His execution was a hoax, designed to frighten him into signing the indictment.
Of course he signed. But he remained unbroken, and at the trial he retracted everything on which the indictment was based. The indictment was nonetheless confirmed by the new prosecutor of Chechnya, Vladimir Kravchenko, and the text migrated, virtually intact, into the verdict of Judge Valerii Dzhioyev.
Here are quotations from both the indictment and the verdict, with my comments. It is easy to see how criminal cases are fabricated, and also that none of the counterfeiters are the least bit worried about being exposed or about the fact that these records will remain as the raw material of history (which, in accordance with Russian tradition, will surely be rewritten in the course of time).
In April 1999, Hasuhanov… voluntarily entered an armed formation not permitted under federal law. Hasuhanov made contact with Hambiev Mahomed, an aide of Maskhadov, who proposed that he provide assistance to Maskhadov using his experience to organize the work of “Military Audit,” an IAF then being created.
After retiring, Hasuhanov had returned home to Grozny. Unique in being a Chechen officer with an academic education, he was invited by Maskhadov to work in the Chechen government, which, in 1999, was the official republican government, financed from Moscow, and Maskhadov was the lawfully elected president of Chechnya, recognized by Moscow. The “Military Audit” that Maskhadov invited Hasuhanov to join was an urgent requirement. The Chechen bureaucracy was shamelessly corrupt, as indeed were the bureaucrats in Moscow, and the republican government needed a knowledgeable person to monitor the flow of military funds, in particular those coming from the Russian Federal Treasury. What kind of IAF is that?
From the court record:
“Did you consider the actions of President Maskhadov to be lawful?” [the prosecution asked].
“Yes. I had no way of knowing that Maskhadov, the government, and security ministries would later be considered illegal. I knew that Maskhadov was the president. He was recognized as such by the Russian leaders. There were meetings with his ministers, financial resources were allocated, so of course I did not know that I was joining an IAF.”
“Was it your job to inspect the finances and general administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria?”
“Yes, I reported the results of the audit to Maskhadov in June 1999. I listed everything money had been spent on. I received this information from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. All the information was received through official channels. I had no reason to suppose anything was unlawful.”
Hasuhanov’s work before the war did indeed include the inspection of finances and administration as well as the setting up of a system to audit and monitor the financial resources allocated for maintaining the security services of Chechnya: the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the national and presidential guards, and the army’s staff headquarters. In the summer of 1999, Hasuhanov established that considerable sums of money were passing through staff headquarters for the purchase of weaponry and uniforms but that, for example, the rocket launchers the Ministry of Defense was ordering from the Grozny Red Hammer Factory were known to be militarily useless. This was a blatant misappropriation of funds, as was the purchase of uniforms. They were being sewn in the Chechen town of Gudremes at a price of sixty rubles per outfit, but the accompanying documentation stated that they were “made in the Baltic States” at a higher price.
Hasuhanov reported all this to Maskhadov, and the director of the military audit office immediately ran into trouble with the president’s security forces, who were involved in all phases of the embezzlement. After Hasuhanov had worked in the military audit office for just a week, Maskhadov appointed him chief of staff, simply because he needed honest people around him.
It was the end of July 1999. Chief of Staff Hasuhanov began work in August, a few days before the start of the second Chechen war, in which he refused to take part.
As you read the record of the court hearings (which took place behind closed doors), you cannot help feeling that the trial was a put-up job. Someone had decided that Hasuhanov had to be sent down for a very serious offense, but no one would characterize that offense. Had Hasuhanov, back in 1999, found out something that came back to haunt him three or four years later? Was it the secret of those embezzled federal funds? There is even some suspicion that the fraud itself was, to a large extent, the reason the second Chechen war was started, perhaps a war to ensure that the tracks of the wrongdoers would be covered forever. And is this a reason why the upper echelons of Russia’s armed forces are still so set against peace negotiations?
Here is a further quote from the indictment:
Hasuhanov was actively involved in the work of the IAF and in 1999 was engaged in matters relating to the financing of the IAF. He devised and implemented an auditing system for the financial resources provided to maintain the National Guard, general headquarters, and Ministry of Internal Affairs IAFs of the self-proclaimed “Republic of Ichkeria.” Having demonstrated organizational ability and efficiency in this position, Hasuhanov was appointed by Maskhadov to the post of his chief of staff in late July 1999. Actively engaged in the work of the above-named IAF, Hasuhanov was involved in formulating the basic decisions relating to opposition to the forces of the federal government, by means that included armed opposition, in its task of restoring constitutional order to the territory of the CRI.
The charge would be laughable if we did not know the price exacted from Hasuhanov for this brazen falsification of history by the forces of the FSB.
From the record of the court hearing:
“Tell the court what necessity there was for you personally to be in Chechnya from the beginning of combat operations until the day of your arrest.”
“I did not consider it possible to turn my back on Maskhadov because I considered him the legally elected president. I could not stop the war and did everything in my power…. I sometimes fulfilled his requests. I was not in a fit condition to march through the forests, but what I could do I did. I saw people dying. I know what is meant by ‘restoring constitutional order.’ I will not conceal the fact that this entire war is genocide. However, I never called for the carrying out of acts of terrorism.”
“Did you call for the killing of federal troops?”
“In order to call for that, I would have had to have men under my command. I had no men under my command.”
“Were any of the field commanders directly subordinate to you?”
“No.”
In front of me I have documents marked OFFICIAL USE ONLY. When he was preparing the court case, Cherepnev sent out inquiries to every local FSB department in Chechnya requesting information on terrorist acts committed in its district on “combat instructions from Chief of the Operational Headquarters of the Armed Forces of the CRI Hasuhanov.” Recall the “combat instructions” Hasuhanov signed during his interrogation: blank sheets of paper, on which Cherepnev then wrote in whatever he wanted. Not surprisingly, every local department head replied that Hasuhanov was not wanted for any terrorist acts. These responses came back to Cherepnev not from Chechen fighters but from his own people.
The negative feedback did not, however, halt the machinery that was to proclaim the guilt of “a leading member of the IAF,” as Hasuhanov, after he had survived, now began to be called. The court paid not the slightest attention to this pile of papers for OFFICIAL USE ONLY, and neither did the prosecutor general’s office.