile leaders of the republic – a tactic Moscow tends to  use  as a last resort to solve political conundrums.   Then-president of Russia Vladimir Putin addressed the events of the fall of 2004 with a tough evaluation, calling them “a crisis of the authorities, mixed up in criminal developments”.

In Karachai-Cherkessia, Putin’s announcement was taken as the political verdict on Mustafa Batdyev; a sure sign of his impending resignation.  The possibility of Batdyev’s resignation enlivened the opposition, and local lobbyists joined alongside the murdered victims’ relatives.  For Batdyev, resignation practically means death – without a status of an official leader and the support of the authorities, his clan would become helpless against the threat of the traditional blood feud.  This tradition is still kept alive in many parts of North Caucasus, including Karachai-Cherkessia.  The prediction that “the criminal restructuring created by the Batdyev clan will not go unpunished – it will live only as long as he occupies the presidential post” is a view held by many in the republic to this day.

The Crackdown on Believers

According to the testimony of a former member of the MVD department fighting  organized crime, the process of identifying suspected individuals was undisciplined and reminiscent of the campaign against ‘enemies of the state’ under Stalin’s dictatorship.

“Every week at department meetings the results of our work were assessed.  ‘How many Wahhabis did you oust?  Two.  And your colleagues identified 8 or 10.  You work poorly.  You need to identify more [Wahhabis].’”

“And where do you get them?” The ex-policeman throws up his arms, “We arrested young men in mosques, interrogated them, roughed them up, took their fingerprints.  We had nothing to charge them with, but we nevertheless registered them as accomplices to extremists.”  There is even a case in which a two-year-old girl was added to a list of suspects in connection with terrorism in 2005.

In May 2005, the republic’s municipality heads were written up to replenish the “blacklists”.  According to certain sources, it was at this time that bureaucrats’ political opponents, business competition, and romantic rivals began to join the number of ‘terrorist supporters’.  The matter came to repression when it involved the imams of the Stavropol and Karachai-Cherkessian Muslim spiritual administration.  The church was obliged to fight for their imams, but the Muslim High Council did not react to the repression of young followers.

On the backdrop of the “anti-Wahhabi” campaign, in Karachaevsk (population 30,000) seven policemen and one FSB officer were killed over the course of 2005.  All of the murders were pinned on the Islamic group consisting of seven militants and headed by Vakhtang Aliyev. The militants’ identities evoked surprise from the residents of Karachaevsk.  At least half of the militants were not known by locals to be religious people.  For example, one of the suspects – 25-year-old Ramzan Tokov – had the reputation of being a hard-nosed criminal.

On the condition of anonymity, a police major from Karachaevsk explained how the band was able to remain at large in such a small republic: “During my shift alone, the police twice discovered the location of the band, but the top brass disallowed us from arresting the criminals.  The motivation for this restriction was abstract – ‘it is not yet time’.”

The time came on the 27th of April, 2006, when auditors from the Accounts Chamber of Russia discovered an illegal utilization of 1 billion rubles (~ $35 million) in Karachai-Cherkessia, which accounted for approximately 20% of the republic’s yearly federal transfers. 

Soon after, the republic’s authorities announced the preemption of a series of terrorist attacks, which were planned by Vakhtang Aliyev’s group for the victory day holiday and to take place in large cities across Russia.  As a result, five of the seven members of the group, including Aliyev himself, were trapped and killed by law enforcements in a private homestead in the Cossack village of Storozhevoi.  During the storming of house, one policeman was killed.

Distrust of the official story was further evoked by the fact that local Islamists had never before conducted armed actions on the territory of the republic; their home.

In August, 2005, Batdyev even claimed that a terrorist act similar to the Beslan school tragedy had been prevented and that it had been planned by militants in Karachaevsk.  (A year beforehand in September of 2004, a terrorist attack in Northern Ossetia had shocked the entire country.  Hundreds of hostages were killed as a result of the capture of a school in Beslan by armed militants.)  According to information from FSB sources, Batdyev’s claim did not correspond to reality, but the special services were obliged to officially confirm it.

Now, as the question of who will rule Karachai-Cherkessia is being considered, destabilization in the region could have substantial influence on Moscow’s decision regarding the leader of the republic.

Murat Gukemukhov, independent journalist in Cherkessk