The personality and biography of Zelimkhan Yandarbiev are rather controversial. Someone considered him a fighter for the freedom of the Chechen Republic, and some considered him a cruel criminal and terrorist. This article will cover the basic facts of his life and work.
The beginning of the way
Zelimkhan Abdulmuslimovich Yandarbiev was born in the Kazakh SSR, East Kazakhstan region. Having matured, he moved to the Chechen Republic, to his clan settlement Starye Atagi. At seventeen, he worked at a construction site as a bricklayer. In 1972 he was called up for military service. After serving for two years, he worked in an oil well as an assistant driller. He graduated in 1981 from the philological faculty of the university with a degree in Chechen language and literature in Grozny.
Below is a photo of Zelimkhan Yandarbiev.
After receiving a diploma of higher education, he worked as an editor, and then as the head of the production department of the Chechen-Ingush Book Publishing House. He joined the Communist Party.
Literary activity
Initially, Yandarbiev was engaged in literary work. He was a poet and writer who worked in the Chechen language. Including created literature for children. In the years of Soviet power, he began to write works of art. He continued to write after the proclamation of independence of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, occupying leading posts. He was the main ideologist of free Chechnya.
Poems by Zelimkhan Yandarbiev were published in various collections. He published the first two collections of poems "Plant, comrades, trees", "Zodiac Signs" in 1983. Around the same piriod, he was a member and also led the Prometheus literary circle in the capital of Chechnya, where, according to him, "he wrote poetry in the Chechen language, which for many party officials was equated with anti-Soviet propaganda." In 1984 he became a member of the Union of Writers of the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Republic, in 1985 - the Union of Writers of the USSR. In 1986 he was elected editor-in-chief of the children's publication Rainbow. Yandarbiev also released a collection of poems “Give a Tune to a Melody,” and a presentation of his play was made at the local theater. He devoted two years to improving his writing skills at literary courses at the University of Moscow. In 1990, the fourth collection of his poems, Life of Law, was born. In 1995, a book of his memoirs “Ichkeria - War of Independence” was published in Lviv. In 1997, the sixth book of his poems was published in the book publishing house of the Republic of Dagestan. Songs of Zelimkhan Yandarbiev also appeared in publications in the Chechen language.
Also, the following works were published by this author: “In anticipation of independence”, “The Holy War and the problems of the modern world”, “Whose Caliphate?” , “The True Face of Terrorism”, poetry collections “The Ballad of Jihad”, “Gallery of Memoirs”.
Party activity
Yandarbiev became the leader of the Chechen nationalist movement when the Soviet Union began to crumble. In July 1989, he founded the Bart Party (Unity), a secular democratic party that promoted the unity of Caucasian ethnic groups against "Russian imperialism." In May 1990, he also founded and led the Vainakh Democratic Party, the first Chechen political party to fight for the independence of Chechnya. This party initially represented the interests of both Chechens and Ingush. However, this lasted until the split that occurred after the declaration of independence of Chechnya from the Russian Federation.
In November 1990, he became deputy chairman of the newly formed All-Russian Congress of the Chechen People (NCHCH), which, under the leadership of Dzhokhar Dudaev, supplanted the leadership of the Soviet era. He signed an agreement with Dudaev with Ingush leaders dividing the joint Chechen-Ingush republic into two parts. In the first Chechen parliament, which existed from 1991 to 1993, Yandarbiev headed the media committee. In April 1993, he was appointed vice president of Ichkeria. In April 1996, after the assassination of his predecessor, Dzhokhar Dudayev, he became acting president.
Meeting with Yeltsin
At the end of May 1996, Yandarbiev led a Chechen delegation that met with Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin in connection with the Kremlin’s peace talks, which led to the signing of a ceasefire on May 27, 1996. In 1997, during the signing of the Russian-Chechen peace treaty in Moscow, Yandarbiev famously forced his Russian counterpart, President Boris Yeltsin, to change places at the negotiating table to be accepted as head of a sovereign state.
Chechen Presidential Election
Yandarbiev participated in the presidential elections in Chechnya in February 1997, but lost to the People’s Separatist military leader, General Aslan Maskhadov, receiving 10 percent of the vote and falling in third place, following Maskhadov and Shamil Basayev. Together with Maskhadov, Yandarbiev took part in the signing of a “lasting” peace treaty in Moscow, which, however, did not bring any result.
Conflict with Maskhadov
Support for the population of Yandarbiev Zelimkhan fell sharply in 1998, when he was accused of trying to assassinate Maskhadov. In September 1998, Maskhadov publicly condemned Yandarbiyev, accusing him of importing a radical Islamic philosophy of “Wahhabism” and responsibility for “anti-state activities”, including for anti-government speeches and public gatherings, as well as for organizing illegal armed groups. Subsequently, Yandarbiev joined forces with the radical Islamist opposition against the Maskhadov government.
In August-September 1999, Yandarbiev was chosen as a key figure when the coalition of Islamic militants invaded the neighboring republic of Dagestan to support military operations. This invasion was led by the Islamic International Brigade. At the beginning of the second Chechen war, Yandarbiev went abroad. He traveled to countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, and eventually settled in Qatar in 1999, where he tried to gain the support of Qatari influential Muslims in the struggle for Chechen independence.
International wanted list
After Zelimkhan Yandarbiev was involved in the hostage-taking in Moscow in October 2002, he was placed on the wanted list of Interpol along with other terrorists and criminal figures: Maskhadov, Zakayev, Nukhaev.
Russia made the first of several extradition requests in February 2003, calling Yandarbiyev a major international terrorist who is funded and supported by al-Qaeda. According to federal intelligence services, he was a key link in the Chechen resistance. In June 2003, his name was subsequently blacklisted by Al-Qaida suspects of the United Nations Security Council Sanctions Committee.
Terrorist activity
Yandarbiev was also accused of assaulting law enforcement officers and subversive activities against federal forces. He played a key role in directing the flow of funds from the Arab states to maintain a radical Chechen group, called the Islamic Special Forces Regiment. This is a terrorist group responsible for taking hostages in a Moscow theater. He was declared the main accomplice and financier of the terrorist attack on Dubrovka, which claimed the lives of more than a hundred people.
In January 2004, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev widely advertised the BBC’s documentary “Four Smells of Paradise” in Qatar, in which filmmakers called him “the spiritual leader of the Chechens and a poet on the road to jihad.”
Murder in Qatar
In February 2004, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was killed in a bomb explosion planted in his SUV in the capital of Qatar, Doha. Yandarbiev was seriously injured and died in the hospital. His thirteen-year-old son, Daud, was also seriously injured. Some media reported that two of his bodyguards were killed, but this was not confirmed.
Initially, it was not clear who was responsible for the murder of Zelimkhan Yandarbiev. Suspicions fell on the foreign intelligence service and other Russian intelligence agencies, which denied any involvement. A version of internal hostility among the leadership of Chechen rebels was also considered. The unrecognized Foreign Ministry of Aslan Maskhadov condemned the attack as a “Russian terrorist attack,” comparing it to the 1996 attack, which killed Dzhokhar Dudayev. The car bomb that killed Yandarbiyev ultimately led to Qatar's first counter-terrorism law, which stated that engaging in terrorist activities would be punishable by death or life imprisonment.
Who killed Zelimkhan Yandarbiev?
The day after the assassination, Qatar authorities arrested three Russians in a villa at the Russian embassy. One of them, the first secretary of the Russian embassy in Qatar, Alexander Fetisov, was released in March due to his diplomatic status. The other two, GRU agents Anatoly Yablochkov (also known as Belashkov) and Vasily Pugachev (sometimes mistakenly referred to as Bogachev) were charged with the murder of Yandarbiev, the assassination of his son Daud Yandarbiev and the smuggling of weapons into Qatar. According to Moscow, Yablochkov and Pugachev were secret intelligence agents sent to the Russian Embassy in Doha to collect information on global terrorism. Acting Minister of Defense of Russia Sergey Ivanov promised state support to the suspects and stated that their imprisonment is illegal. There were some suggestions that Fetisov was released in exchange for Qatar fighters detained in Moscow.
Trial
The trial was closed to the public after the defendants stated that the Qatari police tortured them in the first days after their arrest, when they were detained without any contact with the outside world. Two Russians claimed that they were beaten, deprived of food, and security dogs also attacked them. Based on these allegations of torture and the fact that two officers were arrested in an exterior complex owned by the Russian embassy, ​​Russia demanded the immediate release of its citizens. Their interests in court were represented by the lawyer of a law firm founded by Nikolai Egorov, a friend and fellow student of Vladimir Putin at Leningrad State University.
Qatar prosecutors concluded that the suspects received orders to remove Zelimkhan Yandarbiev personally from Sergey Ivanov. On June 30, 2004, both Russians were sentenced to life imprisonment. Upon sentencing, the judge stated that they acted on the orders of the Russian leadership.
Court sentence
The verdict in the Doha court caused intense tension between Qatar and Russia, and on December 23, 2004, Qatar agreed to extradite Russian prisoners, where they will serve life sentences. However, Yablochkova and Puchacheva were welcomed on their return to Moscow in January 2005, but they soon disappeared from the public eye. Russian prison authorities admitted in February 2005 that they were not in prison, but stated that the sentence imposed in Qatar was “inappropriate” in Russia.
There were also other versions of the murder of an influential Chechen terrorist: blood feud or contradictions between the gangs themselves due to control over large cash flows. Both versions were offered on the day of the terrorist attack and the death of Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, but were not confirmed during the trial in Qatar.