Zelimkhan Abdulmuslimovich Yandarbiyev (, romanized: ''Yandarbiev Abdulmusliman-khant Zelimxan''; , also spelled Yandarbin; 12 September 1952 – 13 February 2004) was a Chechen writer and politician who was the second president of the
Chechen Republic of Ichkeria between 1996 and 1997. In 2004, Yandarbiyev was assassinated while he was on a mission to obtain recognition of the Chechen Republic by
Qatar
Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...
.
Life
Yandarbiyev was originally a literary scholar, poet, and children's literature writer, having studied at the
Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in
Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
and co-founding a clandestine literature club which would eventually be banned by the Soviet authorities.
Years later, Yandarbiyev became a leader in the
Chechen nationalist movement as the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
began to collapse. In July 1989, he founded the Bart (Unity) Party, a democratic party that promoted the unity of Caucasian ethnic groups against Russian imperialism and terrorism. In May 1990, he founded and led the
Vainakh Democratic Party (VDP), the first Chechen political party, which was committed to an
independent Chechnya. The VDP initially represented both Chechen and
Ingush until their split after Chechnya's
declaration of independence
A declaration of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another state or failed state, or are breaka ...
from the
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...
.
In November 1990, he became the deputy chairman of the newly formed
All-National Congress of the Chechen People (NCChP), which was led by
Dzhokhar Dudayev and which ousted the Soviet-era leadership. With Dudayev, he signed an agreement with Ingush leaders splitting the joint Chechen-Ingush republic in two. In the first Chechen parliament, from 1991 to 1993, Yandarbiyev headed the media
committee
A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...
. In April 1993 he was appointed as the
Vice President of Ichkeria by Dudayev.
In April 1996, following the assassination of his predecessor Dzhokhar Dudayev, he became the Acting President of Ichkeria. In late May 1996, Yandarbiyev headed a Chechen delegation that met
President of Russia
The president of Russia, officially the president of the Russian Federation (), is the executive head of state of Russia. The president is the chair of the State Council (Russia), Federal State Council and the President of Russia#Commander-in-ch ...
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician and statesman who served as President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1961 to ...
and
Prime Minister of Russia
The prime minister of the Russian Federation, also domestically stylized as the chairman of the government of the Russian Federation and widely recognized as the prime minister, is the head of government of Russia and the second highest ranking ...
Viktor Chernomyrdin
Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin (, ; 9 April 19383 November 2010) was a Soviet and Russian politician and businessman. He was the Minister of Gas Industry of the Soviet Union (13 February 1985 – 17 July 1989), after which he became first chairm ...
for peace talks at
the Kremlin that resulted in the signature of a
ceasefire agreement on 27 May 1996.
In 1997, during the signing of the
Russian-Chechen Peace Treaty in Moscow, Yandarbiyev famously forced Russian President Yeltsin to change seats at a negotiating table so he would be received like a head of sovereign state. Yandarbiyev stood in the
presidential election held in Chechnya in February 1997, but was defeated by the Chechen separatist top military leader, General
Aslan Maskhadov, getting 10 per cent of the votes and landing third behind Maskhadov and
Shamil Basayev. Together with Maskhadov, Yandarbiyev took part in signing of the "lasting" peace treaty in Moscow.
The two Chechen leaders fell out badly the following year, when Yandarbiyev was accused of being behind an assassination attempt against Maskhadov. In September 1998, Maskhadov publicly denounced Yandarbiyev, accusing him of importing the
Islamic extremist philosophy of "
Wahhabism
Wahhabism is an exonym for a Salafi revivalist movement within Sunni Islam named after the 18th-century Hanbali scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. It was initially established in the central Arabian region of Najd and later spread to oth ...
" and of being responsible for "anti-state activities" including anti-government speeches and public meetings, as well as the organisation of illegal armed groups. Yandarbiyev subsequently joined forces with the hard-line
Islamist opposition to Maskhadov's rule.
In August–September 1999, Yandarbiyev was assumed as a key figure behind
the invasion by the
Islamic International Brigade-led coalition of Islamist guerrillas on the neighboring Russian
Republic of Dagestan. At the beginning of the
Second Chechen War, Yandarbiyev traveled abroad to
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
,
Pakistan
Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...
and the
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East, at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a Federal monarchy, federal elective monarchy made up of Emirates of the United Arab E ...
and eventually settled in
Qatar
Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...
in 1999, where he sought to obtain Muslim support for the Chechen cause.
After being accused of involvement in the October 2002
Moscow theater hostage crisis, Yandarbiyev was placed on
Interpol
The International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL (abbreviated as ICPO–INTERPOL), commonly known as Interpol ( , ; stylized in allcaps), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime cont ...
's most wanted list and Russia made the first of several requests for
extradition
In an extradition, one Jurisdiction (area), jurisdiction delivers a person Suspect, accused or Conviction, convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, into the custody of the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforc ...
in February 2003, citing Yandarbiyev as a major international terrorist and financier of the
al-Qaeda
, image = Flag of Jihad.svg
, caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions
, founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden
, leaders = {{Plainlist,
* Osama bin Lad ...
-backed Chechen resistance. In June 2003, his name was consequently added to the United Nations Security Council
Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee's blacklist of al-Qaeda-related suspects.
Yandarbiyev played a key role in directing funding from foundations in the
Arab states of the Persian Gulf in order to support a radical Chechen faction dubbed the
Special Purpose Islamic Regiment, a militant group responsible for the Moscow theater hostage crisis. In January 2004, he was interviewed extensively in Qatar for the
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002 documentary ''The Smell of Paradise'', where the film-makers called him the "spiritual leader of the Chechens and a poet on the road to
jihad
''Jihad'' (; ) is an Arabic word that means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", particularly with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it encompasses almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God in Islam, God ...
."
Assassination
On 13 February 2004, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was killed when a bomb ripped through his
SUV in the Qatari capital,
Doha
Doha ( ) is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor (city), Al Khor and Lusail, it is home to most of the country's population. It ...
. He was fatally wounded and succumbed to his injuries on the way to the hospital.
His 13-year-old son, Daud, was in critical condition but survived. Some reports also added that two of his bodyguards were killed in the blast as well, but this has not been confirmed.
It was initially unclear who was responsible for the blast, but suspicion immediately fell on Russian intelligence agencies
SVR and
GRU, both of which denied any involvement, and cited internal feuding among the Chechen rebel leadership.
Aslan Maskhadov's separatist foreign ministry condemned the attack as a "Russian terrorist attack", comparing it to the 1996 attack that killed
Dzhokhar Dudayev. The
car bomb eventually led to Qatar's first
counterterrorism
Counterterrorism (alternatively spelled: counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and Intelligence agency, intelligence ...
law, declaring lethal terrorist acts punishable by death or
life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is any sentence (law), sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life impr ...
.
The day after the attack, Qatari authorities arrested three Russians in a Russian embassy villa. One of them, the first secretary of the Russian Embassy in Qatar, Aleksandr Fetisov, was released in March due to his diplomatic status. The remaining two, GRU agents Anatoly Yablochkov (also known as Belashkov) and Vasily Pugachyov (sometimes misspelled as Bogachyov), were charged with the assassination of Yandarbiyev, an assassination attempt of his son Daud Yandarbiyev, and smuggling weapons into Qatar. According to Moscow, Yablochkov and Pugachyov were secret intelligence agents sent to the Russian Embassy in Doha to collect information about global terrorism. Russia's acting Defence Minister
Sergei Ivanov pledged state support to the suspects and declared that their imprisonment was illegal. There were some speculations that Fetisov had been released in exchange for Qatari wrestlers detained in Moscow.
The trial proceedings were closed to the public after the defendants claimed that the Qatari police had
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...
d them in the first days after their arrest, when they had been held incommunicado; the two Russians alleged that they had suffered beatings,
sleep deprivation
Sleep deprivation, also known as sleep insufficiency or sleeplessness, is the condition of not having adequate duration and/or quality of sleep to support decent alertness, performance, and health. It can be either Chronic (medicine), chronic ...
and attacks by
guard dog
A guard dog or watchdog is a dog used to watch for and guard people or property against unwanted human or animal intruders. A dog trained to attack intruders is known as an attack dog.
History
Dogs have been used as guardians since ancient ...
s. Based on these torture allegations and that the two officers were arrested within an
extraterritorial compound belonging to the Russian Embassy, Russia demanded the immediate release of its citizens. They were represented by the attorney of the law firm founded by
Nikolai Yegorov, a friend and fellow student of
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...
at
Leningrad State University.
The Qatari prosecutors concluded that the suspects had received the order to eliminate Zelimkhan Yandarbiev from then Defense Minister
Sergei Ivanov personally.
On 30 June 2004, both Russians were sentenced to
life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is any sentence (law), sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life impr ...
; passing the sentence, the judge stated that they had acted on orders from the Russian leadership.
The verdict of the Doha court caused
severe tensions between Qatar and Russia, and, on 23 December 2004, Qatar agreed to extradite the prisoners to Russia, where they would serve out their life sentences. The agents however received a heroes' welcome on returning to Moscow on the same day but disappeared from public view shortly afterwards.
Russian prison authorities admitted in February 2005 that they were not in prison and said that the sentence in Qatar was "irrelevant" in Russia.
Books
He wrote many books, consisting of poetry collections, children's literature as well as "radical interpretation of the theory of
jihad
''Jihad'' (; ) is an Arabic word that means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", particularly with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it encompasses almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God in Islam, God ...
" with titles like ''Whose Caliphate?'' and ''Jihad''.
[Andrew McGregor (15 July 2004)]
"The Assassination Of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev: Implications For The War On Terrorism"
in ''Terrorism Monitor'' Volume: 2 Issue: 14
References
Further reading
Obituary: Zelimkhan Yanderbiyev BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
, 13 February 2004
OBITUARY: Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'', 14 February 2004
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yandarbiyev, Zelimkhan
1952 births
2004 deaths
Assassinated Chechen politicians
Deaths by car bomb
Chechen nationalists
Chechen poets
Candidates for President of Chechnya
Chechen writers
Russian children's writers
People murdered in Qatar
Politicians of Ichkeria
Heads of the Chechen Republic
Vice presidents of Chechnya
Chechen Islamists
Russian people murdered abroad
Soviet poets
Male poets
Soviet male writers
Maxim Gorky Literature Institute alumni
Russian people of Chechen descent
People designated by the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee
Heads of state of former countries
Chechen independence activists
North Caucasian independence activists
European politicians assassinated in the 2000s
Politicians assassinated in 2004