August 28:
Moscow’s Tverskoi district court has issued a warrant for the arrest of ex-Russneft chief Mikhail Gutseriyev, RIA Novosti reports. Gutseriyev claimed in late July he had been forced to sell the oil company because of “unprecedented persecution” by tax and law-enforcement authorities, but subsequently denied Russneft’s sale had been forced. Gutseriyev is reportedly outside Russia.
Russian businessmen are employing armed thugs to intimidate rivals and force them to hand over their companies, Business Week reports. “It has become an all too familiar scene in today’s Russia,” the magazine writes. “In Moscow 150 strong young men entered the headquarters of the Rasvitiye construction company using baseball bats and metal bars. Although the thugs retreated when a squad of policemen arrived, the company - which controls more than 25 percent of Moscow’s housing construction market - miraculously ended up in the hands of a financial tycoon a short time later.”
The magazine Ogonyok published a price list of the “semi-legal” services available from these enforcers, known as “landsknechty,” after the 15th-16th century German mercenary pikemen. Spying on a business costs $5,000-$20,000, tapping a mobile phone is $1,500 per day, while “neutralizing” the police and prosecutor’s office costs $30,000-$60,000.
August 30:
Prosecutors have released two suspects in the murder of investigative journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya, the Associated Press reports. On August 27th, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika announced the arrest of 10 suspects in the murder and said former and current police and security officers were involved. However, two police officers have reportedly been released, while a Moscow military court spokesman said a Federal Security Service (FSB) lieutenant colonel named as a suspect remains in jail but that his arrest was “in no way” connected to Politkovskaya’s murder.
Kommersant reports that another suspect, a former major in Moscow’s anti-organized crime unit, could not have been involved in Politkovskaya’s murder because he was in prison from 2004 until December 2006. Murad Musayev, the lawyer for one of three Chechen brothers arrested for the murder, said his client was wrongly arrested and subjected to “physical abuse, insults and other humiliation” in custody.
August 31:
A bombing has killed four policemen and injured one in Nazran, Ingushetia’s capital, Reuters reports. A duty officer at the regional prosecutor’s office said a police patrol had been dispatched to check reports that a Russian-made Lada car packed with explosives was parked next to the cultural center in downtown Nazran and that the Lada had exploded when the patrol approached. On August 29th, gunmen shot and killed two FSB border guard service officers near Nazran, NEWSru.com reported.
September 1:
Russia has marked the third anniversary of the Beslan school hostage seizure that left 332 people dead, more than half of them children. Agence France-Presse reports that President Vladimir Putin addressed children at a local school in Russia’s Caspian Sea city of Astrakhan on a day celebrated in Russia as the start of the school year. “We cannot forget about the children that will never go to school - I mean the tragic events in Beslan,” he said.
As AFP notes, victims’ relatives and many Russians believe the authorities covered up what happened in Beslan on September 3, 2004, when federal troops stormed the school that had been seized by gunmen demanding Russia’s withdrawal from Chechnya. About 250 people gathered in central Moscow for a memorial demonstration by the Beslan Mother’s Committee. “I would like to tell Putin that he shouldn’t be afraid to come before these people and say: ‘I’m guilty and I ask for your forgiveness,’” said committee member Emilia Bzarova, whose 10-year-old son was killed during the crisis.
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