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Elina Ersenoyeva
Posted on 08/27/2006 7:14:54 PM PDT by A. Pole
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www.polit.ru Elina Ersenoyeva |
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A Chechen woman believed to be the last wife of Shamil Basayev is being held by law enforcement agents, who are pumping her for information on her infamous late husband, human rights activists say.
Elina Ersenoyeva, 26, disappeared in Grozny on Aug. 17. News of her marriage to Basayev -- Russia's No. 1 terrorist until his death in an explosion on July 9 -- first appeared last Wednesday on the web site of the Chechen Council of Nongovernmental Organizations.
Ersenoyeva married Basayev in secret and against her will in November 2005, Tatyana Lokshina, an expert with the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and chair of its Center Demos research group, said by telephone Friday.
Ersenoyeva's mother confirmed this information to The New York Times. "She was a smart girl, but she was used," Rita Ersenoyeva said in an interview in the village of Stariye Atagi. "Now she is gone. I have lost hope. I have lost a golden child."
Law enforcement agents abducted her with the aim of getting their hands on $7 million in cash ostensibly stashed away by Basayev and on the fighter's personal archive, said Taisa Isayeva, spokeswoman for the Chechen Council of Nongovernmental Organizations, in comments published by Kommersant on Friday.
"They clearly want some information from her," Lokshina said.
Starting in March, kadyrovtsy, or security personnel loyal to Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, began harassing Ersenoyeva and her family, Ersenoyeva wrote in an undated letter to the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and to the rights group Center Demos.
Before being abducted, Ersenoyeva worked part-time with Info-MOST, which promotes AIDS awareness in Chechnya, and as a freelance journalist.
Kadyrov's forces are widely believed to kidnap the relatives of fighters in order to gain leverage over them.
In her letter, Ersenoyeva wrote that her husband had been killed a month before, but the persecution of her family had not stopped. "The enforcement agencies are threatening us with violence and death because my late husband was a rebel," she wrote, without identifying her husband.
"During that whole time, which is less than a year, they took my mother away several times and subjected her to severe beatings, threats and extortion," Ersenoyeva wrote.
Ersenoyeva's letter reached Lokshina two days before the kidnapping.
The abduction occurred at 9:00 a.m. on Aug. 17, when several armed men in camouflage clothing and balaclavas forced Ersenoyeva and her aunt Rovzan into two separate cars, put bags over their heads and drove away, said an open letter from the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights that was released Aug. 18. Ersenoyeva's aunt was let go later that morning.
Around noon, Ersenoyeva called her aunt from her mobile phone, saying that she had been allowed to make a single call, the open letter states. At 7:00 that evening, Ersenoyeva called her mother directly and assured her that she would soon be released.
The open letter was faxed to Chechnya's chief prosecutor, Valery Kuznetsov.
On Aug. 21, Ersenoyeva's mother filed a missing person's report with the local prosecutor's office and said her daughter had been kidnapped. The Chechen prosecutor's office and the police both told Interfax on Friday that no report had been filed.
The prosecutor's office did not open an inquiry into the Ersenoyeva case until Friday, Interfax reported.
In a follow-up to its Aug. 18 open letter, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and two other organizations stressed that Ersenoyeva's "family connection" to Basayev did not "justify abduction."
"We reiterate our hope that the Prosecutor's Office of the Chechen Republic will conduct a thorough investigation into the abduction of Ersenoyeva and that she will be found," the organizations stated. "Then, if there are allegations that she is guilty of any crime, she should be tried by an independent and impartial court of law."
Isayeva told Kommersant that Basayev -- who had already had at least three wives -- treated Ersenoyeva more like an assistant than a wife. Ersenoyeva is rumored to have posted statements from Basayev on rebel web sites, Isayeva said. It is doubtful, however, that Ersenoyeva knew where Basayev kept his money, Isayeva said.
Ersenoyeva's mother told The New York Times that her daughter was first taken to Basayev in November 2005, after being told that she would have to marry a fighter. Ersenoyeva agreed. On Nov. 29 she was driven to a building in Grozny and told her fiance was waiting. When she entered, she found Basayev.
"He told her, 'Do not be afraid,'" Rita Ersenoyeva said. "I will not do anything bad to you if you do what I say. I do not need you to kill anyone. I need your brains and your head."
Lokshina said Ersenoyeva had apparently been "cooperating" with a rebel web site in addition to her work at Info-MOST and writing occasional articles for the independent newspaper Chechenskoye Obshchestvo, or Chechen Society.
The newspaper's editor, Timur Aliyev, also a contributor to The Moscow Times, said in a written statement Friday that no one at the newspaper suspected that Ersenoyeva had been married to Basayev.
Secret marriage bump
Brings back memories of Lara, Strelnikof, Zhivago, et al.
It is the Russian Way: You Pi$$'em off--You disappear!
26-year-old Elina Ersenoyeva, a UNICEF project employee and a journalist for the newspaper “Chechen Society.”
Ersenoyeva, 26, was the last wife of the late rebel leader and ruthless terrorist Shamil Basaev. Now enforcement bodies want Basaev’s money and documents from his briefcase in exchange for Elina’s freedom.
Elina was abducted for particular reason, said Tais Isayeva, who is the briefer at NGO Council of Chechnya and knows Elina very well. “She was the last wife of Basaev and has been long chased by special services.” “They demand a briefcase with documents and $7 million,” Isayeva specified, adding she doesn’t believe Elina has ever had it. “She could have left not only Chechnya but the country long ago if she had the money.”
Well I'm fresh out of pity for muslims wives or husbands ... or even their sheep and goat partners for that matter.
What about his secret GRU serial number?
Nice unibrow, baby!
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