This interview by Ichkeria.org was published on the Prague Watchdog website. Extracts are given below. Prague Watchdog has complete interview.

From the Russian literature of the 19th century we know well the tradition of digging pits and putting captives in them...

Umar, 26, from the village of Makhkety, talked on the condition of anonymity.

Answer: ... When one of our relatives die we do not shave for two weeks. That's why I was unshaven and they took me. I was put into a BTR armored vehicle and driven to Khottuni, where the 45th military regiment is billeted.

Question: Were you explained the reason for your detention - just because you were unshaven?

Answer: No. They grabbed people as simple as that. If they do not like someone - they get him. Whom do they mostly take? For example, I am a former sportsman, sturdily built. They are most likely to take physically strong people. Perhaps, they have a criterion of their own...

Question: Could you say where is this pit approximately situated?

Answer: In the Vedeno district, near the village of Khottuni, where a 45th regiment is deployed. There are Defense Ministry troops, OMON and intelligence officers in this regiment.

First we were interrogated and beaten. I was kicked and beaten with kalashnikov butts.

There are large pits, where people are being lowered with a rope - they are 5 to 6 meters deep. There are also so-called zindans - 1-meter-deep pits with wooden logs on the top. It is cold in such pits, you cannot sit on the ground. People have to squat there. First, I spent a day in a zindan. There were also two other people. They said they had been sitting there for three days already. They were taken for interrogation, never to come back. Later I found out that their relatives ransomed them.

The next day I was taken for interrogation. Four officers interrogated me for about eight hours. They were constantly asking kind of idiotic questions: "where is Maskhadov," "where are the rebels" or "where do they get arms and money." They beat me all the time. When they became bored of beating me, they wrap me with bare wires and put current through them. It continued until I fell unconscious. When I "switched off," they put me into a deep pit, where I spent four days. There also was an old man, 65, severely beaten up. He said his name was Khalid and that he was from the village of Agishty. He said he had spent five days in the pit. They detained him in the forest, where he was gathering brushwood.

Every day an officer came and said we would be executed at dawn...

My relatives came there and asked them to release me.... At first they demanded 5 kalashnikovs and $2.500 for my release. $1.000 was collected and a kalashnikov was bought from soldiers. They were bargaining for two days. When it became clear that my relatives would hardly bring more, the price was lowered to $1.000 and a kalashnikov.

I was blindfolded and taken out from the pit...

Question: Umar, almost no one can get out of such pits until they are ransomed?

Answer: My relatives managed to collect money. Otherwise, one can sit in a pit for two or three weeks. Even if it is warm outside, it is damp down in the pits. Therefore people fall ill there, and they also are beaten up. If no relatives show up, or if they take a rigid stance towards an individual, he might be sent to Khankala or Mozdok. When the information about filtration camps drew public attention, they stopped bringing detainees to one and the same place. Now in each unit or regiment they have their own "places," where people are being kept.

Question: Could you tell the exact dates of your detention?

Answer: They arrested me in early November last year. I spent five days there. One day in a zindan and four days in a pit.

Question: Not long ago Moscow-based journalist Anna Politkovskaya visited Khottuni. In her reports she repeatedly mentioned terrible pits, where Chechen are being kept in inhuman conditions. And now there is a wave of information lying about her reports, some people say she invented the whole story. That's why such accounts as yours are of great importance. Could you provide more details about staying in the pit? For example, how many people can stay in one pit?

Answer: A pit is like a small room, about 3x4 or 4x5 meters. As for such statements, it is a lie, the entire world knows that people are being killed daily in Chechnya... Perhaps no one wants to see it. Perhaps no one is willing to quarrel with Russia over it... It is easy to find out about it. Foreigners come to us very often. They walk around, take pictures, ask questions. Then they leave, and that's it. And silence follows...

Question: What kind of food do they lower into the pits?

Answer: No food. Sometimes they throw bread into the pits, and that's all. It is very hard to talk about it. Recalling seems unpleasant. Physically a person could endure a lot. It is hard from the moral point of view. Many people break, they do not want to live.

Question: When you were released, were you told to keep your mouth shut?

Answer: They said nothing at all.

Question: That means they are acting with impunity, they have free hands. They are not even afraid of publicity, of this story?

Answer: What are you talking about! Just come to Chechnya, to the Vedeno district, there are about 10 to 15 villages there, and tens of villagers from every settlement. Maybe hundreds came through these pits. And this is only in one district....

Living in mountainous villages is dangerous. Lawlessness reigns there. Russia's troops are always drunk. In broad daylight - when you are staying at home or is heading somewhere - life still goes on, you know - they might bombard the village. We have many people killed in this way. They have nothing to do, boredom, and they start firing at roofs, or shelling the entire village. And someone always dies. Mines are being planted on roads, where people are walking. There are tension wires, so cattle die. And also there is no light or gas, people have to go to forests to pick up brushwood, they must cook and heat their houses. They are not allowed to go there. Those who dare are being shot dead without warning. Or a sniper may play with them, just because he is bored. And no matter who is there - a man or a woman.

As compared wiht the first war, this war is much more brutal. Towards civilians. From the side of soldiers, officers, mercenaries, intelligence agents. I was lucky...

They consider a soldier who kills a Chechen as a hero... I cannot watch TV, there is so much lying about us. And people buy this lie. Every time you turn on your TV set - you hear: Chechens killed, abducted, slaughtered or shot someone. I have never heard on Russian TV that a Chechen saved someone's life, or a Chechen surgeon operated on someone, or a Chechen tractor driver worked out in the field. They present this kind information on purpose, to make people hate us. And keep silent when we are being exterminated.

Question: Do you have special words to address people in the West or free people in non-free Russia?

Answer: I would say only one thing. There are a lot of people - women, children, who need to be protected from barbarians that are staying there. I do not know what pressure shall be exerted on them. I do not ask people to support Chechens in their strife for independence. The international community has to stop the killing of innocent civilians, to stop killing on racial basis. To save their basic right to live...

(Umar sent us the list of Makhkety's residents who went through "pits.")