Hostage-Taking

In the autumn of 1994, Russia attacked the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria under the name of a puppet opposition, and on 11 December 1994 the Russian army openly invaded the republic. The occupiers took peaceful Chechens hostage and released them in exchange for captured and killed Russian servicemen, weapons or money.

Russian servicemen drew up lists of detained Chechens for exchange and put on them people who by their age could not have carried weapons^[1]. According to a certificate by the prison service of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, from 11 December 1994 to 22 July 1995 the ministry handed over 141 prisoners of the filtration camps for exchange for captured Russian servicemen (see: "Filtration Camp System")^[2].

Russian police officers and soldiers promised to release a detained Chechen if his relatives brought money, a Russian soldier out of captivity or the body of a dead one^[2][1]. The occupiers used the hostages' relatives to find out where the Armed Forces of Ichkeria were holding captured Russians: the relatives searched for captives to rescue their own, while the Russian FSB collected information from them and on 29 July 1995 drew up a certificate on the places where Russian soldiers were being held^[2][3].

On 9 January 1995, Russian servicemen detained Shamsu Magomadov in Grozny (see: "Abduction of People"). In the winter of 1995-1996, his sister Madina Magomadova sought her brother's exchange from Colonel Pilyugin of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. She told "Memorial": "They told me: 'Yes, your brother is alive, we will exchange him — find a soldier [a captured Russian soldier]'. I found a soldier — I went through all those mountains, villages, there is a war on, under fire I searched for a soldier — I found one, brought a photograph. They tell me: 'The soldier is a deserter, he is not subject to exchange…' … 'Go find an officer'. … I found an officer, brought a photograph of the officer... They tell me: sorry, Comrade Magomadova, your brother has been taken away from here, and where he is supposed to be, he has not been brought yet. We cannot find him". The occupiers never released Shamsu Magomadov, and nothing is known of his fate^[2].

Russian servicemen and security services put up for exchange the captured relatives and guards of the president of Ichkeria. On 19 February 1995, the occupiers detained in Grozny Makharbi Dudayev, the president's younger brother, and on 6 April the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs put him up for exchange in Malye Atagi, a village south of Grozny, together with 16 prisoners of the filtration camps. The ministry exchanged the prisoners for a captured Russian major and released the president's brother separately^[2][4][5]. On the night of 28 May 1996, Russian border guards detained the widow of the president of Ichkeria with her bodyguard at the airport of Nalchik, the capital of Russian-controlled Kabardino-Balkaria, and the Russian FSB released the widow but exchanged the bodyguard for a captured Russian priest^[6][7].

Russian soldiers and filtration camp guards demanded ransom for detained Chechens. In late March 1995, the guards of the military unit near Assinovskaya, a stanitsa in the west of Ichkeria, asked detained Chechens who would pay more to get out^[2]. In April 1995, the guards of the filtration camp on the northeastern outskirts of Grozny received five million rubles for the release of a detained Chechen^[8]. On 15 May 1995, Russian soldiers put a detained Chechen from Shali, a town southeast of Grozny, into a pit at their unit, offered to let him out for money and released him after 18 hours^[9]. In December 1995, Russian servicemen detained five elderly Chechens at a checkpoint, and their relatives ransomed them from a filtration camp for ten million rubles^[8]. On 17 April 1996, Russian soldiers detained a Chechen woman with her two brothers at the entrance to Grozny and demanded three million rubles for them, and in the evening released all three, and the brother gave them the money^[1]. On 18 April, Russian servicemen took six Chechens from their homes in Novye Aldy, a settlement on the southwestern outskirts of Grozny, and their relatives ransomed them from the filtration camp at the city motor depot^[1].

The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the command of the occupation troops demanded captured Russian servicemen, their bodies and weapons for detained Chechens. In March 1996, officers of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs demanded that the female relatives of a Chechen, held since January in the filtration camp in Grozny, dig up and bring the bodies of three officers of a Russian police special unit, and in late March, having received the bodies, released him^[2]. In March 1996, soldiers of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs detained three Chechens at the checkpoint between Goity and Starye Atagi, villages south of Grozny, and on 28 March the occupiers exchanged them for five Russian soldiers^[10]. On 7 April 1996, Russian servicemen took Saidash Shamakhurov from Gikalovo, a village south of Grozny, to Khankala, the main base of the occupation troops on the eastern outskirts of Grozny, where investigators demanded that he record on tape his request to be exchanged for 15 captured Russian soldiers and 48 construction workers. On 27 April, the occupiers exchanged him for a Russian soldier^[10]. In May 1996, soldiers of the Internal Troops of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (predecessors of today's Rosgvardia) detained in the center of Grozny 17 to 20 Chechens who were repairing heating pipes and demanded during interrogation that their relatives bring weapons or captured Russian servicemen for them. The next evening the guards let them go^[10].

Russian soldiers took hostages during assaults and when encircled. On 7 April 1995, during the storming of Samashki, a village in the west of Ichkeria, the occupiers took four Chechen men hostage, drove them into a pit in a garage and fired at them with assault rifles. One the occupiers killed on the spot, the wounded second one the next day; two survived (see: "Mass Killings of Civilians")^[2]. On 10-12 August 1996, soldiers of the Internal Troops of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, encircled by the Armed Forces of Ichkeria, held about 500 patients, their relatives and medics hostage in City Hospital No. 9 in Grozny. On 12 August, the occupiers left the hospital, taking a hundred hostages as a human shield, and released them near the former driving school where Russian units were stationed, once the defenders had handed over four captured Russian soldiers (see: "Use of People as "Human Shields"")^[4][2].

On 11 and 12 August 1996, when the Armed Forces of Ichkeria were liberating Grozny from the occupiers, soldiers of the 101st Brigade of the Internal Troops of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs took Chechen men from the blocks around the "15th Gorodok", their base on Lenin Street, and held them there as hostages. On 14 October 1996, Magomed Taramov told "Memorial" how on 12 August Russian servicemen took him from his home together with his son Alimkhan: "We are no 'boyeviki' [as Russians called the Armed Forces of Ichkeria], we took no part in the armed actions. They led us out into the street, and there by the wall stood another nine or so people... In all, about twenty-four of us were gathered". For the release of the hostages, the brigade's officers demanded that relatives bring wounded soldiers from the encircled Russian checkpoints and the bodies of the dead, or get the army of Ichkeria to let food through to those posts. Garib Asiyalov, whom the hostages' female relatives called to the talks at the "15th Gorodok", in October told "Memorial" the words of a Russian officer: "…I answer to Kulikov [the head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs]. We will trade head for head — our wounded or dead one for your living one". According to him, for the wounded and dead soldiers whom the relatives brought by truck, the brigade released 32 hostages^[4]. On 16 August, when relatives brought the bodies of eight Russian servicemen to the base, the occupiers released Magomed and Alimkhan Taramov^[2].

On 17 August 1996, soldiers of the 101st Brigade searched the blocks near the "15th Gorodok" and took Chechen men from there to the base as hostages. The brigade's officers promised to release them for the bodies of Russian soldiers buried near the bus station and the chemical plant, and on 19 August, when Russian soldiers brought 28 bodies out through the positions of the Armed Forces of Ichkeria, they released the hostages. The human rights defenders of "Memorial" published the names of twelve of them^[4] and write that at the "15th Gorodok" and in City Hospital No. 9 in Grozny the soldiers of the Internal Troops took hostages on the direct orders of the commanders of their units^[2].

In his report of 26 March 1996, the UN Secretary-General cited reports by human rights organizations: Russian troops often detained any Chechen man, whether there was evidence against him or not, in order to exchange him for captured Russian soldiers^[11]. The human rights defenders of "Memorial" write that Russian agencies repeatedly used civilian prisoners of the filtration camps as hostages and in most cases offered Ichkeria in exchange Chechens who had not taken part in the fighting. In "Memorial's" conclusion, hostage-taking became a regular practice for the Russian military^[2].

Russian prosecutors put none of the occupiers who took hostages in Hospital No. 9 and at the "15th Gorodok" in Grozny on trial (see: "Impunity of Perpetrators")^[10][2].

In August 1996, the Armed Forces of Ichkeria liberated Grozny from the occupiers, forcing Russia to the negotiating table^[12]. On 31 August 1996, peace agreements were signed in Khasavyurt (see: "Sham Treaties")^[13]. On 31 December 1996, the last Russian troops left the republic^[2].