All news

Chechen leader says no notification from federal forces on last weekends mop-up

Ramzan Kadyrov expressed the hope the Russian Interior Minister would order a departmental inquiry into the case, find out the officials who had acted insincerely and hold them accountable

GROZNY, April 24. /TASS/. Chechnya’s President R amzan Kadyrov said on Friday he was puzzled by the Russian Interior Ministry's statement, which said the agencies of law and order in Chechnya had been notified of a special operation that took place last weekend in the republican capital Grozny.

"That's really puzzling, as this version fully runs counter to reality," says a statement his press service issued. "It is an established fact that no one among the officials of the Chechen Interior Ministry or its structural subdivisions, including the detective department, had been informed about it either in writing or orally or by telephone."

"All the more so, none of the Chechen Interior officers took part in the operation," Kadyrov said.

He expressed the hope the Russian Interior Minister would order a departmental inquiry into the case, find out the officials who had acted insincerily and appoint responsibility for them.

"If the Interior Minister of the Chechen Republic or the chief of the Interior department for the Stavropol territory provide absolutely contradictory information, this only means one of them is telling untruth," Kadyrov said. "I’m sure the Interior Ministry’s top officials will establish this and punish the one who is guilty."

He said he thought the Russian Interior Minister had not been familiarized with text of the statement based on unverified data. "In the light of it, prompt measures against those who issued it should be taken."

The Russian Interior Ministry reported on the April 19 incident, in which policemen from the Stavropol territory came to Chechnya to detain a man suspected of having opened fire at a resident of the territory.

"As required by the Interior Ministry’s procedural regulations, they /the Stavropol policemen/ informed their colleagues at the department of criminal investigations of the Chechen Interior Ministry on the objectives of their mission to Chechnya," the statement said. "As a result, the local detectives offered their assistance in holding the operation."

Earlier this week, Kadyrov demanded an inquiry into the actions of Stavropol police officers and the commanders of the provisional operative grouping of federal forces in North Caucasus, who carried out the operation.