Kidnapping on Eve of G8 Summit

To the Civic Assistance Committee

To the Memorial Human Rights Centre

The Russian military and political leadership feels no compunction whatsoever in committing its crimes just before the summit of the heads of the world's leading countries, which reveals the Kremlin leadership's utter contempt towards these leaders and towards the international community as a whole.

What is surprising about the report, which we received by telephone, is that the latest kidnapping of a Chechen did not occur on Chechen territory, which practically all international bodies, including human rights organisations, have become accustomed to, but in the Republic of Komi.

In the middle of the night (at 3.00 am) on 7 July 2006 a rapid reaction squad burst in to the house where Lyomi Bitiyevich Dzhabrailov, born in 1967, and his family were living in the village of Anyb in Ust-Kulomskiy District of the Republic of Komi. The representatives of the Russian power agencies, who have honed their skills in crime in the Chechen Republic, arrested Dzhabrailov in their usual manner, despite his wife's cries for help and the tears of his one-year-old child.

At the time of his arrest Dzhabrailov was given neither arrest warrant, nor any explanation from the Republic of Komi's rapid reaction squad, which means that the law-enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation acted illegally. It emerged that Lyomi Dzhabrailov had been arrested at the request of the Chechen commandant's office.

At present Dzhabrailov's relatives have no information at all about his whereabouts or the charges against him or the conditions in which he is being held. They fear that he might be tortured until he confesses to something he hasn't done and that he might then disappear without trace.

Persecution of the Dzhabrailov family began a long time ago. Lyomi's older brother, Musa Dzhabrailov, was kidnapped by Russian agencies and then killed. Almost Musa's entire family was arrested and subjected to biased interrogation. They were released after human rights activists intervened and the lawlessness was made public.

The web sites Prava Cheloveka v Rossii (Human Rights in Russia), Kavkazskiy Uzel (Caucasus Hub) and the newspaper Chechenskoye obshchestvo (Chechen Society) bear witness to this lawlessness: http://www.chechensociety.net/index.php?id_article=265 :

"Makhmud, Marzhan, Ali and Magomed Dzhabrailov were detained on 25 July 2004 in the town of Gudermes by Ramzan Kadyrov's fighters in connection with the fact that one of the Dzhabrailovs was involved in the illegal armed formations of the Chechen Republic. It was learnt on 31 July that year from residents of the republic who had been released from the illegal prison in the village of Tsentoroy that the Dzhabrailovs were being held there. Later it was established that, several days before that, another Dzhabrailov had been incarcerated in the same prison, Musa, who suffered the ‘cruellest torture' there. He was immediately shot in the leg and interrogated while wounded. After 10 days of torture he was taken in a grave condition to the surgical department of Gudermes hospital No 2. As soon as Musa Dzhabrailov became mobile, he was taken back to Tsentoroy. And only after that, on 16 August 2004, were his relatives released."

Realising how dangerous it was for him to remain in the Chechen Republic, Lyomi Dzhabrailov took the only reasonable decision in the situation and left with his family for the distant Komi Republic where he hoped to find peace.

But as we can see, his plans were not to work out, as the vast territory of Russia is a zone of heightened risk for any Chechen. Lyomi Bitiyevich Dzhabrailov is known not to have taken any part in either the first or second Chechen campaigns, was not a member of any armed groups, has never committed any crime and does not intend to do so.

We urge the authoritative human rights organisations of Russia, above all the Civic Solidarity Committee and Memorial Human Rights Centre, to take up the fate of the kidnapped Lyomi Dzhabrailov and monitor his case, so that, rather than suffer extra-judicial violence, an innocent man is released.

Mayrbek Taramov

Director of the Chechen Human Rights Centre

Said-Emin Ibragimov