Chechen refugees in Ingushetia detained by the authorities since the June 21-22 guerrilla raid have been tortured in order to get them to confess to having helped the guerrillas, according to a June 28 report by the Prima news agency, which specializes in human rights.... MORE

The human and economic disaster area that is today's Chechnya nevertheless offers multiple opportunities for getting rich—nearly all of them dishonest. Free-lance Chechen journalist Mainat Abdulaeva discussed several of these in a recent article for the German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung (see Chechnya Weekly, June 23... MORE

Last week a jury trial in the southern Russian city of Rostov on the Don declined to convict of murder—or even of any lesser charge—two lieutenants serving in Russia's Interior Ministry troops. Valery Yakov reported in Novye izvestia on July 5 that the two had... MORE

A July 1 article by Chechen journalists Aslambek Badilayev and Kazbek Vakhayev for the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting essentially confirmed the picture of extortion and bribery at military checkpoints as painted by Mainat Abdulaeva in an earlier article for the German daily... MORE

Will elements in Russia's security services now push for a special operation to set up a jailbreak for two of their colleagues convicted last week of murder in Qatar? The pro-Kremlin website Strana.ru published an interview on July 1 with an unnamed "high-ranking general, close... MORE

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has decided to appeal an April decision by a U.S. immigration judge granting asylum to separatist Chechen diplomat Ilyas Akhmadov. A July 2 statement from the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya said that the department's appeal "discredits America's... MORE

A full year after the mysterious death of the State Duma deputy and journalist Yuri Shchekochikhin, his colleagues at the Moscow bi-weekly Novaya gazeta have finally ended their almost equally mysterious silence about what may have caused it. The newspaper's July 1 edition contains a... MORE

--SOME INGUSHETIA RAIDERS HAD GRU DOCUMENTS According to the brother of an FSB officer slain in the late-June raid on Ingushetia, at least some of the guerrilla raiders were equipped with identification documents from the GRU, the federal military-intelligence agency, Polit.ru reported on July 2.... MORE

On June 27, a conflict surfaced between Ingushetia's president Murat Zyazikov and his former employer, the Federal Security Service (FSB). According to a report published that same day by the Newsru.com website, the Ingushetian branch of the FSB claimed it learned in advance that a... MORE

Last week, police of Ingushetia's pro-Moscow administration mounted a security sweep on the small refugee center located on the former Altievo dairy farm, Gazeta.ru reported on June 25. Beslan Khamkhoev, acting head of Ingushetia's interior ministry, insisted that the raid was strictly legal and targeted... MORE