November 19, 2010, 3:59 AM EST
By Ilya Arkhipov
The Russian government plans to investigate a decade of unsolved crimes in two southern regions after the murders of 12 people focused attention on allegations that local officials aided a gang terrorizing the region.
Teams of investigators have been sent to the region to uncover any links between the gangsters and local officials, said Vladimir Vasiliev, head of the Security Committee of the State Duma. President Dmitry Medvedev has made fighting corruption one of his main goals and plans to reorganize police nationwide after reports of illegal arrests and beatings.
“This case will make us assess the situation across the country; this is about the new police law,” Vasiliev told reporters yesterday in Moscow after meeting with Bastrykin. “We need to go there and work with people so residents understand this gang doesn’t represent the Krasnodar region or Russia.”
“We think these are not the final arrests,” Bastrykin said. “
The newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda published the results of its first investigation of violence in the region of 73,000 people four years ago, saying many complaints of rapes and other attacks weren’t accepted by police. Komsomolskaya Pravda this week reported that members of the gang raped more than 220 girls over the past 16 years.
Russia is the world’s most corrupt major economy, according to Berlin-based Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index released Oct. 26. It ranked 154th among 178 countries, alongside Tajikistan and Kenya.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-11-19/russian-massacre-sparks-corruption-probe-after-decade-of-terror.html
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Village Slaughter in Federal Spotlight
19 November 2010
By Alexandra Odynova
As the country reeled from the shock of a village massacre that killed 12 people, including four children, federal authorities sought to find out how the bloodbath could have happened in the first place.
The State Duma's Security Committee held a closed meeting about the Nov. 5 killings of a farmer's family in their own home in the Krasnodar region village of Kushchyovskaya. Also slain were two neighbors and a visiting Rostov-on-Don businessman, his wife, two daughters and in-laws.
Most of the victims were stabbed with knives, but several children was strangled and one died of smoke inhalation when the attackers unsuccessfully tried to set fire to the house, news reports said.
The Duma meeting was attended by Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin, Interfax reported.
At least six suspects have been detained in connection with the killings, including a local gang leader, Sergei Tsapok, and a local lawmaker, Sergei Tsepovyaz, police said.
Krasnodar Governor Alexander Tkachyov told a regional security council meeting Wednesday that the whole country was watching the investigation into a massacre that has “shocked everyone,” the regional administration said on its web site.
He said the killings could be considered solved.
Tkachyov also said he had fired several local police officials, including the Kushchyovsky district's police chief, Viktor Burnosov.
But Burnosov denied Thursday that he had been dismissed, saying he had stepped down voluntarily.
Burnosov, speaking at a news conference in the village, said there was no criminal gang in the village capable of the slaughter, RIA-Novosti reported.
He denied media reports that a gang had been extorting local residents for several years and carried out 220 rapes and dozens of killings.
Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said during a visit to Vladikavkaz on Thursday that he has ordered a group of officers from the Interior Ministry in Moscow to review the work of the Kushchyovskaya police force.
Bastrykin plans to meet with the villagers Monday to discuss the criminalization of the area, the Investigative Committee said.
“The Investigative Committee intends to take thorough and decisive measures to re-establish law and order in the area in order to avoid such a situation in the future,” the committee said in a statement.
More arrests might be made in connection with unreported crimes committed in Kushchyovskaya, population 30,000, in recent years, it said.
In 2002, village Mayor Boris Moskvich was shot dead in the yard of the administration building after he tried to oppose local gangsters. No one has been charged in the killing.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/mobile/article/423825.html
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Yefim Toybin
Phoenix, November 17, 2010 @ 20;23
The investigation into the horrifying mass murder of 12 people in Russia's southern Krasnodar region has been concluded, Regional Governor Alexander Tkachev said on Wednesday.
Six people, including the suspected organizer of the massacre, have been detained in connection with the crime.
On November 5, 2010, a farmer, Serever Ametov, his wife, Galina and 10 of their relatives and friends, including four kids gathered for a celebration in the village of Kushchevskaya. They all were brutally murdered: the adults were stabbed to death, three children were strangled and one died of smoke inhalation. The slaughters didn't even mercy the farmer's security dog; they put him with a tranquilizer. Gladly the dog survived.
Six people, including the suspected organizer of the massacre, according to police, were "active members" of a local gang.
The man is the chieftain of a local gang, Sergei Tsapok. Also arrested is one of the more active members of the gang, Sergei Tsepoviaz, says the official spokesman for the Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin.
The mainstream Izvestia newspaper identified Tsapok as a leader of an agricultural holding company that had been expanding every year at the expense of local farmers. The paper said the farmer who was killed had refused to hand over some of his land.
Izvestia cited an unidentified investigator as saying the group of attackers numbered about 20. They used knives, then planned to burn the bodies in an effort to hide evidence of the attack, the newspaper said. Unlike bullets, the stab wounds would not be visible on charred bodies.
Sources: Russian and World press releases.
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Natalia Antonova
November 14, 2010
In case you haven’t heard about it – and if you’re not in Russia, you probably haven’t – twelve people were massacred in the village of Kushchevskaya on November 4th, during a holiday weekend. Most of the victims, who had gathered to celebrate November 4th (Day of National Unity, as it’s called nowadays), were knifed to death. Not even children were spared. A nine-month-old baby girl was choked to death.
At the grave of Yelena Ametova and daughter Amira. Photo: Alexander Lomakin.
Only the dog was treated humanely – like something out of “Lethal Weapon 3″ – the killers neutralized it by injecting it with a tranquilizer, and it’s reportedly alive and well today.
The massacre caused such an uproar that First Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Bastrykin flew in to oversee the investigation. So far, four people have been detained in connection to the killings – the youngest is 16, the eldest is 24. Journalists who were able to get a brief look-in described one of them as a “little wolf”.
It should go without saying that massacres of this scale are almost always “ordered”. So far, the tabloids are pointing to some rich guy who’s currently “at his villa in Italy – or Spain”. Is there hope that the people who financed one of the most horrifying mass murders in recent memory will be brought to justice? I don’t know.
I know what it’s like to be targeted by criminals and to constantly be on the look-out. I experienced this as a child. I can well imagine the horror the children in Kushchevskaya went through before they were murdered. If there’s anything that I have learned about these kinds of situations – anything that the 1990′s taught me – is that at least some of the children were probably killed first, so that the parents could watch.
These types of killings serve a dual purpose – eliminating “inconvenient” people and, also, terrorizing the countryside. The massacre was meant to send a message – “This is what will happen to you and your family if you cross us – big important people.” The message is also – “The police can’t save you. The government is not in charge here. We are. We get to decide who lives and who dies.”
Now, as I mentioned earlier, I am glad that there is a moratorium on the death penalty in Russia. At the same time, I think it’s important to point out that the people who order such killings and the people who participate them usually cannot be rehabilitated. They are nothing. They have forfeited their right to be considered members of humanity. Although, as a religious person, I believe in redemption, I believe such redemption can only happen between an individual and God. The individual and society, on the other hand, should call it quits permanently when something of this magnitude occurs.
Is it not also society that allows these killings to take place? To an extent, yes. We live within a caste system in which some people have long since decided that they are above all laws – human and spiritual. And then there are also those who desperately want to join them in their places of power. The Kushchevskaya killers were professionally prepared for the task at hand. Why? Because it’s a career thing.
Unlike their victims, the boys with the knives had no interest in being mere farmers – even well-to-do farmers. They want success and they want it fast – they want the luxury of utilizing the services of upscale prostitutes, they want that flat-screen TV, the nice car. If I know anything about what makes these boys act the way they do, it is this: they’re well aware of the fact that you can’t have a decent life via decent means. If a bunch of people need to die in order for them to achieve higher status, then yeah, those people will die.
Jamil, the son of the man whose house was targeted, lost his father, mother, wife and baby daughter. Jamil’s father was Muslim, his mom was an Orthodox Christian. A local Orthodox priest allowed the mother to be buried next to her husband at the Muslim cemetery following an Orthodox Christian ceremony. “This land is one land,” the priest was quoted as saying. Jamil’s wife, Yelena, was 19 years old. So far, investigators are saying that she was already dead by the time the killers got around to killing her baby. Which is, I suppose, a good thing when you think about it – although the word “good” doesn’t feel right.
“Little wolf” is an astute characterization, by the way – although it is massively unfair to wolves.
http://nataliaantonova.com/2010/11/14/speaking-of-scourge-the-kushchevskaya-massacre/
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