A prison for Taliban supporters in Badakhshan, Afghanistan
Photo: Pavel Kassin
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Russian Talib Would Rather Be Dutch Refugee
Shamil Khazhiev, once a prisoner at the American Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, has requested political asylum in The Netherlands. He arrived in that country on March 26 and told local officials in the airport that he is the victim of harassment by Russian intelligence. He is now living in the Ter Apel refugee accommodation center in The Netherlands.
Khazhiev is one of seven Russian citizens to be held at Guantanamo, all of whom were taken into captivity in Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001 and kept at Kandahar for about a year before transfer to the American base in Cuba. Khazhiev called himself Almaz Sharipov and his true identity was not uncovered until March 2004 when all except one of the prisoners from Russia were returned to their homeland. (Prisoner Ravil Mingazov was suffering from exhaustion and was unable to travel at that time. He remains at Guantanamo to this day.)
Before going to Afghanistan, Khazhiev was a police investigator in Bashkortostan. He had the rank of senior lieutenant and was a graduate of the law department of Ufa University.
The Russian Prosecutor General's Office charged the prisoners returned from Guantanamo with criminal conspiracy, illegal border crossing and serving as mercenaries, since that was an American condition for their return. Then those charges were dropped for lack of evidence.
Geidar Dzhemal, chairman of the Islamic Committee of Russia, told Kommersant that Khazhiev lived in Moscow after his release in an apartment provided by the Islamic Committee. Dzhemal added that Khazhiev worked, earned little and was under continuous surveillance, which upset Khazhiev, although Dzhemal was unaware of any specific incidents between Khazhiev and law enforcement. FSB spokesmen told Kommersant that the harassment charges were “groundless,” although they did not deny that Khazhiev had been “under watch.” He experience no pressure from law enforcement organs, they insisted.
Khazhiev could have expected the attention, had he known the records of the other Guantanamo prisoners. Former prisoners Timur Ishmuadov and Ravil Gumarov were arrested for the explosion of a gas pipeline in Bugulma, Tatarstan, and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Rasul Kudaev was arrested for the 2005 militant attack in Nalchik and is awaiting trial on a number of serious charges. Rustam Akhmyarov and Airat Vakhitov were accused of inciting ethnic hatred in connection with the banned organization Hizb-ut-Tahrir al-Islam, but eventually released for lack of evidence.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 04, 2007
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