On September 2, 2000, Hasuhanov issued a combat instruction ordering all field commanders to scatter small nails, nuts, bolts, and ball bearings on highways and routes of deployment of federal forces in order to disguise mines and explosive devices. Thus, availing himself of his leading role in the IAF, by his deliberate actions Hasuhanov incited other participants of the IAF to commit terrorist acts directed at opposing the establishment of constitutional order on the territory of the Chechen Republic.
Cherepnev also demanded that Hasuhanov sign the minutes of his interrogations without reading them. Here is an example of their quality:
Question [supposedly asked by Cherepnev]: You have been shown a photocopy of an Address to Russian Officers, No. 215 of November 25, 2000. What testimony can you give? Answer [supposedly given by Hasuhanov]: The preparation and distribution of such documents was a component part of the propaganda carried out by the operational directorate of the armed forces of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria under my immediate leadership. The Addresses referred to were intended to counteract the Russian mass media in respect of their coverage of the progress of the antiterrorist operation. I understood that distribution of such documents could lead to destabilization of the situation on the territory of the Chechen Republic, but continued my activities….
This document is typical of the army’s literary style. For a month Hasuhanov was tortured in Znamenskaya so that material of this caliber could be accumulated.
From the court record:
“And when as a result of these beatings I no longer understood or reacted to anything, I was given injections and transferred to the FSB in North Ossetia. They didn’t want to admit me to the interrogation unit there because their doctor said that, as a result of the earlier beatings, I would die within 48 hours. I was then taken to a timber mill, Enterprise No. YaN 68-1.”
“Were you given any medical assistance?”
“I just lay in the timber mill recovering for three months.”
What timber mill is this? Mention is occasionally made of it in stories about people who have vanished without a trace after purges in Chechnya. Some who have been there and survived call it a lumber camp, a term from Stalin’s times; others call it a timber mill. Its official title is Enterprise No. YaN 68—1, and it comes under the administration of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of North Ossetia.
What we do know about the timber mill is that it is the destination of people who have been beaten half to death by officers of the law-enforcement agencies (primarily FSB agents). The enterprise closes its eyes to the fact that these individuals have no identification documents. They are nonpersons who have vanished without a trace after their encounter with the feds.
We owe a debt of gratitude to those who work at the timber mill for illegally accepting the outlawed into their enterprise. They have saved many from certain death: those who were supposed to die but whom the feds simply couldn’t be bothered to shoot as they were brought from Chechnya to Ossetia, and those who were sent to the mill to die without the FSB getting its hands dirty. Nobody knows how many people have died there in the course of the second Chechen war or who they were. They have left behind not so much as a grave mound. On the other hand, we do know how many survived. Hasuhanov is one of these. A guard took pity on him, no more than that, and every time the man was on duty he would bring Hasuhanov milk from his home.
Hasuhanov thus survived yet again, and yet again found himself facing Cherepnev. In the Chechen directorate of the FSB, there is a rule that anyone who survives interrogation is put on trial. Not many do, and hence trials of “international terrorists” are few and far between. Nevertheless, for the sake of expediency, at least, some trials are held: within the antiterrorist operation, it is thought desirable to sentence the occasional “terrorist.” Western leaders ask Putin questions from time to time; he demands information from the FSB and the prosecutor general’s office, and they do their best to oblige. Only, of course, when someone survives.
Vladikavkaz is the capital of the republic of North Ossetia—Alaniya, which borders on Chechnya and Ingushetia. Ossetia, too, is a fully paid-up member of the antiterrorist operation. Mozdok, in North Ossetia, is the main military base where federal groups are formed before being sent to Chechnya. It was the scene of two major suicide bombings in 2003: on June 5 a woman got on a bus transporting military pilots and blew herself up and on August 1 a man crashed a truck loaded with a ton of explosives into a military hospital.
In Vladikavkaz, the traditional setting for many fabricated court cases against international terrorists, the local lawyers act less as counsels for the defense than as functionaries in close liaison with the court, the FSB, and the prosecutor’s office. Vladikavkaz is also where agents of the Chechen directorate of the FSB often have extended tours of duty, preferring to bring their victims there to interrogate them, as far away from the war as possible.
Cherepnev now went to Hasuhanov in Vladikavkaz and found him a lawyer. Since June 1, 2003, Russia has had a progressive code of criminal procedure in conformity with the highest European standards. Among other things, it prohibits interrogating a suspect without a lawyer being present, but of course, “when necessary,” everything continues as before. In any case, from April 20 until October 9, 2002, for almost six months, Hasuhanov had no legal representation at all. Not until his skull had healed over and his fractured ribs and broken hands had recovered at the timber mill could he be readied for a court appearance.
Here again, the details are of interest. On October 8, Cherepnev summoned Hasuhanov to an interrogation and instructed him to address an application to him. Cherepnev dictated the following: “I request you to provide me with a lawyer for the preliminary investigation. Up to the present time, I have had no need of the services of a lawyer, and in this connection I have no complaints against the investigative services. I request you to appoint an advocate chosen at the investigator’s discretion….” On October 9, then, Hasuhanov had his first interrogation in the presence of a Vladikavkaz legal-aid attorney. Hasuhanov suspected the attorney was an FSB agent.[4] The lawyer did nothing to cause him to change his mind. He gave Hasuhanov no advice, sat passively at the interrogations, and said nothing.
From the court record:
“You may say whether there is a difference between the evidence you gave before a lawyer was present and after, and if so, what that difference is.”
“There is a difference. Before, I was not given the record to read at the end of an interrogation. After the appearance of a lawyer, I was.”
In all, Hasuhanov had three such interrogations in the presence of a defense lawyer, on October 9, 23, and 24, 2002. More precisely, in the course of these three days, Cherepnev simply copied the testimony beaten out of the defendant in Znamenskaya onto new forms, which became “testimony in accordance with the code of criminal procedure.”
Cherepnev declared that October 25 would be the final day of the investigation. He informed Hasuhanov that he would shortly receive the text of the indictment and that he was to sign it as quickly as possible. So that he should have no illusions. Hasuhanov was taken from the solitary-confinement unit for two days, October 29 and 30—naturally, without a lawyer. He did not know where he was being taken. He had a hood put over his head and was led out as if to be executed. “That’s it, the end,” the guards said, cocking their rifles.
4
The Russian code of criminal procedure provides that the accused have access to an attorney irrespective of ability to pay. During the second Chechen war, however, the law-enforcement agencies began misusing the system to foist on accused persons defense lawyers who, more often than not, were the agencies’ former employees. Such people are known as insider lawyers. There are also lawyers who work with the FSB and so have a better understanding of its needs than of the individuals they are supposed to be defending. The function of such lawyers is to be present on occasions when the law requires the presence of an attorney. FSB officers also appoint insider lawyers to represent suspects the FSB has abducted. The relatives know only that their family member has disappeared. The FSB deliberately hides him, informing the family neither of his whereabouts nor of the charges against him. Often no formal accusation is ever made. The detention of the disappeared person is illegal, but the family is prevented from appointing a defense lawyer for him. Such victims can “disappear” for weeks or months; in Hasuhanov’s case, the period was about six months. Meanwhile, testimony is beaten out of them, as happened in Hasuhanov’s case. His family had no idea what had happened to him or where he was. All the law-enforcement and security agencies of the republic denied they were detaining anybody by that name, while in fact he was being tortured by the FSB despite the appointment of a lawyer.