Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev

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2nd President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (acting)
Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev Яндарбин Абдулмуслиман кант Зелимха

In office April 21, 1996 – February 12, 1997
Vice President	Said-Hassan Abumuslimov
Preceded by	Dzokhar Dudayev
Succeeded by	Aslan Maskhadov

Born	September 12, 1952 Vydrika, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union
Died	February 13, 2004 (aged 51) Doha, Qatar
Nationality	Chechen
Political party	VDP, NCChP
Spouse	Malika Yandarbiyev
Profession	Writer
Religion	Sunni Islam

Zelimkhan Abdumuslimovich Yandarbiyev (Chechen: Яндарбин Абдулмуслиман кант Зелимха, Russian: Зелимхан Абдумуслимович Яндарбиев, also spelled Yandarbiev) (September 12, 1952 – February 13, 2004) was a Chechen writer and a politician, including an acting president of the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (1996-1997).

1 Life
2 Assassination
- 2.1 Investigation and trial
3 References and notes
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Life

Originally a literary scholar, poet and children's literature writer Yandarbiyev became a leader in the Chechen nationalist movement as the Soviet Union began to collapse. In May 1990, he founded and led the Vainakh Democratic Party (VDP), the first Chechen political party, which was committed to an independent Chechnya. The VDP initially represented both Chechen and Ingush until their split after Chechnya's declaration of independence from the Russian SFSR.

In November 1990 he became a deputy chairman to the newly formed All-National Congress of the Chechen People (NCChP), which was led by Dzhokhar Dudayev and which ousted the Soviet-era leadership. With Dudayev, he signed an agreement with Ingush leaders splitting the joint Chechen-Ingush republic in two. In the first Chechen parliament, from 1991-1993, Yandarbiyev headed the media committee. Since 1991 he served as Vice-President of the self-proclaimed republic.

Yandarbiyev with Chechen supporters

During the 1994-1996 First Chechen War, Yandarbiyev had little connection with military operations, spending his time writing books on the independence effort. Except for his personal bodyguards, he never had a military unit of his own. In April 1996, following the assassination of his predecessor Dzhokhar Dudayev, he became an Acting President. In late May 1996, Yandarbiyev headed a Chechen delegation that met Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin for peace talks that resulted in the signature of a ceasefire agreement on May 27, 1996.^[1]

Yandarbiyev stood in presidential elections held in Chechnya in February 1997, but was defeated by Aslan Maskhadov, a senior military leader, getting 10 per cent of the votes and landing third behing Maskhadov and Shamil Basayev. Together with Maskhadov, Yandarbiyev took part of signing of the peace treaty in Moscow on May 12, 1997.^[2] The two fell out badly the following year, when Yandarbiyev was accused of being behind an assassination attempt against Maskhadov. In September 1998, Maskhadov publicly denounced Yandarbiyev, accusing him of importing the radical Islamic philosophy of Wahhabism and of being responsible for "anti-state activities" including anti-government speeches and public meetings, as well as the organisation of illegal armed groups. Yandarbiyev subsequently joined forces with the hard-line Islamist opposition to Maskhadov's rule.

In August-September 1999, he was assumed as a key figure behind the invasion by the IIPB's coalition of Islamist guerrillas on the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan. At the beginning of the Second Chechen War, Yandarbiyev traveled abroad to Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates and eventually settled in Qatar in 2001, where he sought to obtain Muslim support for the Chechen cause.

Russia made the first of several requests for extradition in February 2003, citing Yandarbiyev as a major international terrorist and financier of the "al-Qaeda backed" Chechen resistance. In June 2003, he was mentioned on a United Nations Security Council's blacklist of al-Qaeda-related suspects, allegedly for playing a key role in directing from the Gulf states funding linked to al-Qaeda, to support a radical Chechen faction dubbed the SPIR, responsible for the Moscow theater hostage crisis.^[3] Yandarbiyev commented: "I should say that those trying to label me as a terrorist showed what they are, by agreeing with the most dirty and inhumane stronghold of international terrorism and criminal activity, such as is Russia today in its criminal military-political regime."^[4]

[edit] Assassination

On February 13, 2004, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was assassinated when a bomb ripped through his SUV in the Qatari capital, Doha. Yandarbiyev was seriosuly wounded and died in hospital. His 12-year-old son Daud was seriously injured. Some reports said two of his bodyguards were killed as well, while others said Yandarbiyevs were the only victims.

It was initially unclear who was responsible for the blast, but suspicion fell on SVR and/or GRU, denying any involvement, or internal feuding among the Chechen rebel leadership. Maskhadov's separatist Foreign Ministry condemned the assassination as a "Russian terrorist attack", comparing it to the 1996 attack that killed Dudayev. The car bomb led to Qatar's first anti-terrorism law, declaring lethal terrorist acts punishable by death or life imprisonment.

On June 1, 2004, Leonid Parfyonov, one of the leading NTV journalists, was fired from the channel allegedly for making public the decision of the channel direction that had forbidden him to present a TV interview with Malika Yandarbiyev, widow of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev.^[5]^[6]

[edit] Investigation and trial

The blown-up car of Yandarbiyev in Qatar

On February 19, 2004, the Qatari authorities arrested three Russians in the Russian embassy villa for the murders. One of them, the first secretary of the Russian Embassy in Qatar, Aleksandr Fetisov, was released in March allegedly due to his diplomatic status and the remaining two GRU agents: Anatoly Yablochkov (also known as Belashkov) and Vasily Pugachyov (sometimes misspelled as Bogachyov), were charged with the assassination of Yandarbiyev, assassination attempt of his son Daud and smuggling weapons into Qatar. According to Moscow, Yablochkov and Pugachyov were secret intelligence agents sent to the Russian Embassy in Doha to collect information about global terrorism. Russia’s acting Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov pledged state support to the suspects and declared that their imprisonment was illegal.^[7] There were some speculations that Aleksandr Fetisov had been released in exchange for Qatari wrestlers detained in Moscow.^[8]

The trial proceedings were closed to the public after the defendants claimed that the Qatari policemen had tortured them in the first days after their arrest, when they had been held incommunicado; the two Russians alleged that they had suffered beatings, sleep deprivation and attacks by guard dogs. Based on these torture allegations and the fact that the two officers were arrested within an extraterritorial compound belonging to the Russian Embassy (i.e. effectively on Russian soil), Russia demanded the immediate release of its citizens; they were represented by the attorney of the law firm founded by Nikolai Yegorov, a friend and fellow student of Vladimir Putin at Leningrad State University.^[9] The Qatari prosecutors concluded that the suspects had received the order to eliminate Zelimkhan Yandarbiev from Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov personally.^[10] On June 30, 2004, both Russians were sentenced to life imprisonment; passing the sentence, the judge stated that they had acted on orders from the Russian leadership.^[11]^[12]^[13]

The verdict of the Doha court caused severe tensions between Qatar and Russia, and on December 23, 2004, Qatar agreed to extradite the prisoners to Russia, where they would serve out their life sentence. The agents received a heroes' welcome on returning to Moscow in January 2005 but disappeared from public view shortly afterwards. The Russian prison authorities admitted in February 2005 that they were not in jail, but said that a sentence handed down in Qatar was "irrelevant" in Russia.^[14]