Suspicions have been aired that Ramzan Kadyrov is behind a series of political murders
inside and outside Chechnya, that is, the murder of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya and of human rights activist Natalya Estemirova. Until
recently there was no proof. This changed in 2009. A Chechen refugee in Austria, Umar
Israilov, who started a procedure against Kadyrov for torture before the European
Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, was killed on the street on January 13, 2009,
by a commando. One of the three accused Chechens, Otto Kaltenbrunner, had “pictures
on his cell phone that show him embracing Mr Kadyrov, one of the indications of their
closeness.” One of the alleged murderers had called Shakya Turlaev, an adviser of
Kadyrov, after the operation. According to the Austrian MP Peter Pilz, spokesman for
the Greens on questions of security and defense, Kadyrov has formed in Austria “a
shock troop of 30 to 50 men who are tasked to terrorize, kidnap or kill” Chechen exiles.
In the EU are living about a hundred thousand refugees, of whom twenty-six thousand
in Austria. Pilz said that the FSB agent Saïd Selim Peshkoev at the Russian embassy
in Vienna, a former minister of the interior of Chechnya, had direct access to data
on Chechen refugees collected by the BVT (Austrian intelligence service). A statement
to this effect was signed by the former conservative Austrian minister of the interior,
Ernst Strasser, who is now a member of the European Parliament and president of the
Austrian-Russian Friendship Association ORFG. (Cf. Joëlle Stolz, “Le procès des meurtriers
d’un réfugié tchétchène dévoile le ‘système Kadyrov,’” Le Monde (November 17, 2010).)
42.
Littell, Tchétchénie: An III, 64–65.
43.
Quoted in Paul Goble, “Chechnya Far from Peaceful and Far Less under Russian Control,”
Moldova.org (April 15, 2010).
44.
Charles King and Rajan Menon, “Prisoners of the Caucasus: Russia’s Invisible Civil
War,” Foreign Affairs 89, no. 4 (July/August 2010), 30.
45.
Cf. Sergey Maksudov, Vyacheslav Igrunov, Aleksey Malashenko, and Nikolay Petrov, “Chechentsy
i russkie: pobedy, porazheniya, poteri” (Moscow, Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, 2010). In this interview, in which the authors discuss their book of the same
title, they say “that at this moment in this space [Chechnya] has formed a half-independent
vassal government (polunezavisimoe vassalnoe gosudarstvo) that is not at all controlled from Moscow.”
46.
Paul Quinn-Judge, “Russia’s Brutal Guerilla War,” Foreign Policy (August 31, 2009).
47.
Piotr Smolar, “En Tchétchénie la violence augmente, selon un rapport,” Le Monde (November 26, 2009).
48.
Aleksey Malashenko, “Militant Attack on Tsentoroi Village,” Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, Carnegie Commentary (August 30, 2010).
49.
Malashenko, “Militant Attack on Tsentoroi Village.”
50.
Piotr Smolar, “Le maire de Moscou, Iouri Loujkov, a été évincé car il n’appartenait
pas au ‘cercle du pouvoir,’” Le Monde (September 30, 2010).
51.
Cf. Nougayrède, “La démocratie dévoilée,” in Droits humains en Russie: Résister pour l’état de droit, 22–23.
52.
Cf. Katlijn Malfliet and Stephan Parmentier, “Russia’s Membership of the Council of
Europe: Ten Years After,” in Russia and the Council of Europe: 10 Years After, eds. Katlijn Malfliet and Stephan Parmentier (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010),
14.
53.
Cf. Nougayrède, Droits humains en Russie: Résister pour l’état de droit, 89.
54.
Kirill Koroteev, “Les violations des droits humains en Tchétchénie devant la Cour
Européenne des Droits de l’Homme,” in Nougayrède, Droits humains en Russie: Résister pour l’état de droit, 120.
55.
Andrey Bortsov and Vadim Trukhachev, “Poland Ascribes Non-existent Genocide of Chechens
to Russia,” Pravda.ru (September 28, 2010).
56.
Hallbach, “Gewalt in Tschetschenien: ein gemiedenes Problem internationaler Politik,”
18.
57.
Littell, Tchétchénie, An III, 56.
58.
