Lives after “Barzakh”

On the 19h of April 2009 masked Chechen policemen broke into Toita Lomaeva’s home, threatening to kill her and her children and demanding she takes back the complaint about the torturing of her son. The incident took place three days after the nine-year long Counter-Terrorist Operation in Chechnya was officially ended. Toita and her family moved to another location.

In February 2009 the legal investigation on Hamdan Mastaev’s disappearance was stopped. Neither evidence of his death nor the location of his detainment had been established.

On the 14th of July 2009, seven years after Alik Tazuev’s kidnapping, the prosecutor’s office informed his mother that her son was alive and would return. Yet the officials refused to disclose the location of and reason for his detainment, or to confirm the fact of his death.

In 2009 Alaudi Sadykov was still waiting for the full disability compensation for an impaired hearing and a mutilated hand. The Oktiabrsky police station and torture prison where Alaudi had been held was closed in 2006. The other clandestine torture prisons including that in Hosi-Yurt, Dzalka, and within Operative Search Department in Grozny continue to work.

Ahmed Gisaev and his family left Chechnya after an attempt on his life on August 13th 2009. Ahmed investigated his last case of disappearance and torture together with his colleague Nataliya Estemirova.

Nataliya was kidnapped and killed on July 15th 2009 by the order of Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation.