1998 abduction of foreign engineers in Chechnya

1998 abduction of foreign engineers took place when four United Kingdom-based specialists were seized by unidentifed Chechen gunmen in Grozny, the capital of Russia's breawakway republic of Chechnya. After more than two months in captivity, all four men were found brutally murdered, reportedly following a failed rescue bid by the region's security forces. Kidnappings have become common in Chechnya since the end of the First Chechen War in 1996, but victims were rarely killed, and no other foreigners were murdered in captivity.

Kidnapping

On the night of October 3, 1998, a group of about 20 heavily-armed men snatched four foreign workers from their home following a gun battle with their bodyguards (armed only with pistols) in which several men were wounded. The attack took place in the vicinity of the headquarters of a Chechen anti-kidnapping unit. The officers did not react, they said, because they were not aware of the presence of the foreigners and the night-time shooting was frequent in Grozny since Chechnya's "de facto" independent government had proved unable to maintain law and order in the region. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1998/10/05/whos05.html Chechens kidnap three Britons] , "The Telegraph", 5 October 1998] [ [http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/1998/10/05/fhead.htm Chechen mob snatches UK and NZ workers in gun battle] , "The Examiner", 5 October, 1998]

The victims were three Britons: Peter Kennedy (46) of Hereford, Darren Hickey (27) from Surrey, Rudi Petschi (42) of Devon, and New Zealand-born Stan Shaw (58). The four men had been working for Granger Telecom, a British telecommunication company which had won a £183m contract for the separatist government-run company Chechentelekom to install telephone lines, satellite links and a mobile phone system throughout the war-ravaged republic. The work was suspended after the four men were kidnapped.

All the law enforcement agencies of the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria were involved in the search for the victims, and several suspects in the crime were arrested at the time, but were later released for lack of evidence. More than 60 hostages were released as Chechen officials launched armed raids on the homes of suspected kidnappers, but the missing foreigners were not found. On October 8, a spokesman for Chechnya's Security Ministry said the men were alive and well but that no demands or conditions for their release had been set. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/189391.stm Chechnya hostages 'alive and well'] , BBC News, October 8, 1998 ]

After several weeks, at the end of November, the kidnappers contacted Granger, promising that the hostages were alive and well and demanding a ransom. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office already announced it was Her Majesty's Government's policy not to pay ransoms, but Granger agreed to find the money. [ [http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-7532297-details/My+brother's+brutal+death/article.do My brother's brutal death] , "Evening Standard", 05.11.03] According to the 2005 article in "Kommersant", the management of Chechentelekom determined that its workers were in the hands of the rogue Chechen field commander Arbi Barayev and, according to the rumours, the company even took one of Barayev's deputies hostage and proposed exchanging him for the foreigners, but Barayev declined and kept demanding $10m for their release. [http://www.kommersant.com/p561270/r_1/Mesker-Yurt_s_Executioner/ Mesker-Yurt's Executioner // Rebel who killed hostages arrested] , "Kommersant" Apr. 07, 2005]

Discovery of the bodies

On December 8, 1998, four heads were found in a sack on the side of a highway in the village of Assinovskaya, close to the border with Ingushetia; they were identified by a bodyguard. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/230215.stm Chechnya kidnap victims dead] , BBC News, December 8, 1998 ] Later, on December 29, 1998, reportedly after paying $2,000 a piece for the return of the bodies, Chechen separatist officials found the four headless corpses on the outskirts of Grozny. The remains of the engineers were transported by Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Turpal-Ali Atgeriyev to Dagestan and flown through Azerbaijan to the Gatwick Airport in London. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/242774.stm Chechnya hostage remains flown home] , BBC News, December 29, 1998]

According to the inquest by the Westminster Coroner's Court, the kidnapped men were starved of food and water and repeatedly beaten with rifle butts before being decapitated with a large knife. Examination of the bodies showed all the men had been extremely malnourished and Rudi Petschi had suffered particularly horrific injuries. [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/engineers-were-starved-beaten-and-decapitated-inquest-told-740296.html Engineers were starved, beaten and decapitated, inquest told] , "The Independent", 3 November 1999]

According to Chechen security forces, the victims were executed at a unused factory south of Grozny after a rescue operation that went wrong. It was suggested that their death was a show of defiance to the authorities from the kidnappers. Family members said the abortive rescue attempt "ruined delicate negotiations" that were going on between Granger and the kidnappers; they also criticized an unnamed news agency that had given out details of where the hostages were being held shortly before the bungled operation. On December 10, Chechnya's Vice-President, Vakha Arsanov, showed a foreign journalist a videotape in which the gang of kidnappers forced the four to dress in military uniforms and confess in Russian to spying for "German, English and Israeli special services and the CIA." [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/231570.stm Murdered hostages 'confessed to spying'] , BBC News, December 10, 1998]

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was "shocked," while President of Russia Boris Yeltsin was "deeply disturbed" by the beheadings, a Kremlin spokesman said. President of Chechnya Aslan Maskhadov said he was "saddened and angered" by the news and that the slayings were a major blow to the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria's efforts to gain international recognition of its independence.

Aftermath and suspects

At the time of the abduction many of the region's warlords were in open revolt against Maskhadov, and several analysts interpreted the abductions as a political act. Maskhadov himself blamed the atrocity on the "foreign special services" and their Chechen henchmen, [http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9812/08/chechnya.01/ Four Western hostages beheaded in Chechnya] , CNN, December 8, 1998] hinting at a possible involvement of Russian special services using Chechen "bandits" to destabilise the breakaway territory. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/231318.stm International horror at beheadings] , BBC News, December 9, 1998] A British investigation at the time surmised that the four were the victims of "warring mercenary factions". [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/jun/03/chechnya.world Families of dead Chechnya hostages sue employer] , "The Guardian", June 3 2003]

On December 13, 1998, Arbi Barayev was officially named as by Maskhadov a suspect, as the government announced the mobilisation of war veterans to fight the organized crime. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/234180.stm Chechen president orders kidnap crackdown] , BBC News, December 13, 1998 ] [http://users.jyu.fi/~aphamala/pe/issue2/sanobar.htm "Russian anti-terrorist operation"] , "Moskovskiye Novosti", August 8, 2000] Some former hostages, including Magomed Chaguchiev from Dagestan, said they were held by Barayev together with the foreigners. [ [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article1142112.ece My days of hell with the doomed Britons] , "The Sunday Times", June 15 2003] Barayev himself denied that his group kidnapped and killed the foreigners. [http://projects.ldc.upenn.edu/TDT3/topic.research/topic3056.html Chechnya Rebel Kidnapping and Beheading] ] He was reported killed by Russian (or pro-Russian) forces during the Second Chechen War in June 2001. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1406317.stm Russians kill Chechen warlord] , BBC News, 25 June, 2001] According to the reports from the republic, prior to this moment he has been semi-openly collaborating with the federal forces and living in Chechnya under protection of the Russian FSB security service. In December 2004, members of the Chechen OMON police unlawfully killed Isa Sakayev, [ [http://assembly.coe.int/main.asp?Link=/documents/workingdocs/doc05/edoc10774.htm Human rights violations in the Chechen Republic] , Council of Europe, 21 December 2005] allegedly a former associate of Barayev directly involved in the 1998 killings.

A former Russian hostage Abdurakhman Adukhov told the BBC in November 2001 that Barayev told him that Osama bin Laden paid him $30m for the atrocity, outbidding the ransom offer of $10m. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1663278.stm Britons killed 'by Bin Laden ally'] , BBC News, 18 November, 2001] [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/the_money_programme/1665156.stm Kidnapped] , BBC News, 20 November, 2001] Jonathan Littell speculated that it was the FSB that outbid the employers of kidnapped workers to get them decapitated by Barayev and his gang rather than be released. The video and photographic materials of their executions allegedly fed the FSB propaganda efforts at beginning of the new Russian invasion of Chechnya in 1999. [Jonathan Littell, [http://www.psan.org/document551.html The Security Organs of the Russian Federation. A Brief History 1991-2004"] ]

In December 1998, Chechen separatist authorities announced a suspect, identified by the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia as Apti Abitayev (Abitaev), was arrested over the abductions had confessed to kidnapping the four foreigners. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/232921.stm Missing Chechen prosecutor returns] , BBC News, December 11, 1998] He was also named by the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev in his 2005 interview to Channel 4 News. According to Basayev, a man called Ruslan Dzhamalkhan was involved in the crime together with Abitayev and later became a district chief in the pro-Moscow police forces. [http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2005/02/04/3500.shtml Interview of Shamil Basayev to Channel 4 News] , Kavkaz Center, 4 February 2005
"These Britons were kidnapped by Apti Abitayev from Urus-Martan. He died in the war. With him in the kidnapping and killing was this Ruslan Dzhamalkhan. He is now as I said the chief of police of the Urus-Martan district. He is particularly close to Ramzan Kadyrov."] Abitayev, described by the FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko as a kidnapper connected to Russian special services, [ Alexander Litvinenko and Yuri Felshtinsky, ""] was reportedly killed by Russians in May 2001. [ [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1330225/News-in-brief.html Britons' kidnap suspect killed by Russians] , "The Telegraph", 05/06/2001 ] In January 2008, moderate rebel website Chechenpress announced that the witnesses' testimony indicate that the Chechen Islamist ideologist Movladi Udugov planned those killings and that members of the armed group subordinate to Abitayev carried them out. [ [http://www.hri.org/news/balkans/rferl/2008/08-01-08.rferl.html#06 Chechen prosecutor in exile reopens investigation of executions] , RFE/RL Newsline, 08-01-08] [ [http://www.jamestown.org/chechnya_weekly/article.php?articleid=2373888 Rival Rebel Groups Exchange Accusations, Issue Decrees] , The Jamestown Foundation, January 10, 2008]

In March 2001, Russia announced capture of Ruslan Akhmadov, which a Kremlin spokesman said was a member of the gang suspected of executing the hostages. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/1215179.stm Russia parades Chechen 'kidnappers'] , BBC News, 12 March, 2001] Britain has welcomed the arrest, [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1220844.stm Britain welcomes Chechen guerrilla arrests] , BBC news, 14 March, 2001] but no more was heard about Akhmadov since. In August 2002, Russian military officials have also announced they arrested certain Khusein Idiyev, described as a prominent member of Barayev's group suspected of involvement in the killing, [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2178709.stm Chechen held over Britons' beheading] , BBC News, 7 August, 2002] however this was the last heard about him, too. In April 2005, Russian security forces said they have captured Adam Dzhabrailov, a Chechen man who they said has admitted participating in the atrocity and was suspected of involvement in several other notorious crimes; [According to the Russian military spokesman, General Ilya Shabalkin, Dzhabrailov was also suspected of being involved in many other crimes, including the 1996 killings at the the ICRC hospital of Novye Atagi and even the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis.] in remarks broadcast on Russian TV Dzhabrailov said that "Arbi shot them dead." [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4416735.stm Chechen held over Britons' deaths] , BBC News, 6 April, 2005] Likewise, nothing was heard about Dzhabrailov afterwards as well. As of 2008 no one was tried in the case.

In April 2002, the British government has been forced to apologise to a widow of Rudi Petschi over the way it dealt with her husband's kidnap and murder. [ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/news/042002/12/petschi.shtml Official apology for kidnap victim's case] , BBC, 12th April 2002] In June 2003, the families of three hostages sued for more than £1m in compensation from their former employers. The sides reached a compensation settlement later the same year.

ee also

*Arbi Barayev

References

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/186075.stm Kidnapped workers 'ignored advice'] , BBC News, October 5, 1998
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/192935.stm Hostages alive, says Chechen president] , BBC News, October 13, 1998
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/230270.stm Hostages 'victims of bungled rescue bid'] , BBC News, December 8, 1998
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1998/12/09/whed09.html Hostages found beheaded] , "The Telegraph", 9 December 1998