Briefs

–MORE REFUGEES FORCED TO LEAVE INGUSHETIA

Last week yet another small settlement of Chechen refugees was on the way to being forcibly vacated. According to an article published by the Prima human-rights news agency on July 19, gas and electricity had been cut off to refugees living on a farm in Ingushetia’s Nazran District. The farm’s manager, one Ali Chasigov, showed the refugees a directive ordering that they leave.

–QATAR WILL CONSIDER RUSSIANS’ APPEAL THIS MONTH

Contrary to earlier plans, a court of appeals in Qatar has agreed to hold a special summer session in order to consider the case of the two Russian intelligence operatives convicted of assassinating a Chechen extremist. Originally the court was scheduled to be in recess for the rest of the summer and to take up only two months from now the appeal of a lower court’s decision against the two Russians. But Interfax reported on July 21 that the appeals’ hearing is now set to take place on July 29.

–ARE FEDERAL FUNDS SUBSIDIZING REBELS?

Chechen diplomat Akhmed Zakaev added some new details last week to the familiar allegation that some of the federal subsidies to the pro-Moscow administration in Chechnya are helping finance separatist guerrillas loyal to the underground Maskhadov government which Zakaev represents in the West. Politcom.ru on July 21 quoted Zakaev as saying that “today there is not one head of a district administration in Chechnya who does not pay money to a commander of the Chechen resistance. The official may have gone for a month without receiving his own salary, but as soon as the appointed day comes the money will be transferred [to the rebels]—otherwise that official would cease to exist.”