MOSCOW, October 24 (RIA Novosti) – Police in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus republic of Chechnya said Thursday they have detained a suspected militant formerly involved with an infamous insurgent group responsible for numerous killings and high-profile kidnappings in the region in the 1990s.
According to the police statement, the 47-year-old suspect, whose name was not disclosed, joined a militant group led by warlord Arbi Barayev – nicknamed “The Terminator” – in 1996. The man was detained in his house in Chechnya by law enforcement officers for his alleged role in the Islamic insurgency in the turbulent region more than a decade ago.
“The police and investigators now need to establish the role of the detainee in the gang, and determine the number of crimes committed and his personal involvement in each of them,” the police said in a statement.
Barayev’s men were reportedly responsible for a catalog of notorious crimes in the region, which was at that time ravaged by civil war. Barayev is believed to have been responsible for the 1996 murder of six foreign Red Cross employees and a number of kidnappings of journalists, among other high-profile crimes.
In 2001, the FSB said Barayev had been killed during a massive raid by Russian security forces in Chechnya. He was related to Movsar Barayev, who played a leading role in a deadly Moscow theater siege in 2002.
In February, the Chechen authorities said that a militant from the Barayev group had turned himself in, but nothing has been reported about his fate since then.
