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English Language Page Regional reports, just as last year, reflect popular discontent with the methods used and results generated by activities of law enforcement agencies in searching for missing persons (statistics presented are mostly frequently related to such cases) (2). A detailed description of the situation existing in Chechnya, where instances of forcible disappearance of people have to date been occurring on a large scale, is excluded from this overview because it is fully presented in the report on the situation in the Chechen Republic, which is also part of the Collection of Reports Human Rights in Russian Regions — 2001. Detention by Official Authorities Only isolated instances have been reported of officials involved in forcible detentions of persons across Russian regions (Chechnya is, of course, an exception). In the Irkutsk region, an investigation is currently underway into the disappearance of R. Zurabov and A. Oskanov, who, on the night of October 11–12, were forcibly taken away by persons wearing police uniforms (staff of the police station ¹20, located at Pobedy St. in the town of Bodaibo). K. Zurabov, father of R. Zurabov, believes that the investigation has been poorly carried out, hampered by excessive red-tape. He has received only pro-forma responses from authorities to his numerous written complaints. In the Jewish autonomous district, at the November 2001 meeting of the Birobidjan Town Duma, one of the local legislators, V. Davidovitch, pressed for accelerating the investigation of a fight between police officials and Birobidjan-2 micro-district residents. (The investigation had been going on for a whole year by then.) V. Davidovitch stated that Dmitry Malyarenko, who figured in the investigation, was reported missing after being summoned to the police station. On February 12, 2001, the prosecutor’s office of Birobidjan initiated criminal proceedings in connection with the disappearance of D. Malyarenko, based on Article 126 of the RF Criminal Code (kidnapping of a person). On January 31, 2001, he was detained by police officials on suspicion of having committed a theft (D. Malyarenko’s complaint against their unlawful actions was considered and dismissed by the Birobidjan town court in February 13, 2001). On February 3, 2001, at 11 a. m., the young man was set free from a temporary detention ward (on decision taken by A. Butun, GOVD (Town Police Department) investigator). Nobody has seen him since. According to one version of events, the police officials who had been held criminally responsible for the abusive exercise of their official powers in the case about the fight between police officials and Birobidjan-2 micro-district residents organized his disappearance. D. Malyarenko’s mother lodged a complaint with the RF Prosecutor General’s Office. It is reported from the Amur region that, in the town of Blagoveshchensk, persons who are kept in pre-trial detention facilities and temporary detention wards are classified as missing persons. The officials of detention facilities not only fail to comply with the requirements of the RF Criminal Procedure Code of mandatory notification of a detainee’s (arrested person’s) relatives, but they also ignore direct inquiries made by relatives. Detention by Criminal Groups and Individuals In the regional reports from Dagestan and Ingushetia for this past year no mention of kidnappings is made. In the past, the kidnapping situation there was described as being rather complicated (4). Disappearances in the Kurgan and Smolensk regions seem to have been politically motivated. In both cases, journalists were the victims. On May 17, 2001, V. Kirsanov, editor-in-chief of the Kurgansky Vesti newspaper, disappeared. At about 10 a. m., he went to his garage to get his car and drive to the office, as he had several appointments scheduled for the day. No one has seen him since then. On that same day, his car was found in a parking lot in front of his office. During the investigation, they found blood in V. Kirsanov’s garage and traces of blood in the boot of his car. On May 30, they discovered V. Kirsanov’s documents on the riverbank just across the street from a police station. Particularly remarkable is that the documents were not at all destroyed by water. The regional prosecutor’s office opened criminal proceedings under Article 105 of the RF Criminal Code (premeditated murder). The principal topics of V. Kirsanov’s journalistic investigations were the so-called cases of Governor O. Bogomolov and his entourage (Bank “Zauralsky Business” — a regional financial pyramid, mishandling of budgetary funds and assets of state-run enterprises, etc.). T. Menschikova, Chair of the Union of Journalists’ regional branch and editor of Novy Mir regional newspaper, publicly questioned the possibility of the disappearance being politically motivated. One month after the disappearance, at a journalists’ workshop, she said something to the effect that “Kirsanov’s disappearance is a public relations trick to boost the circulation of the Kurgansky Vesti newspaper. P. Latyshev, presidential representative in the Ural federal district, however, had been more specific on the point, saying that “ I will look upon Kirsanov’s disappearance as a politically motivated event unless proven to the contrary.” In the Smolensk region, on December 14, 2001, S. Kalinovsky, editor-in-chief of the MK-Smolensk weekly, disappeared under quite mysterious circumstances. He was known to Smolensk residents as a host of CT Radio “Dobry Vetcher” (“Good Evening”), SCS TV-channel “Smolenskaya Nedelka” (“Smolensk Week”) and TV-30 channel “Kriminarium” programs, which are notable for being critical about local authorities. The regional prosecutor’s office initiated criminal proceedings in connection with his disappearance under Article 126 of the RF Criminal Code (the kidnapping of a person). Although the case file already numbers more than 200 pages and about 50 witnesses have been interrogated, the investigative activities have failed so far to yield any substantial results. There are three basic versions of the kidnapping discussed among journalists: something connected to S. Kalinovsky’s professional activity; a random murder; or a murder of his close contacts with the underworld, including major crime bosses. According to the Chief Police Directorate (GUVD) data, the number of people abducted in the city of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region in the year 2001 declined in comparison with the previous year. Nevertheless, kidnapping still continues to be a lucrative criminal business. The Department Against Organized Crime (UBOP) officials managed to curb the activity of a gang which kidnapped elderly people, with the goal of obtaining their apartments (the report from the Amur region, on the contrary, describes instances when police officials refused to initiate searches for allegedly missing persons despite the efforts of non-relatives to dispose of their living quarters). An organized criminal group made up of Georgian nationals, seeking to get ransom money, kidnapped a sales representative of a major industrial enterprise. The criminals kept a special apartment on Moskovsky Avenue, which contained a secret room to hold hostages. The kidnapped person was set free as a result of the efforts of the criminal investigation department. In the Penza region, in November 2001, a son of V. Vdovin, Chairman of the board of directors of “Tarkhany” Bank and head of “Mayak” open joint company, was taken hostage. They demanded that the banker pay $100 000 as ransom for his son. The two kidnappers were arrested. One of them turned out to be a police official. Kidnapping as a means of “knocking out debts” and settling scores has remained quite “popular” up to the present day. Thus, in the city of Khabarovsk, when a person responsible for a road accident failed to fulfil his promise to compensate for the damage, he was kidnapped and unlawfully held in an apartment on Pionerskaya St. and subjected to beatings. He was released only when he was forced to make another promise to pay the damage. He then chose to contact the law enforcement agency. In the Penza region, in December 2001, a hostage was taken in the town of Nizhny Lomov. The hostage was set free quite promptly (only ten hours after the information was received) during an operation undertaken by the regional FSB officials. The captive was to pay $5 000 for a Niva-car, which had been allegedly hijacked by him. At the present time, criminal proceedings have been brought against Botchkarev (5), as the alleged organizer of the kidnapping, under Article 206 of the RF Criminal Code (hostage-holding). In June 2001, in the city of Smolensk, V. Petrov, who worked at a commercial stall, was reported to be missing. According to eyewitnesses, unknown persons had driven up to the stall in two cars, beat up V. Petrov, put him into their Mercedes and taken him away in an unknown direction. Although investigative activities provided grounds to believe that the crime had been committed by an organized criminal group, the Promyshleny police department officials refused for a quite long time to accept V. Petrov’s mother’s application about her son’s disappearance. They did not take adequate search measures, regardless of the availability of witnesses of the kidnapping and addresses and phone numbers of persons who had extorted money from the kidnapped person and threatened him. The human rights report from the Arkhangelsk region provides information on the disappearance of Ye. Dratchyov, director general of one of the largest enterprises — Solombalsky wood-sawing and wood-working complex. This disappearance occurred during an outbreak of criminal showdowns in the forestry business in the Arkhangelsk region (a string of murders and assassination attempts on the life of businessmen and officials involved in this sphere, a violent fire at one of the successful plants in the town of Onega). The case connected with Ye. Dratchyov’s disappearance, just as other criminal cases of the so-called “forest men,” has never been solved. Reports of kidnapping of children came from the Bryansk and Vologda regions, and the city of St. Petersburg. Unfortunately, the motive for the kidnappings was specified only in the report from the Vologda region. There, on September 6, 2001, the Babayevsky district court ruled the two women (mother and daughter) guilty of having committed a crime under Clause 2, Article 126 of the RF Criminal Code (“the kidnapping of a person”) and sentenced each to nine years’ imprisonment in a general-regime penal colony. The women intended to sell a new-born baby they had abducted. During the course of the monitoring effort for 2001, several instances of disappearance of people were recorded that seem to have been politically motivated, as well as quite a number of incidents testifying to the commonality of crimes associated with the kidnapping and illegal detention of people. Unfortunately, however, one has to state once again that both the content and quality of the data available do not make it possible to draw any specific conclusions (except, as it was earlier noted, for the territory of the Chechen Republic) on the situation concerning disappearances of people across the country as a whole. (1) Also not implemented is a practical suggestion made in the RF Ombudsman’s report of last year to set up a unified state center, which would accumulate data on all missing persons. (2) The sole exception is provided by reports from the Saratov and Amur regions, which specify a number of cases instituted in connection with the kidnapping of persons — 12 and 11 respectively (the Amur report even compares the statistics for 2001 against the data for 2000 and 1999 and notes an increase by 2.2 and 2.5-fold respectively). (3) Unfortunately, this does not provide us with absolutely positive grounds to assert that, in territories contiguous to Chechnya, this problem has become less critical. However, the attention of local human rights activists and journalists has, at least, been focused on other problems. (4) The regional report mentions that the regional FSB officials chose not to answer the question put to them by a journalist as to whether the alleged hostage-taker Botchkarev is a relative of the Penza Governor. Back |
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