Today is nine years after Novye Aldy residents were executed in Chechnya

According to human rights activists, nine years ago, in the course of a wide-scale “zachistka” (clean-up) conducted in the settlement of Novye Aldy and adjacent districts of Grozny, 56 persons were killed. In spite of the fact that the power units, which held this “special action”, have been established, those guilty of assassinating unarmed people remain unpunished.

In winter of 1999-2000, Novye Aldy settlement and other districts located in the outskirts of Grozny were constantly exposed to bomb attacks and artillery shelling by federal troops. The shelling of the settlement continued also after groups of militants had left the capital of Chechnya.

“On February 3, 2000, about 100 residents of the settlement raised a white flag and marched to the line of the militaries deployed in the vicinity of the settlement. However, they opened fire on them without any warning. A local resident, Russian national, was heavily wounded and later died,” an employee of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) “Memorial” in Grozny told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.

On the following day, residents managed to meet the command of that military unit, and later on that day militaries held a check of passports in Novye Aldy.

The human rights activist has added: “According to local residents, some of the soldiers told them that ‘monsters’ would come after them, who have the order ‘to kill everybody’, and offered them to immediately leave their homes. The residents didn’t pay any special attention to the warnings.”

In the morning on February 5, 2000, special militia units entered Novye Aldy. (According to the data of the HRC “Memorial”, these were OMON (Special Police Force) units from St-Petersburg and Ryazan Region.) Faces of the fighters were covered by camouflage paste.

Within several hours, over 50 persons became victims of extrajudicial executions, a one-year-old baby, nine women and eleven elderly residents of the settlement among them. The OMON fighters not only shot dead innocent citizens and set their houses on fire, but were marauding and extorting money and golden decorations from them under threats of physical execution.

No serious investigation of the facts of extrajudicial executions of Novye Aldy residents was ever held. On March 3, 2000, the military prosecutor’s office made a decision to refuse to initiate a criminal case on the fact of the massacre in Novye Aldy. The main reason of the refusal was that “the militaries of the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, who are under jurisdiction of the military prosecutor’s office, did not conduct any warfare in those days in Aldy settlement, as well as checks of passports,” therefore, “there were no crime attributes in their actions.”

Later, some Novye Aldy residents filed complaints to the Strasbourg Court on Human Rights. In summer of 2007, four of these complaints were satisfied by the European Court.

Today, the office of the Scientific and Information Centre “Memorial“, located in St-Petersburg at No. 23, Office 103, Rubinstein Street, д. 23, will host a public function in memory of Novye Aldy tragedy victims. A documentary will be shown at the event, filmed a couple of days after the massacre in the settlement. On February 6, at 5-6 p.m., a mourning picket will be held in Malaya Konyushenaya Street, near the monument to Gogol.

See earlier reports: “Picket in memory of “zachistka” victims in Novye Aldy held in Moscow,” “Anti-War Committee: murderers of Novye Aldy residents live in St. Petersburg,” “HRC “Memorial”: European Court’s decisions animate investigation into crimes committed in Chechnya.”