Akhmed Zakayev is one of the leaders of the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic. Over the years, he received high positions in it - the Minister of Culture, Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister. With the beginning of the Second Chechen War, he turned into a field commander in illegal terrorist formations on the territory of Ichkeria. In 2007, he was declared prime minister of a non-existent republic in exile. Currently hiding abroad, in Russia he is wanted by the Federal Security Service.
Education
Akhmed Zakayev was born in 1959 in the village of Kirovskoye in the Kazakh SSR. His family was forcibly evicted there at the end of the Great Patriotic War. A few years after his birth, his parents managed to return to their native village of Urus-Martan, so the child spent his childhood in Chechnya. Akhmed Zakaev is a Chechen by nationality.
After graduating from school, he entered the choreographic department of the cultural enlightenment school inGrozny. Later, Akhmed Zakayev received a graduate diploma from the Voronezh State Institute of Arts.
He began his career in 1981 as an actor in a drama theater in the Chechen capital. He worked in the main troupe until 1990. As political scientist Ruslan Saidov, who was interested in the biography of Akhmed Zakayev, notes, at that time the man was recruited by the KGB as an agent, and later continued to work for the Russian FSB. There is no reliable information confirming this information.
In 1991, Akhmed Zakayev became the head of the Union of Theater Workers of the Republic, and at the same time he was a member of the Union of Theater Workers of the whole country. In connection with these positions, he spends most of his time in Moscow before the start of the active phase of the conflict in Chechnya.
Finally returns to his native republic only in 1994, when Dzhokhar Dudayev offers him the post of Minister of Culture.
Armed conflict
When federal troops entered the republic in December 1994, Zakayev found himself among the militias of Ichkeria. Already at the end of 1994, he was in charge of the headquarters of the Southwestern Front.
In particular, it is known that the hero of our article participated in the battle near the village of Goiskoye in April 1995, for which he was awarded the highest order of the self-proclaimed Republic of Ichkeria. At the same time, Zakayev's opponents note that his role in that battle, as in the entire Chechen war, was nominal.
In 1995, Akhmed Zakayev, whose biography is presented in this article, was awarded the rank of brigadegeneral, he headed the Urus-Martan Front. In the summer of 1996, he took part in the operation to capture the Chechen capital, along with other field commanders.
After the war
After the end of the First Chechen War was officially declared, he was an assistant to President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, in charge of national security issues, and was also Chechnya's secretary of security. Directly participated in the negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the crisis, as well as in the preparation of the Khasavyurt agreements. It was they who put an end to the First Chechen War. In fact, they became invalid in September 1999.
In October 1996, Zakayev returned to the post of Minister of Culture of the Chechen Republic, and in January of the following year he decided to run for president of Ichkeria. However, the representative of the National Independence Party Aslan Maskhadov becomes the winner in the elections.
In 1998, significant changes began in Zakayev's biography when he was appointed deputy prime minister in the government of Ichkeria. He remains in this post until 2006, when he is dismissed by the new president, Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev. A few months later, Zakayev received the post of head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, replacing Usman Ferzauli in this post. For some time he headed the information agency "Chechenpress".
Second War
During the Second Chechen War, Zakaev becomes the commander of the so-called "special purpose brigade", which is consideredChechen President Maskhadov's personal reserve.
In August 2000, Zakayev got into a traffic accident in the south-west of the Chechen Republic. For him, the accident turns out without serious consequences, Zakayev receives minor injuries, but leaves the republic for treatment.
In the middle of 2004, Maskhadov appointed him Minister of Culture. So, in the reformed government of Chechnya, Zakayev oversees the press and information issues.
Diplomatic work
At the end of 2000, he began to actively engage in diplomatic work. In November, he was appointed special representative of the President of Chechnya in Turkey, as well as in other states in the Middle East. In 2001, he became Maskhadov's official representative in the West.
In September of the same year, Zakayev was put on the federal wanted list by a decree of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation. Already in October, he was put on the international wanted list. He was accused of organizing an illegal armed group, an armed rebellion, as well as an attempt on the lives of law enforcement officers.
In November 2001, Zakayev in the international zone of Sheremetyevo met with the plenipotentiary representative of the head of state in the Southern Federal District, whose name was Viktor Kazantsev. As it turned out later, these negotiations did not bring any results, since neither side began to put forward compromise proposals.
After that, Zakayev repeatedly made attemptsdiplomatic settlement of the conflict. In particular, in the summer of 2002 he participated in informal negotiations with a number of influential Russian politicians. Among them were Ivan Rybkin, Ruslan Khasbulatov, Aslambek Aslakhanov, Yuri Shchekochikhin. The meeting took place on the territory of Liechtenstein, according to preliminary information, their organization was financed by the government of this country. And their direct organizers were the American diplomat Alexander Haig and the former national security adviser to the US President Zbigniew Brzezinski, who held this post in the late 1970s.
In particular, during these negotiations, Maskhadov's supporters, whose interests were represented by Akhmed Khalidovich Zakayev, were asked to release 29 captured Russian soldiers who were in the hands of Chechen fighters, as a gesture of goodwill.
Some details of these negotiations are known. In particular, one of the representatives of the Russian side asked Zakayev why Maskhadov orders the killing of Chechens who work in the police and the system of executive power. After all, according to the negotiator who asked the question, this only leads to an aggravation of the situation in the republic, since the blood feud common among the mountain peoples can continue for a very long time.
In response to all these proposals, Zakayev said that the Chechen government is not planning any gestures of goodwill, the prisoners will remain hostage. Regarding the murders of civil servants and policemen of Chechen origin, he stressed that these actions wouldcontinue, as they are considered "national traitors" who serve the Kadyrov regime. In this case, the father of the current head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov, Akhmat, was meant. At that time, he was the president of Chechnya, supported by the federal government. A year and a half later, he was killed in a terrorist attack in Grozny on May 9 at the Dynamo stadium during a concert on the occasion of Victory Day. According to official figures, the explosion killed seven people and injured more than 50.
Following the results of the negotiations, the parties still managed to draw up a peaceful plan for the settlement of the Chechen conflict, known as the "Liechtenstein Plan". According to it, Chechnya should have been granted broad autonomous powers within the Russian Federation, up to conducting its own foreign policy. The security guarantors in this case were the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations.
The next meeting was to be held in Switzerland, but further negotiations were disrupted due to the terrorist attack on Dubrovka, when Chechen terrorists took 916 hostages in the building of the theater center. The militants demanded the withdrawal of troops from Chechnya. As a result of the assault and the special operation to free them, 130 hostages were killed (according to official figures). According to the public organization "Nord-Ost", which began to help the victims of the attack, 174 people became victims. More than seven hundred were injured.
Arrest in Copenhagen
After being put on the international wanted list, Zakayev's photo began to appear regularly in the media and operational reports. He began hiding abroad.
In October 2002, the World Chechen Congress was held in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, one of the organizers of which was Zakayev. Russia strongly protested, stating that terrorists, as well as their patrons and accomplices from al-Qaeda, are most directly involved in the organization of this meeting. According to Moscow, the international terrorists behind the Dubrovka attack are funding this congress.
The head of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Per Stig Meller, in response to this statement, noted that the Danish authorities are ready to immediately take all necessary measures to detain the terrorists if the Russian side names the specific names of the suspects, and also provides evidence of their direct involvement in the attack.
On October 25, the Russian authorities sent a request for the detention of Zakayev, five days later he was detained, immediately after the end of the congress. Russia called Zakayev guilty of involvement in organizing terrorist attacks on Russian territory in 1996-1999, as well as in the terrorist attack on Dubrovka.
On October 31, Denmark received an official request from the Russian authorities to extradite Zakayev. But the very next day, the Ministry of Justice of this Scandinavian country officially refused, arguing that there was convincing evidence of involvement interrorist activities of Akhmed Zakayev himself, whose photo is given in this article, was not presented. The head of the Danish Ministry of Justice, Lene Jespersen, refused to extradite the leader of the self-proclaimed republic to Moscow. She noted that the extradition request is unacceptable due to the large number of gaps in the documents. She stressed that the Russian authorities must provide additional information by November 30, otherwise Zakayev will be released.
November 5, the Prosecutor General's Office handed over additional materials of the criminal case initiated in Russia. Based on them, it was concluded that after Dzhokhar Dudayev came to power, Zakayev created an armed gang, which was called the "South-Western Front". A number of crimes were committed under his leadership:
- in 1995 - the capture of two prosecutors in the Urus-Martan district, the seizure of several administrative buildings in Urus-Martan, the terrorization of local residents, the execution of about a dozen people.
- in 1996 - the execution of two priests, the seizure of the district hospital in the Zavodskoy district of Grozny and the execution of more than 10 employees of the commandant's office, the seizure of the railway station in the Chechen capital. During the last action, about 300 policemen guarding the building were killed and wounded.
- Also, Zakayev's gang was accused of a number of crimes and terrorist acts that killed civilians, including pregnant women.
According to the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, a prison was equipped in the house of the most suspect, inwhich contained wounded military and law enforcement officers, as well as their bodies. The bandits sold the wounded and the dead to their relatives.
However, this time the Danish side considered the evidence provided insufficient for the extradition of Zakayev. The Scandinavians noted that the documents were drawn up carelessly, with a large number of errors and shortcomings, for example, the year of birth of Zakayev and his patronymic were incorrectly indicated. Moreover, one of the priests, who, according to the Russian side, was killed by terrorists, turned out to be alive.
The Danish authorities repeatedly sent a request in order to obtain more reliable and irrefutable evidence, twice extending Zakayev's detention. On December 3, the final decision was made to refuse extradition. The next day he was released, he immediately flew to London.
Detention in the UK
By that time, the arrest warrant issued by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office was still in effect. Therefore, at the London airport, Zakaev, whose biography is given in this article, was immediately arrested. Famous people stood up for him, as a result, he was released on bail of 50,000 pounds, which was made by Boris Berezovsky and actress Vanessa Redgrave.
The Russian side sent a request for his extradition to England, accusing Zakayev of 11 articles of the Criminal Code.
The process began in June 2003. The verdict was handed down in November. All allegations relating tothe killings of military personnel were rejected, the court noted that they were committed in the course of hostilities, therefore they cannot be grounds for extradition.
Further, the judge stated that procedural abuses were committed on the Russian side. Moreover, the court suggested that Zakayev could face torture and a biased trial. As a result, his extradition was denied.
Private life
Not much is known about Akhmed Zakayev's family. He has a wife, Rose, with whom he has repeatedly appeared at public events. He also has two brothers and sisters. They are Buwadi, Ali, Hajiah and Laila.
Zakayev's personality
Assessing him as a politician, many experts note that during the First Chechen War he enjoyed great prestige in the republic. Characterizing Akhmed Zakayev, many journalists, including Anna Politkovskaya, who knew him well, emphasized that he was one of the last representatives in the Chechen leadership who advocated moderate, not radical measures.
Detention in Poland
Akhmed Zakayev has recently disappeared from the information field. He was actively talked about in September 2010, when he was detained in Poland. The World Chechen Congress was held there. The interrogation of the notorious Chechen leader took six hours, after which the prosecutor's office issued an arrest warrant. A few hours later, a Warsaw court released Zakayev.
In closing
Now it's clear who it is - Akhmed Zakayev. Russia continues to seek his extradition from foreign states. At the same time, where Akhmed Zakayev is incurrently not known for certain. He is believed to continue to reside in the UK.
