Sultan Geliskhanov

Sultan Geliskhanov is a former field commander in the Chechen resistance against Russia and head of the State Security Service in the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. He is included in the Yalxoroj (Ялхорой) "teip" (clan) and is originally from the Yalxoroj village which is named after this teip.

Soviet and Ichkerian police

Colonel Sultan Geliskhanov served as chief of the Gudermes traffic police during the Soviet period. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Dzhokhar Dudaev made him head of the state security department in 1993. Geliskhanov's rise was made possible by his friendship with Salman Raduyev, who was then Dudaev's son-in-law. In June 1993, Geliskhanov personally led the breaking up of an opposition demonstration, during which some 15 people were killed; a year later, he directed large-scale arrests of opposition members.

During the First Chechen War, on March 14, 1995, acting Russian prosecutor of the Chechen Republic Baskhanov signed an order to initiate criminal proceedings against Sultan Geliskhanov and other Chechen leaders and sanctions for their arrest. On December 14, 1995, along with Salman Raduyev he led a three-day raid on the city of Gudermes.

Warlord

In 1996, then-acting Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev charged in his book "Chechnya: The Battle for Freedom" that, starting in 1995, Geliskhanov had kept himself aside from the leadership of the separatist security department. Following Aslan Maskhadov's election as Chechen president in 1997, Geliskhanov joined up with a group of opponents of Maskhadov.Fact|date=March 2007

After the start of the Second Chechen War, Geliskhanov's unit of 100-150 men reportedly dispersed in the Nozhai-Yurt district and there were reports that he had died.Fact|date=March 2007 In April 2002, then-Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov reported that Geliskhanov and more than 100 of his fighters planned to surrender, but this did not take place.

Surrender controversy

On March 28 and 29, 2006, regnum.ru and kavkaz.memo.ru reported that Geliskhanov has surrendered to the pro-Moscow Chechen authorities. According to kavkaz.memo.ru, which quoted an unnamed Chechen law-enforcement official as saying Geliskhanov has been interrogated and released. That official said the only outstanding charges against Geliskhanov are "participation in an illegal armed formation", and he could qualify for amnesty.

Separatists spokesman called Geliskhanov 'a private person'. "The announced voluntary surrender of a powerful warlord is just an action of propaganda staged by Chechen authorities. Believe me, Geliskhanov had never fired a shot at federals that war," commented Akhmed Zakayev, envoy of separatist president. [Kommersant, Sinless Surrender, March 29, 2006, http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?idr=527&id=661629 (retrieved on March 31, 2007]

Geliskhanov himself said he had "long ago become disillusioned with the policy of Aslan Maskhadov". He claimed that because of his disagreement with the political course of the separatist leadership he had not taken part in fighting during both the first and second military campaigns and had remained out of the separatist government during the 1995-1999 inter-war period. Geliskhanov also told his interrogators that he had not surrendered earlier because he did not believe the authorities' promises not to persecute their former enemies, "Kommersant" reported.

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