One-legged Terrorist Blew Up House of Chechen Government

Terrorist Shamil Basayev is a direct organizer of the blast of the House of Chechen government in Grozny. This is a conclusion reached by the investigation, Deputy General Prosecutor in Russia’s South federal district Sergey Fridinsky informs. He said that in the network of the investigation several people were detained for their assistance in the blast. They say that it was Shamil Basayev who set them the task to blow up the house of the government.

In an interview to the Echo Moskvy radio the Russian Minister for Chechnya affairs, Stanislav Ilyasov said that “there are lots of problems connected with terrorists and it’s difficult to settle them immediately.” At that he adds that a positive tendency has outlined recently: guerrillas come to hand in arms, and those who are not involved in serious crimes are amnestied.

The house of the Chechen government in Grozny was blown up on December 27; 72 people fell victims to the terrorist act: 48 people died right at the explosion moment and about 210 people were wounded. During the investigation of the terrorist act, charges were brought against policemen from the Kurgan special purpose police unit who guarded the block posts through which the terrorists forced their way to the building.

Two months ago Shamil Basayev himself shouldered responsibility for the blast of the House of Chechen government. Pictures of the explosion were published on a separatist website.

So, as it could be foreseen, Basaeyv is responsible for the explosion. On the day when the explosion sounded (December 27, 2002), PRAVDA.Ru put forward a suggestion concerning a person who might possibly organize the terrorist act. In fact, Basayev and Maskhadov act together. PRAVDA.Ru reported right after the explosion that leaders of the international extremist organization Moslem Brothers were displeased with the inactivity of terrorist groups headed by Maskhadov. They were indignant at the fact that guerrillas preferred to hide in Chechnya mountainous regions, field commanders didn’t send bandits for holding operations on flat grounds. The Moslem Brothers organization insisted that investments and assistance of other kinds that is done in Northern Caucasus must be worked off.

We would like to mention that earlier the Prosecutor’s Office didn’t comment upon Basayev’s report that he organized the explosion himself. On the website of Chechen separatists Kavkaz-Center Shamil Basayev informed that the explosion was committed by a Chechen family, a 43-year-old father, 17-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter. The people were in lorries stuffed with explosives that broke the cordon around the House of Chechen government and bumped the building. Basayev said that the action had been scheduled for December 23-25, but was postponed for December 27 because of some technical failures.

As is became known, some of the armed separatists can be amnestied. Head of the Chechen provisional administration, Ahmad Kadyrov says that “amnesty of this kind would be an important step toward establishment of peace and accord in Chechnya.” Kadyrov says that those who can be amnestied are “stray” people; at the same time, he added that the coming mercy measures wouldn’t be applied to well-known field commanders who schemed and organized large-scale terrorist acts in the Chechen republic.

At present, the House of the Government is being reconstructed. Ahmad Kadyrov was the man who laid the first stone in the foundation of a new building.

From Basayev’s dossier:

Graduated from schoolin 1982, made three attempts to enter the department of law of the Moscow State University, but failed. He entered the Moscow Engineering Institute of land management in 1987, but in 1988 Basayev was sent down for poor progress.

Before 1991 Shamil Basayev worked in Moscow. Early in 1991 joined the forces of the Caucasus People’s confederation. In October 1991, Basayev was nominated candidate to the Chechnya presidential post.

November 9, 1991, Basayev was among hijackers of a Tu-154 airplane from the airport of Mineralnye Vody to Turkey. In Turkey, the hijackers surrendered to local authorities and were delivered to Chechnya after special negotiations.

In 1992, Basayev was appointed commander of the troops of the Caucasus People’s confederation. Starting with August 1992 he actively participated in military operations in Abkhazia. Held the post of Abkhazia deputy minister of defense. Basayev was in command of a group of Chechen volunteers who were later called “Abkhazian battalion”.

In the summer of 1994, when a war broke out in Chechnya, Basayev joined the groups of Johar Dudayev. On June 14, 1995 Basayev was among terrorists who took hostages in the hospital in the city of Budennovsk in Russia’s Stavropolye. The terrorists demanded that federal authorities must suspend military operations in Chechnya and start negotiations with the terrorist group headed by Dudayev. After telephone negotiations with Russia’s prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, Basayev’s terrorists left Budennovsk and released the hostages on the Chechen border. After the events in Budennovsk, the Prosecutor’s Office instituted criminal proceedings against Shamil Basayev. The Federal Counter-intelligence Service put him on a wanted list. In the summer and autumn of 1995 Basayev threatened the government of Russia with organization of more terrorist acts on the RF territory if military operations in Chechnya were not stopped.

At the end of April 1996, after Johar Dudayev’s death, Shamil Basayev was elected commander of fighting troops of the Chechen republic of Ichkeria.

On January 27, 1997 Basayev won the second rating place after Aslan Maskhadov in the presidential elections. In July 1998 he was appointed second-in-command of the Chechen armed force. In September 1999, terrorist groups commanded by Basayev and other field commanders intruded in Dagestan. In February 2000, Shamil Basayev was seriously wounded, and later, in May it was reported the terrorist was dead.

As it turned out later, Basayev was alive but in a critical situation, his leg was amputated. In this connection, the mass media reported that Basayev wanted to reach an agreement with federal force as he hoped for medical treatment abroad. But the field commander couldn’t leave Chechnya.

In October 2000, Shamil Basayev said he was ready to send 150 soldiers to the Middle East (he said that 1.5 thousand Chechen terrorists were ready to join the “sacred war for liberation of Jerusalem”).

In accordance with the information provided by the regional HQ on the Chechnya operation, before May 2001 Shamil Basayev stayed in the settlement of Duisi in Georgia. The investigation department of Russia’s Interior Ministry put him on a wanted list and Interpol also searched for him.

Sergey Yugov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Maria Gousseva

Read the original in Russian: https://www.pravda.ru/world/33950-basaev/

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