| Submit your comments on this article |
| Caucasus |
| Turncoats Becoming a Problem in Russia |
| 2004-09-15 |
| Thy used to solve this sort of problem with a blindfold and a cigarette... Russian police investigating the deadly Beslan school siege are looking inside their own squad house: One of the attack organizers was allegedly a former cop who disappeared six years ago. He wouldn't be the first to turn traitor. Turncoats have appeared in the highest ranks of law enforcement in the Caucasus. Police have been implicated in kidnappings for ransom and accused of allowing Chechen rebels free passage through checkpoints — motivated by either money, sympathy for the fighters' cause or family ties, or a combination of all three. Vyacheslav Izmailov, a former army major who has worked to resolve kidnappings in Chechnya, said one example of a high-ranking turncoat is a former interior minister of Ingushetia, a Russian region neighboring Chechnya. Daud Korigov, minister from 1997-98, gave rebels the use of a house he owned in the Chechen capital Grozny and was even seen there among captives, Izmailov said. How many turncoats are there among law enforcement? "It's not a few," Izmailov told The Associated Press. Russian authorities say one of the plotters behind the attack in Beslan, where more than 330 people died, was Ali Taziyev, a policeman from Ingushetia. Taziyev was allegedly abducted with another officer in October 1998 while guarding the wife of a government official. The woman was freed in 2000, and the body of Taziyev's partner was found in Chechnya. Later that year, a court in Ingushetia declared Taziyev dead. Now, Russian officials believe he actually went over to the rebel side, changing his name to Magomed Yevloyev and taking the nom de guerre "Magas" after the new Ingush capital, the Vremya Novostei newspaper reported. Taziyev, a Muslim, is accused of becoming an adherent of the extreme Wahhabi sect of Islam — the same as al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden — and forming his own small band of fighters. Taziyev allegedly also spearheaded a June raid in Ingushetia that targeted police and security forces and killed 88 people. There were conflicting statements at the time about whether he died in the attack. Several other police officers were arrested for involvement. So far, Taziyev's participation hasn't been confirmed in the attack in Beslan, North Ossetia _ which shares borders with both Ingushetia and Chechnya _ and his body wasn't among the attackers who died there after Russian forces stormed the building Sept. 3. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 Well just revive the KGB, should solve a lot of problems for them. |
| Posted by: Fawad 2004-09-15 8:45:52 PM |
| #1 The Russian state is criminalized, rotten to the core. Pakistan North. Only with white faces and black shirts. Heaven help Putin; his position's only slightly better than Musharraf's. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-09-15 4:56:57 PM |