Vol. 8 Issue 7 - Public International Law & Policy Group

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The insurgents had shot and killed four policemen and injured three others in the preceding, hour-long gunbattle, the spokesman said. One of the rebels had also died in the crossfire. No part of the house had apparently been left standing. Television pictures on Russia's state networks showed piles of rubble next to an overturned, six-wheeled truck with several redbrick, two-story houses standing untouched and surrounding the debris. The bodies of two other fighters were found in the rubble of the exploded house, according to Russian news reports citing ministry officials. The autonomous republic of Ingushetia is adjacent to Chechnya along Russia's mountainous southern fringe and has been plagued for years by violence that spilled over from Chechnya after two recent wars. Many believe insurgents were squeezed out of Chechnya into surrounding regions after often brutal postwar crackdowns led by pro-Moscow president Ramzan Kadyrov brought a semblance of stability. Bloody clashes between rebels and security forces are a daily event in Ingushetia despite federal counterinsurgency efforts that recently included a change of leadership in the republic. Hope had been high among residents who took to the streets to celebrate the October resignation of leader Murat Zyazikov that peace may finally come to the beleaguered republic. Residents saw Zyazikov, a former KGB agent, as a corrupt official whose repressive policies fueled the violence. But Zyazikov's successor, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov appointed by President Dmitry Medvedev on the back of promises to bring order to Ingushetia appears yet to do so. Chechen murder threatens torture case against Kadyrov Luc Andre, Agence France Presse, 2/14/09 The murder of a Chechen man in Vienna on January 13 threatens to derail a torture case against Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov in Austria, in which the victim was a key witness. The 27-year-old Umar Israilov, a former anti-Russian guerrilla later forced to join Kadyrov's security forces, said he had himself seen the Chechen president and his men torture opponents, in an interview with the New York Times last December.
"How can we go on without the main witness?" said a representative of the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), which filed a complaint last June in Vienna. "The names of other witnesses appear in the claim, we can only hope they will be able to come to court," he added. The Berlin-based centre tried in June to have Kadyrov arrested, following rumors that the soccer fan planned to attend a European football championship match in Austria. The ECCHR filed its complaint in a hurry on June 13, based on the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. But the prosecutor's office in Vienna replied there was no justification to have the pro- Russian leader arrested. "I was told that the complaint was based on Israilov's allegations and that he had already made them when he requested asylum," said Israilov's lawyer, who refused to be named and who is now under police protection. "And yet, he was deemed credible enough to be given refugee status," she noted with astonishment. "The authorities' attitude was much too cautious," added another judicial source close to the case, who said she also feared reprisals. "If it had been an average person, this would have been enough to arrest him. And Israilov could still be alive," she said. The authorities meanwhile seem confused as to whether Kadyrov ever ventured onto Austrian soil last summer. According to the interior ministry, the Chechen president "did not come to Austria," while a prosecution spokesperson in Vienna claimed that by the time Israilov's lawyers had filed their claim, Kadyrov was no longer in the country. Moreover, there have been several official blunders in this case. Early on, Interior Minister Maria Fekter said Israilov had refused all police protection, before having to go back on her words. A letter and an exchange of emails, of which AFP received a copy, show that the former rebel had made several requests for protection from July 2008 until a few days before his murder.
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