Regional operations headquarters perverted true reasons of death of two Chechen teenagers

On December 11, 2003, some information agencies reported with reference to the regional headquarters on the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus that two teenagers, residents of the village of Prigorodnoye, were killed while placing a landmine.

Members of the Human Rights Center "Memorial" have conducted their own investigation and ascertained the real circumstances of the young boys' death, which completely contradict the version of the regional operations headquarters. On December 7, 2003, two young boys: Yanars B. Mutaliyev, 1989, and Islam R. Khabuyev, 1988, hit a mine and were killed as a result in the village of Prigorodnoye, the Grozny (rural) district.

In the afternoon Yanars and Islam asked parents leave to go for a stroll. At about 3:00 p.m. a powerful explosion thundered not far from the village, in the area that locals call "Basi", but no one paid special attention to it.

Along toward evening the boys' relatives began to worry about them walking so long and went searching for them. But they did not succeed in finding Yanars and Islam that day.

On December 8 residents of the village (but not soldiers as the regional headquarters reported!) found bodies of the missing boys at the place where the explosion had thundered the day before. The teenagers hit the mine in the vicinity of the zone that was mined by federal troops in the beginning of the second Chechen war. This place is considerably distant from the Grozny-Prigorodnoye road, so there would have been absolutely no sense to place landmines their.

Relatives of the boys along with a district policeman turned to the military stationed near the village, asking to provide a secure pass to the place of the boys' death. But the military refused to take any part in the affair, saying they had to apply to the commandant's office of the Grozny (rural) district.

After it the relatives accompanied by the same district policeman went to the place of the occurrence at their own risk and took away bodies of their children. Relatives of the deceased are indignant at the barefaced lie of the regional headquarters on the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus.