Confessions of extortion related to espionage
In September 1998, when Chechnya became de facto independent (the laws of the Russian Federation did not apply on its territory, the issue of the status of the republic was postponed until 2001), four subjects of the British Queen arrived in Grozny – British Peter Kennedy, Darren Hickey, Rudolf Petchey and New Zealander Stanley Shaw. They were engineers from the British company Granger Telecom. According to the terms of the contract with the Chechentelecom company, they were required to establish mobile phone, satellite and regular telephone communications.
The contract amount was £183 million. After the First Chechen War, there was almost no communication anywhere in the region.
Just a few days later the engineers were kidnapped. On the night of October 4, two dozen armed militants attacked a private house on Grozny’s Lermontov Street. Six guards guarded the peace of foreigners – they were allocated by the leadership of Ichkeria. The “presidential elections in Ichkeria” in 1997 were won by field commander and former Soviet officer Aslan Maskhadov, who tried to give the separatist republic the image of a “normal state” and not a bandit-Islamist free spirit.
Maskhadov’s guards were unable (or unwilling) to fight the superior forces of the kidnappers; only one of them (and a bandit) was injured. At that time, shooting on the streets was commonplace in Grozny, so employees of the “anti-kidnapping department”, located half a kilometer from the house where the engineers lived, did not react to this. The kidnapper seemed to have disappeared without a trace.
Later it became known that Magomed Chaguchiev, a 65-year-old mathematician from Dagestan, was in the same place with the British, and he described his arrest to Sunday Times newspaper journalists as follows:
“In the underground cell where the hostages were held, they continued to beat them with machine gun butts, batons and chains. At the same time, the militants showed foreigners videos of murders and the bodies of killed prisoners. The four hostages were given a bucket of water and a loaf of bread a week.”
He said the militants tortured the engineers into confessing that they were spying. Naturally, telephone operators did not engage in any spying activities. A few weeks later, the kidnappers dressed the British in camouflage and recorded a “confession” on video: one of them stated that Granger Telecom employees allegedly listened to “all telephone conversations in Chechnya” and passed information to the intelligence services – Mi-6 and Mossad. The “heartfelt confession” also stated that the engineers “wanted to prevent the spread of Islam” in line with instructions from the British and Israeli intelligence services.
Maskhadov claimed that the engineers were kidnapped by the Chechen militants’ obnoxious field commander Arbi Barayev. This conclusion was reached by Chechentelecom management, which conducted its own investigation. Meanwhile, Granger Telecom offered the kidnappers $10 million for their people, but the deal fell through. Rumor has it that Osama bin Laden’s men offered $30 million for the killing of the British in order to provoke a break between Ichkeria and the West.
Chechen Telekom eventually took Arbi Barayev’s man hostage. He rejected the trade and set a price of $10 million, but then changed his mind and killed the British – perhaps deciding to avenge the kidnapping of his assistant.
On December 8, the severed heads of Peter Kennedy, Darren Hickey, Rudolf Petchey and Stan Shaw were found on the Caucasus federal highway near the village of Assinovskaya. The bodies of those killed on December 29 were purchased by Maskhadov’s government from the militants for $ 2,000 per body. On the same day, they were taken to Dagestan and from there to England via Azerbaijan.
While trying to find the hostages, local “security forces” released another 60 prisoners; At that time, human trafficking was flourishing in Chechnya.
Chechen journalist Musa Muradov recalled:
“A special feature of Chechen television during Maskhadov’s rule was the televised appeals of relatives of missing persons to their abductors. Every day in prime time, people were tearfully pleading on television for the release of their kidnapped relatives. Later, kidnappings became so common in the republic that sometimes calls from relatives lasted more than an hour on evening television. Eventually this situation began to bother the Ichkerian authorities and they were forbidden to contact the kidnappers.”
“The most pathological character of the war”
Military historian Evgeny Norin, author of the two-volume book “Chechen War”, in a conversation with socialbites.ca recalled that the kidnapping of three British people and a New Zealander is the most famous, but far from the only story. Kidnapping of foreigners by Ichkerian militants.
“The abductions began at the end of the first war and continued sporadically even at the beginning of the second war. “If we talk about foreigners, the victims were mostly humanitarian workers, as well as employees of business structures,” the expert said.
For example, in 1997, four French people from Doctors Without Borders were kidnapped in Nazran (Ingushetia). In the same year, a Turkish businessman was kidnapped in Chechnya, and a German and Serbian businessman were kidnapped in Ingushetia (the German was taken for ransom, the Serb was later released as a result of a special operation). In 1998, US citizen missionary and teacher Herbert Gregg was kidnapped in Makhachkala and taken to Chechnya. In October 1999, during the second campaign, French photographer Brice Flétiaux was stolen.
The British were unlucky; They fell into the hands of Arbi Barayev. According to the historian, although this militant leader was not the strongest, he was “perhaps the most pathological character.”
“Unlike his more pragmatic “colleagues”, this person was a complete maniac and could “ignite the stove with banknotes”, torture and irreparably maim hostages just for fun. Barayev’s reasons in this case were the most ordinary – to receive a ransom. Foreigners were always considered a good target because, on average, they were much richer than Russians. The seven people, along with the British, were kept in a damp, cold basement infested with rats and cockroaches. “The hostages were regularly beaten and eventually killed,” the expert emphasized.
He added that the reasons for the murder are still not known for certain: Maybe they did not agree on the amount of the ransom (Barayev’s sadism and explosive character are well known), maybe Barayev aimed to discredit the then “President of Ichkeria”. She had a chronic conflict with her partner, Aslan Maskhadov. The version involving bin Laden’s intervention should also not be ignored.
“War” is real
In the movie “War” directed by Alexei Balabanov, the subject of Ichkerian militants kidnapping foreigners is discussed in great detail. According to the plan, the leader of the bandit group, Aslan Gugaev, brings two British people, a man and a woman, to the basement of the village, where they meet with a wounded Russian officer (Sergei Bodrov Jr.) and two captured privates. A man with slave status from the Russian Armed Forces and a Jewish businessman from Vladikavkaz. The militant demands ransom for all of them.
“As far as I can tell, War is about the real-life kidnapping of married couple John James and Camilla Carr. The woman was raped repeatedly and infected with a bad disease in the process (her husband was kept in the next room, screwed to the radiator and heard everything),” said Noreen.
According to him, the attitude towards the prisoners was harsh; They may not have tortured them, but “there was no expectation of a five-star hotel”. The detention regime varied depending on the characteristics of a particular gang. The historian adds that they were doing business from the militants’ point of view.
“You can park a Zhiguli and a Mercedes in the same parking lot.” “So a shepherd stolen from somewhere near Kizlyar could well have been kept in the same hole with a foreign businessman,” the historian noted.
“At best the prisoner was kept and fed in a relatively dry room. At worst, sexual violence and self-harm. They killed quite rarely, since money could still be obtained for a living person. But while they were trying to escape, they could very well have killed them, at least to scare the rest. Moreover, in the second case, they killed with obvious cruelty; “For example, a poor man who tried to attack a guard was beheaded with a saw,” he notes.
Grandiose sadism was a way to pressure victims’ relatives to collect the ransom faster and negotiate less. Therefore, it was common to cut off 1-2 fingers and send them to relatives (or just film the process and send tape).
“In a less harsh version, the victims were beaten on camera or in a simulated execution. In addition, hostages were often sent back extremely exhausted, hungry and sick,” the military historian concluded.