Disrupting Escalation Of Terror In Russia To Prevent - Belfer Center ...

2003 and 2004, another police officer, Bashir Pliev, drove Basayev to Ingushetia in his own car,
and also tipped him off to upcoming police raids and helped to deliver weapons. 69 The highest-
ranking of the alleged turncoats is the former interior minister of Ingushetia, Daud Korigov.
Korigov, who served as the republic’s interior minister from 1997 to 1998 and held the rank of
police colonel, gave rebels the use of a house he owned in the Chechen capital, Grozny, and was
even seen there among the militants’ captives, according to Vyacheslav Izmailov, a former army
major who has worked on commissions to resolve kidnappings in Chechnya. 70
In Dagestan, the republican Interior Minister Adilgirei Magomedtagirov admitted
publicly in March 2005 that a mole inside his Ministry had provided the local militants with the
list of senior officers of police and the republican prosecutor’s office with their addresses and
phone numbers. The list was found on a militant killed by the Dagestani police on March 6,
2005. The website of the Chechen rebels, kavkazcenter.com, several days later posted the list of
the details on 140 Dagestani officers on the Internet, saying that it had been given to militants by
senior police officials in exchange of guarantees of personal safety.
There have also been cases in which Chechen extremists either changed their identity or
surrendered to join pro-Moscow police forces in order to feed information to their accomplices,
or even to participate in attacks staged by the extremists. Policemen have been repeatedly caught
trying to sell arms to extremists, while cases of policemen either letting vehicles pass without
inspection or issuing fake passports or residence registrations in exchange for bribes are reported
almost monthly. Most recently, two policemen were arrested in Chechnya for not only selling
arms to extremists, but also using their authority to ship these arms for them and give sanctuary
to warlords.
69 Irina Khalip, “Provodnik Basayeva: Im Okazalsya Sotrudnik Otdela Sobstevennoi Bezopasnosti MVD
Ingushetii,” Novazya Gazeta, August 18, 2004.
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