Public organisation leader becomes 'pre-holiday clean-up' victim

Igor Shakhmurzayev, chairman of the regional office of the Conceptual Party Unity, has been missing since late April.

The missing man's elder brother Lema Shakhmurzayev, a public figure well-known in the republic and beyond, director of the Lamast Institute of the Political Culture of the Chechen Society, told Caucasian Knot by phone that Igor Shakhmurzayev had been abducted by military men back on 27 April 2005.

The interlocutor says the 37-year-old Igor Shakhmurzayev and his distant relative Raibek Mukushev, b. 1978, must have been abducted late on 27 April. "They lived in Grozny, in a private house at 22 Chekhov St. I was there in the afternoon on 27 April and talked to Igor. The next day in the morning when I came for them, I learnt the military had abducted them," he says.

Lema Shakhmurzayev believes his younger brother and Raibek Mukushev must have become victims of a 'pre-holiday clean-up': "The military then announced some 'pre-emptive activities' in Grozny on the eve of the forthcoming celebrations, so Igor and Raibek most probably became victims of one such 'special operation.'" He said a criminal case was opened in Chechnya in connection with the abduction of Igor Shakhmurzayev and Raibek Mukushev.

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