North Caucasus Militant Gives Testimony On Russians Fighting For ISIS, But Are They All Guilty?

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claims to have found out the names of dozens of militants from Russia who have gone to fight for ISIS, thanks to the arrest of an informant against one of them, Rashid Yevloyev, Sergei Mashkin of Kommersant reports in an article published January 26.

But his lawyer and human rights groups have questioned whether the FSB has the wrong man; they say Yevloyev, 27, originally from Northern Ossetia, was not in Syria at all, and an informant has given false testimony against him.

Open Russia, the organization founded by businessman and former political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, included Yevloyev in a list of cases of men from the North Caucasus in an article titled “Extremes or Victims of the War on ISIS?,” and provided the account of his father, who believes he is innocent. Past articles both in the Russian original and in faulty English-language translations have given contradictory accounts.

The FSB says that Yevloyev, a graduate of the law department of the Kabardino-Balkaria State University, flew from Krasnodar to Istanbul to receive theological education. Investigators believe that he then traveled to the Syrian city of Haritan where he underwent special training in an ISIS camp for militants called the “Caucasus” camp to be assigned to commit terrorist attacks in Russia. The course had both psychological and physical training as well as lessons on how to handle explosives and poisons.

Investigators say Yevloyev then returned to Istanbul and, fearing persecution there, made his way to Germany where he was arrested by police, and then extradited to Russia on October 1, 2015 where he was accused of having undergone training in terrorist activity (Art. 205.3 of the Russian Criminal Code). The Russian Interior Ministry posted a report of the extradition.

On January 25, Moscow City Court honored the FSB’s request to extend Yevloyev’s arrest until April 30. He is currently being held in Lefortovo Prison. The FSB said the case was particularly complex since it involved a crime alleged to have been committed abroad, so there was a danger of flight and also that he “might make use of his terrorist skills.” According to an investigator, the witnesses are also all abroad.

A source close to the investigation told Kommersant that the person who has given testimony against Yevloyev is a certain “Islambek,” last name not provided, who was said to be a fighter for Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar, a jihadist group made up of Arabs active in fighting the Syrian government. It has been designated as a terrorist organization by the US and Canada.

This is the group said to be joined by many Chechens from Russia; it is said to be the main recipient of “green corridor” militants channeled from the North Caucasus to Syria, according to research by Natalya Milashina of Novaya Gazeta cited in an article by The Interpreter’s editor-in-chief Michael Weiss.

Islambek said he himself joined Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar in February 2013 after flying to Istanbul and then making his way to Haritan to a Caucasus Emirate camp commanded by Feyzulla Margoshvili, a fighter from the Pankisi Valley in Georgy who used the name Salakh ash-Shishani. He said there were 1,500 fighters from Russia at the camp, equipped not only with small arms, grenade-launchers, 23-mm anti-aircraft artillery but also the Igla and Strela surface-to-air missile systems.

(This appears to be the source for the FSB’s claim throughout 2014 that there were “1,700” fighters from Russia with ISIS; this was later increased to 2,700.)

Islambek said the fighters lived in multi-story dwellings in groups of 30 to 100, divided up by ethnicity or “profession.” So there were buildings for Dagestanis from the village of Gimri, Azeris, and Crimeans as well as for spetsnaz and explosives experts, said Kommersant.

Yevloyev was said to have adopted the name “Akhmad” and was placed under an instructor in mines and explosives whose name was Habib. Since these fighters were being prepared for diversive actions abroad, they all wore masks so they could not be identified. But Islambek said he caught sight of the face of Yevloyev several times, and then identified him from photographs.

Islambek, who is also under investigation for terrorist activity, said he didn’t take part in combat but only went to get groceries for ISIS at a local market and sometimes stood on guard duty on a river bank near the camp. There, he was severely wounded in the leg, and was forced to return home, where he was arrested.

Yevloyev said he had never been in Syria, but did say he had gone to live in Istanbul in May 2014. He said for the entire time, he was studying the Turkish language at courses provided by an immigrant aid society named Bob Alim. He said he attended courses during the day the entire time he was there, and at night worked as a store clerk. At one point he called his father and learned that an FSB agent named “Alexander” was interested in him; he then called the agent on the telephone and said he had nothing to do with the militant groups. “Alexander” didn’t believe him, however, which was when he decided to flee to Germany, where he was also detained in Hamburg then returned to Russia, Kommersant reported last year.

Yevloyev’s lawyer, Roza Magomedova, said she is convinced of his innocence and is gathering proof that he was not involved in militant groups; she would not provide an interview with Kommersant.

According to Open Russia, Yevloyev’s father, Aslan Yevloyev, an Ingush, is a former policeman from the village of Mayskoye in Prigorodny District of North Ossetia. He believes his son is innocent. He came to Moscow to hire a lawyer, and said Investigator Yastrebov from the FSB’s investigative department would not allow the lawyer to examine the case. Aslan said he is determined not to leave Moscow until the lawyer gains access to the case files.

Aslan said that when his son graduated from law school in 2013, he was unable to find work in his home town so he decided to go to Turkey to study Arabic. Within two weeks, FSB agents were visiting him and claiming his son was fighting in Syria. His father gave the agents his mobile phone number in Istanbul and said the FSB could call him and verify where he was. The agent called his son in his presence, and it seemed they were satisfied.

But a month later, Aslan and his wife were called in for interrogation by the FSB and urged to bring their son home; he was supposedly seen in Syria. The FSB agents said they would find him a job. But if he didn’t return, they would open up a criminal case against him on charges of involvement in terrorist activity.

The agents intimidated the parents, saying a fighter had already recognized him from a photograph and testified that he was fighting with ISIS in Syria. He said he had receipts showing that his son had purchased sheets in Turkey from a small family store and sent them to his parents, but the FSB didn’t want to look at his evidence, they just wanted him to get his son to return home. The Interpreter was unable to find a reliable photograph of Yevloyev.

Aslan believes that informants in the village give information to the FSB that may be untrue. He finds it hard to believe that his son would go to the trouble to purchase sheets in a little store in Istanbul in order to deceive him, while supposedly fighting in Syria. The father noted that there were tensions, as there have been historically, in Prigorodny District between Ingush and Ossetians. He and his family were Ingush, and the FSB agents were Ossetians. He said he had advised his son to seek political asylum in Germany.

An English-language summary of the January 26 Kommersant article by Meduza failed to mention the claims of Yevloyev’s innocence by his lawyer and family, nor to cite his own account.

An English-language version of another Kommersant article on arrested Islamist militants, dated October 15, 2015, claimed that Yevloyev’s parents said he was “about to receive an Islamic education” and “went to a camp in Aleppo, joining others form the South Caucasus for combat training.”

In fact, the original Russian story doesn’t cite the parents, but says “according to Kommersant‘s information” and makes the claim that Yevloyev himself told his parents the story about Islamic education and Aleppo — although Kommersant changed that account in the January 26 article. Kommersant notes in the January 26 article that Yevloyev’s lawyer said he had not given such testimony.

The later Kommersant story also makes no such claim about the parents’ story; in fact, his father has said he believes his son was in Turkey and was innocent.

Another Kommersant story dated October 2 by Nikolai Sergeyev about Yevloyev’s extradition cited his father as saying he wanted to obtain an Islamic education but his family did not have the funds for it, so friends helped him to go to Turkey. Kommersant said his father claimed he stopped answering mobile phone calls after that — although Open Russia described the father as calling his son even in the presence of an FSB agent. In this version of the story, Yevloyev fought against Assad but but after his group suffered their first losses, he fled from the combat zone and made his way to Germany. On that basis, the FSB did not charge him with participation in ISIS, as he left voluntarily, but charged him with obtaining knowledge of explosives with the purpose of committing a terrorist attack in Russia, for which he faces from 15-20 years of prison.

This criminal code article provides for the charges to be dropped if the suspect cooperates with investigators and provides them information about other persons who were trained by terrorist or organized or financed them; this is the option that the informant Islambek was said to avail himself of.

Kommersant said that “in the last 18 months, Russian courts have issued sentences to a dozen graduates of the Caucasus camp.

— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick