Mass burials near Chechen concentration camp may contain 90 people's remains

The remains of around 70-90 people may be excavated at a mass burial sitediscovered in the vicinity of a concentration camp set up by Chechenmilitants in Chechnya. As the Regional Anti-Terrorist OperationHeadquarters of Chechnya reported to RBC, on August 22 as a result of theinvestigation in one of Chechen villages the representatives of the RussianGeneral Prosecutor's office, FSB (the Federal Security Service), theInterior Affairs Ministry and the Defense Ministry discovered four graveswith human remains. The places of the burials were tipped off by a formerconcentration camp prisoner. The mass murders were executed by militantscontrolled by Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil Basayev. The camp was designed to accumulate the people held hostage by militants inthe anticipation of a ransom. The captives also were used as slaves,tortured and killed in an atrocious way in order to intimidate therepresentatives of Russian authorities, federal servicemen and thehostages' relatives. According to some data, up to 150 people could havebeen held captive in the camp. During their staying there, virtually all ofthem were continuously tortured and beaten up. According to the availabledata, a considerable part of these people were tortured to death andmurdered, and afterwards buried in the vicinity of the camp. Theinvestigation officials did not found any sculls in the burials. It isknown that gorillas cut off hostages' heads and fixed them on poles for allto see..