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REN-TV, a pro-Kremlin TV station has published a video of a shooting last year that led Dzhambulat Dadayev, a Chechen businessman to flee Stavropol
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REN-TV, a pro-Kremlin TV station has published a video of a shooting last year
that led Dzhambulat Dadayev, a Chechen businessman to flee Stavropol,
directly contradicting the story as told by Chechen leader Ramzan
Kadyrov. The Investigative Committee announced an internal inspection
will be made of the events.
In the news account,
REN-TV has also made other claims at odds the version of the story as
broadcast by Grozny TV last week about a police chase that led to
Dadayev’s death. While the Investigative Committee cancelled the order
to investigate the affair as police abuse, today spokesman Vladimir
Markin announced that an internal inspection will be conducted into the
events.
REN-TV say the video which they describe as “published on
the Internet” without indicating a source purports to show the incident
in which Chechen suspect Dzhambulat Dadayev was involved that led to
Stavropol police chasing him.
The incident occurred September 12,
2014. At 9:00 pm, Dadayev made three gunshots on
Tukhachevskaya Street in a residential neighborhood, says REN-TV.
The
video shows that a lot of people had gathered on a street in Grozny,
including parents with little children. They watch as Dadayev gets into a
Porche Cayenne and flees the scene.
There is such a street in Stavropol, and an area with a courtyard and cars parked in between nine-story apartment buildings here on Google Maps or here (also viewable from another angle here on Google Map) that look like those in the video, but we could not make an exact geolocation of the video.
In the REN-TV video, a well-lit white building with red trim, possibly a store open at night, can be seen in the distance, and a yellow-brick apartment building. This might be the Magnit grocery store, or another store with a red sign down the street.
From Tukachevsky Street or from the parallel Pirigova Street in Google Street View, some of the buildings may be seen, but a definitive match cannot be made because the angle cannot be reached.
In yet another revelation of
the high level of Russian surveillance of mobile devices, REN-TV
reports that police were able to find Dadayev quickly by looking at the
cell-phone billing records of all the mobile phones of all the people
within a 100-meter area of the shooting. They then filter out those
uninvolved to methodically establish where Dadayev was hiding.
Stavropol
police then went into Chechnya twice, the first time in late December
2014, but were unable to apprehend Dadayev, says REN-TV. The second time
was April 13, when they said they sent a notice to their Chechen
counterparts. They said on April 14, Stavropol law-enforcers were said
to attempt unsuccessfully to show their travel orders to the Grozny
Interior Ministry. But they returned again April 15 and an officer of
the regional investigation department even offered them help, but they
turned it down.
On April 19, the once again assembled to detain
Dadayev, not with Grozny police, but officers of the
federally-controlled Temporary Operations Group of Interior Ministry
Agencies and Divisions in Khankala, known by its initials “VOGOiP”.
When
Dadayev came out of a home on Bitinirov Street at 6:00 am, he was
ambushed by police. He tried to break through the cordon and while
attempting to escape in a Hyundai, but knocked over two policeman and
rammed an Interior Ministry vehicle.
The law-enforcers say they
shot in the air first, then fired the shots that killed Dadyev. They
discovered he had an unmarked loaded pistol on him.
REN-TV
reportedly includes among its investors the Rotenberg brothers,
oligarchs who are close to President Vladimir Putin. Regardless of how
the ownership affects coverage, REN-TV has decided to weigh in with a
version of the incident that directly contradicts Chechen leader
Kadyrov, loyal to Putin, and sides with central and regional
authorities.
The incident angered Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov
because he said the neighboring Stavropol law-enforcers did not notify
their Chechen counterparts.
He claimed that his officials
received no notice, but in this version of the story, they twice go to
the Grozny police, and the second time show their travel orders and even
turn down their colleagues’ help. They then rely on a federal troop
presence to assist them. Through two Chechen wars, Khankala has been the
base of Russian armed forces.
Grozny TV told the story differently.
On
April 19, Stavropol police chased a 42-year-old Chechen businessman
named Dzhambulat Dadayev who was reportedly on the federal wanted list.
He was said to have been involved in a knife fight with a rival — not a
gunfight — and had been arrested and signed a pledge not to leave
town.
When he left the region, Stavropol police chased him
across regional lines into Chechnya, and when he reportedly rammed a
police officer’s car, the Stavropol police shot him dead, said Grozny
TV, which did not say anything about running over police.
Dzhambulat Dadayev is not related to Zaur Dadayev, the chief
suspect in the Nemtsov murder case, both Grozny and federal news
agencies have reported.
Kadyrov demanded that the death, which
took place in a residential area, be investigated as a crime in the
Russian Criminal Code known as “exceeding the powers of office,” but
after a few days, Aleksandr Bastrykin, head of the Investigative
Committee, cancelled the order to open a criminal case. Kadyrov
responded defiantly with a demand that it be re-opened.
Today, the Investigative Committee (IC) was back with another type of action which may mollify Kadyrov — depending on the outcome.
In an announcement on the IC web site, spokesman Vladimir Markin said a “procedural inspection” would take place:
“For
a detailed study of the events that occurred in the Chechen Republic in
connection with a special operation conducted April 19 by officers of
the police of the Stavropol Territory and the Temporary Operations Group
of Agencies and Divisions of the Interior Ministry of Russia, a
procedural inspection is being conducted by the Main Investigative
Department of the Russian Federation for the North Caucasus Federal
District of the Investigative Committee. An appropriate decision will be
made upon the results of the inspection.Furthermore, I would
like to emphasize that the inspection will be conducted objectively,
absolutely without prejudice and in exact compliance with the law of the
Russian Federation.”
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick