January 10, 2002	Thursday	Shawwal 25, 1422

SLEPTSOVSK (Russia) Jan 9: Russian federal forces wound up a sweep through the Chechen town of Argun on Wednesday amid mounting evidence of human rights abuses by Russian troops during a 10-day military operation targeting separatist rebels.

The Kremlin’s chief spokesman on Chechnya, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, said the actions in Argun and at Tsotsin-Yurt further east had ended successfully, claiming that 92 Chechen rebels had been killed and the remainder dispersed.

An investigator with the human rights group Memorial, Kheda Saratova, cited several instances of arbitrary killings in a report based on testimony obtained during a three-day stay in Tsotsin-Yurt, 25 kilometres east of Grozny.

After Saratova’s return to Nazran, Ingushetia, local resident Apti Shakhgiryev said Russian troops had provoked groups of young people, “then killed them and arrested innocent people.”

In five days, some 80 people were taken for questioning. “They were all beaten in the ribs and kidneys. Seven of them have disappeared,” he said.

At the neighbouring village of Geldagana, “four young villagers were summarily executed,” Saratova quoted him as saying.

In another instance, Russian armoured vehicles chased a private car carrying two men and, when the men sought refuge in the home of a religious leader, 70-year-old Lechi Idrissov, pursued the men into the house and killed them.—AFP