''We had met with Akhmed several times. Altogether, we met four times,'' Rev. Fillip told state-run RTR television. However, on that day they never made it to the town. Armed men, allegedly Zakayev’s bodyguards, stopped their car.
''It was a planned action. They traced our route. I think that when they detained us they were almost immediately disappointed, because as soon as they began to search us they were surprised to see that we were unarmed,'' Rev. Fillip recounted.
Both priests were locked in a cell, and on the following morning, when their abductors moved them to a new location, Rev. Fillip caught a glimpse of Zakayev. Now this detail of his account has become the main evidence against the former Chechen vice-premier. The Prosecutor General’s Office construes that episode as proof of Zakayev’s involvement in hostage taking and murders, and as sufficient grounds for his extradition to Moscow.
If the Danish court, which is to decide on Zakayev’s fate on November 26 - last week the Danish authorities upheld a ruling that Zakayev should remain in custody for another two weeks - finds the additional evidence provided by Moscow convincing, it could seriously undermine Zakayev’s reputation as a peace negotiator, which he enjoys in the West.
According to Rev. Fillip, many of his comrades in captivity were tortured to death by the Chechens: ''The hardest thing was to bury people who were dying of malnutrition and diseases. Just over half of them survived.''
Rev. Anatoly was tortured to death. His grave was found only in 2000 – he had been buried at a deserted football field in the village of Staryi Achkhoi.
The new evidence presented by Russia is likely to ruin the reputation not only of Zakayev, but also of his close associate, Maskahdov’s envoy to the Scandinavian states Usman Firzauli, who organized the World Chechen Congress, held earlier this month in Copenhagen. The event sparked a row between Moscow and Copenhagen – Vladimir Putin refused to travel on a scheduled visit to Denmark and the Russia-EU Summit on November 11 had to be moved to Brussels.
Rev. Fillip recognized Firzauli as the head of the prison where he had been held back in 1996 and where the rebels questioned and tortured hostages.
''Now he looks respectable,'' the priest said. ''It is quite difficult to recognize him, but you cannot change one’s eyes. It seems to me I know the eyes of that man very well. I saw him only once among the rebels somewhere in a dilapidated school building in Staryi Achkhoi during my captivity.''
But even if the Danish court finds that evidence sufficient, it remains to be seen whether it will agree to extradite Zakayev to Russia, or pass a ruling to detain Firzauli.
The problem is that the events recounted by Rev. Fillip took place during the first Chechen war, the participants of which were amnestied under the Khasavyurt peace agreement in 1996. Shortly after the priest was released and he told Russian investigators that he had seen Zakayev among his captors, the latter, acting as the official representative of the rebel Chechen side, was negotiating a cease-fire with the Kremlin and with President Boris Yeltsin.
It is quite possible that the Prosecutor General’s Office will fail in their latest attempts and the priest’s story will have no effect on the Chechen envoy’s fate.
According to the Memorial human rights group, the former Chechen vice-premier had nothing to do with the abduction of Rev. Fillip, or with the murder of Rev. Anatoly. The activists, who have conducted an independent probe into the abduction of the priests, are convinced that the order to seize the priests was issued by one of the most radical rebel field commanders, Doku Makhayev, who reported personally to the then-president of Chechnya Dzhokhar Dudayev.
If evidence of this surfaces in Denmark, Russia is likely to lose its extradition case. So far, Moscow has failed to present any proof of Zakayev’s crimes, and the priest’s account broadcast on state-run TV is the first impressive piece of evidence against the Chechen rebels’ envoy.
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