Movladi Baisarov

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Movladi Baisarov (Baysarov) was a Chechen warlord and former FSB special-task unit commander. Baisarov was killed in Moscow by members of the Chechen extra-agency guard on November 18, 2006.

Contents

[edit] Life and career

During the separatist regime of Aslan Maskhadov, Baisarov was a minor field commander whose forces operated in the Grozny area. When the Second Chechen War began, he became close to Akhmad Kadyrov, who was mufti of Chechnya at the time. Baisarov's former rebels turned into Kadyrov's bodyguards and Baisarov became the commander of the Chechen Presidential Security Service.

In 2004, when Akhmad Kadyrov, then president of Chechnya, was killed in a bomb attack, his security force was disbanded. Baisarov's people turned into the secretive Gorets ('Highlander') unit, subordinate to the tactical department of the North Caucasus FSB and based in Pobedinskoye (Pobedinskoe), north-west of Grozny. According to Chechen human rights activists, its main function was kidnapping operations and summary executions; in Chechnya it was called a "death squad" and Baisarov was believed to maintain a prison and torture chamber in the village.

At the end of 2005, the regional FSB was closed down under pressure from Chechen authorities. At that time, Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov decided to dissolve Gorets as well and reassign its members to various law enforcement structures controlled by him. Baisarov was counting on support from his former FSB managers to let him maintain the unit, perhaps by making its members a special unit of Chechen MVD's extra-agency guard department, which he would lead.

[edit] Mutiny

When Baisarov refused to be subordinate to Ramzan Kadyrov, his forced were blockaded on their base in Pobedinskoye and the Chechen prosecutor "reanimated" the 2004 criminal case against Baisarov. At that time, ten members of the local Musaev family were kidnapped and killed in Grozny. They were later found in a mass grave. The prosecutor and Chechen UBOP established that members of the Gorets unit kidnapped them and Baisarov personally shot some of them with a noiseless VSS Vintorez sniper rifle. According to investigators, Baisarov thus avenged the death of his brother Sharani, who served in Akhmad Kadyrov's security forces. Baisarov denied his involvement in the murder of the Musaev family members. He was eventually declared wanted on those charge as a witness.

Chechen prosecutors did not place Baisarov on a federal wanted list, and the Chechen MVD only did so three days before Baisarov died. He was also formally not charged with anything.

[edit] In Moscow

Baisarov went to Moscow and appeared in the Russian media saying that Ramzan Kadyrov was trying to hunt him down to get rid of possible competition. At the same time, he told Kommersant that he was not hiding from anyone in Moscow and was expecting to return to Chechnya soon to become the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of law enforcement.

The situation changed a few before the death of Baisarov, as many as 50 Chechen police officers formed two groups specially to eliminate him arrived in Moscow from Chechnya. Some information indicates that the group was being overseen personally by Adam Demilkhanov, the First Deputy Prime Minister of Chechnya. The arrival of the Chechen group in Moscow had been preceded by negotiations with the top leaders of Russian law enforcement agencies. Baisarov's FSB guard was suddenly removed, and several of his comrades were taken into custody and sent back to Chechnya. Simultaneously, at least 33 last Gorets fighters in the republic were disarmed on November 14, 2006. On November 17 someone blew up two out of three oil wells controlled by Baisarov outside Pobedinskoye and thus he lost a source of steady financing just before his death.

People close to Baisarov say that he spent last week calling his former managers from the dissolved regional FSB. Allegedly, Baisarov intended to give evidence that would prove his innocence and, at the same time, show his political opponents' guilty of kidnapping and murder, and give testimony about the Anna Politkovskaya assassination. Reportedly, the last contact he had with the Lubyanka ended with them telling him: "The program is closed. Don't call any more."

[edit] Death

Movladi Baisarov was killed at about 6:00 p.m. He arrived in a Russian VAZ-1111 sport utility vehicle at 30 Leninsky Prospekt apparently for a prearranged meeting. Witnesses say that Baisarov got out of his car and approached a group of plainclothed Chechens standing nearby. When they recognized Baisarov, who was unshaven and wearing a black jacket, they shouted at him and then fired on him with automatic weapons. Most of the bullets struck him in the head. The assailants then fled by car in the direction away from the city center.

[edit] Investigation

The circumstances surrounding the special operation on Leninsky Prospekt were so strange that the Prosecutor's Office in Moscow was compelled to initiate a criminal investigation of Baisarov's death. A prosecutor's spokesman told Kommersant that the investigation is looking for the reason the operation was carried out by Chechen police, using the accustomed methods of their republic, instead of Moscow police.

The prosecutor's office has classified Baisarov's killing as murder and determined that he was suffered 11 bullet wounds. The investigation has determined that seven of those wounds were made by the AKS-74U assault rifle belonging to lieutenant in the extra-agency guard service Sultan Rashaev. It is not yet known who else shot at Baisarov. Shells from both assault rifles and standard-issue police pistols were also found at the scene of the crime, as were shells from a Stechkin APS machine pistol. Most of the shots were fired at point blank range.

There are also questions about the jurisdiction. If Baisarov was really a senior officer in the FSB (he had identification n his pocket showing him to be a lieutenant colonel of the FSB), the military prosecutor or the FSB itself should have summoned him for questioning, not the civil prosecutor.

Novaya Gazeta journalist Vyacheslav Izmailov that his newspaper was preparing to publish information linking Baisarov's murder with that of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead by an unknown assailant in her apartment building on October 7, 2006. Izmailov, who worked closely with Politkovskaya on her stories about human rights abuses in Chechnya, said former Grozny Mayor Beslan Gantamirov had come to paper's offices two weeks after she was murdered and said armed men close to Kadyrov had been sent to Moscow with orders to kill three people: Politkovskaya, Baisarov and Gantamirov himself.

[edit] See also

[edit] References and external links

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