By Yevgenia Borisova, Staff Writer
The Moscow Times

Last December in Grozny, Dima Nikitenko, 24, was beaten, stabbed and had his throat slashed by men in camouflage who he has reason to believe were federal troops. Two months later, his mother was killed, again apparently by federal troops, the same day that she had gone to see the investigator looking into the attack.

If Nikitenko ever had any hope that the attackers would be found and punished, it likely died last weekend when the investigator, Alexander Leushin, was killed when his car hit a land mine.

Leushin, an investigator for important cases with the Grozny prosecutor's office, and colleague Akhmed Khamzatov were killed Saturday when the land mine exploded in the Staropromyslovsky district of Grozny, a representative of the Chechen prosecutor's office said Monday.

Russian and Chechen prosecutors, investigators and policemen are frequent targets in Chechnya. Grozny deputy prosecutor Vladimir Moroz was killed in April. Only in the last week, Rashid Bikvayev, an investigator also with the Grozny prosecutor's office, was wounded in Grozny; the head of the criminal investigation department in Gudermes, Imran Termukayev, was killed in Gudermes; and five policemen were wounded in Gekhi.

The killings of Leushin and Khamzatov are being investigated as terrorism, the prosecutor's office said, indicating that Chechen fighters are suspected. But human rights activists say it is just as likely that some investigators are killed by troops trying to avoid justice.

Lipkhan Bazayeva, a representative of the Memorial human rights group, which tried to assist Nikitenko and his father in finding the attackers, said most investigations in such cases go nowhere.

"We have the impression that such cases are being investigated only formally and very passively. Investigators are afraid to deal with them. Lawyers who try to defend the victims also are being threatened," Bazayeva said Monday by telephone. "We have several letters here saying that investigators and lawyers simply cannot fulfill their duties in Chechnya because they are being threatened by those who commit the crimes. And many crimes are committed by the federal troops."

As of September, only 15 Russian soldiers had been sentenced this year for crimes in Chechnya, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported. Eight of the 15 were convicted of murdering civilians while drunk.

Nikitenko was attacked when he left his family's home near the Grozny airfield on Dec. 18 to get bread and a pack of cigarettes at the nearest corner kiosk. Several armed men, wearing masks and camouflage, were there.

"One of them cocked his machine gun and told me to lie down," Nikitenko said in an interview in Nazran, Ingushetia, last spring. "He said that a Russian soldier had been killed here recently."

Nikitenko said that he was a Russian and produced his documents, but the men did not look at them.

"No, they were not drunk, but they were not sober either. They were either on drugs or high, because they looked very strange. I think they were 'kontraktniki' [contract soldiers]. They were swearing heavily, like they had just come from prison.

"They told me that everyone who lives here, whether Russian or Chechen, helps the rebels equally, and they kicked me in the face, breaking my nose, punched me in the mouth, and then started to stab me."

The men stabbed Nikitenko in the neck, cheek, leg and arm. As he lay bleeding on the ground, they told him not to move for four hours, he said, but as soon as they turned to go, he tried to crawl away.

"One returned and kicked me in the ribs -- two were broken. And he told the smaller man: 'Let's cut his head off and put it on this corner so that everyone can see what happens to locals if our men are killed.'

"I saw that I was not going to die. There was no one around. I started to shout loudly. One said, 'Shut him up or people will come and we could have problems later.' Another one hit me in the neck and then stabbed me in the head, I still can't feel anything on the right side [of the scull]."

They slashed Nikitenko's throat, too, but did not succeed in severing his head.

"I pretended to have convulsions as if I were dying and they left. I fainted. Some time later I regained consciousness and started crawling home. A Chechen neighbor saw me and carried me home."

Nikitenko spent two weeks in a local hospital. He said Leushin, who was appointed to investigate the case, visited him there and told him that when he was out, he would take him to the military unit stationed nearby so that he could point out his attackers.

"Leushin said that perhaps I might recognize them by their shapes," Nikitenko said.

"I asked him if he could guarantee that I would sleep in peace after that, that no one would come and blow me up with grenades."

Nikitenko quoted Leushin as replying: "How could I guarantee you anything when I am afraid for my own life?"

When Nikitenko got out of the hospital, he moved to Nazran out of fears for his safety. His mother went to Leushin in mid-February and asked to be given the case files so that she could send them to Nazran, in the hope that the case could be investigated there. Leushin told her to come back the next day because he needed time to get them ready.

That night, men in camouflage and masks came to the family home. They shot Nikitenko's mother, who tried to run away but was killed in the next room. His father, who saw the murder, managed to get out a window and flee through the gardens. He was wounded in the leg, but survived.

In the summer, Nikitenko moved to St. Petersburg, where his family had friends, according to Memorial's Bazayeva. He has not been in contact with Memorial since.

The representative of the Chechen prosecutor's office, who did not want to be identified, said that Nikitenko's case was passed over to another investigator after Leushin's death. "The investigation is still on," he said Monday.