GROZNY, Russia: The hurried effort to free Elina Ersenoyeva, who was abducted by masked men on the main street of Chechnya's capital on Aug. 17, began like many others.
An account of her disappearance was compiled and circulated. Human rights groups and civil society organizations urged Russia to investigate and secure her release.
She was a journalist and social worker, they said - another victim who had been swept from her life, apparently by Chechnya's pro-Kremlin law enforcement bodies, who had been implicated in many kidnappings before.
But the case has since taken a surprising turn, even by the bizarre standards of violence, organized crime and police brutality that have accompanied Chechnya's lingering war. It turns out Ms. Ersenoyeva, 26, led two lives.
In addition to her public positions, she was a secret bride of Shamil Basayev, the one-footed Chechen terrorist leader and Russia's most wanted man, who died in an explosion on July 11.
Ms. Ersenoyeva's mother said her daughter had not voluntarily married Mr. Basayev, who remained unapologetic and defiant after sending female suicide bombers to Moscow and onto passenger jets, and who had planned the lethal hostage sieges in a Russian theater and a public school. She agreed to marry him, her mother said, only because the separatists had threatened to kill her two brothers if she did not do as they said.
"She was a smart girl, but she was used," her mother, Rita Ersenoyava, said in an interview in the village of Stariye Atagi, south of here, from where she said her daughter was taken for conjugal visits with the terrorist leader. "Now she is gone. I have lost hope. I have lost a golden child."
Whatever the circumstances of Ms. Ersenoyeva's marriage, whether she was Mr. Basayev's occasional hostage or willing wife, her disappearance has offered fresh glimpses into two Chechen netherworlds: the secretive life of Mr. Basayev and the murky circumstances of abductions in the Caucasus, which have persisted even as the pace of combat in Chechnya has slowed.
Ms. Ersenoyeva's mother said her daughter was first taken to Mr. Basayev in late November, after Kheda Saidullayeva, the wife of the president of the separatists' government-in-hiding, told her that she must marry a fighter. The name given was Ali-Khan Abu Yazidov.
Ms. Ersenoyeva agreed. On Nov. 29, a driver, Kazbek, picked her up and drove her to a house in Grozny, the Chechen capital. She entered a room where she was told her fiancé would be waiting, and found Mr. Basayev, her mother said.
"He told her: 'Do not be afraid. I will not do anything bad to you if you do what I say. I do not need you to kill anyone. I need your brains and your head.' "
Mr. Basayev already had had at least three wives, a Chechen woman who was killed in the 1990's, an Abkhaz woman he met while fighting as a mercenary leader against Georgia and a Cossack he was said to have married on Valentine's Day, 2005.
He and Ms. Ersenoyeva were quickly married in an Islamic ceremony and spent three nights together, her mother said. When she left, her mother said, Mr. Basayev gave her tasks on the Internet, including downloading information from a separatist Web site.
But those were details the mother found out later.
When Ms. Ersenoyeva came home, her mother said, she said only that she had eloped and that her husband was away. Much of Chechen society is ordered around male-dominated rituals, and men kidnapping their brides is a tradition that persists.
Over the next three months, her mother said, Kazbek came for Elina three more times. Then Ms. Ersenoyeva announced that her husband had left Russia to find work.
Her mother said she learned the true identity of her son-in-law after he died. (Mr. Basayev was reported killed in July when a small convoy he was traveling in was torn apart by a massive explosion. Russia has said the blast was a special operation to kill him; the separatists claim that munitions the rebels were moving exploded by chance.)
Ms. Ersenoyeva seemed relieved as she watched news of his death, the mother said, and a fuller story came out when officers from the F.S.B., Russia's domestic successor to the K.G.B., visited the house and interviewed her, saying they had had her under surveillance and needed to close their case.
But her problems continued. On Aug. 16, Ms. Ersenoyeva sent a note to human rights organizations, saying she and her family were being harassed by pro-Russian Chechen forces and that she was afraid, according to the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, a private group.
The next day, Ms. Ersenoyeva and her aunt were abducted by masked Chechen men as she commuted to work, according to human rights groups, her mother and the editor of the newspaper to which she contributed. The men put bags over their heads, forced them into cars and sped away.
After a morning of being held in a basement, her aunt was released. Ms. Ersenoyeva was not. Her captors allowed her to make three phone calls in the first day, her mother said. She has not been heard from since, and no one has made any demands or ransom requests.
Her mother has said she does not know who kidnapped her. She has carefully avoided blaming the pro-Kremlin Chechen forces, or kadyrovsty, as they are called, which can be dangerous here.
Further details of her married life and corroboration that she was forced into the union cannot be readily confirmed. Kazbek, the driver, was arrested, the mother said. Abdul Khalim Saidulleyav, the separatist president, was killed in June; his wife has gone into hiding. Mr. Basayev is dead. The authorities have not commented on the case beyond saying that they were notified of the kidnapping.
"We have information that allegedly a kidnapping happened, but we have no real information of it," Nikolai V. Kalugin, one of Chechnya's senior federal prosecutors, said in a telephone interview.
Abductions have been a sinister part of life in Chechnya for more than a decade, and especially since the second war began in 1999. Human rights organizations say at least several thousand Chechens have disappeared in the second war, a slice of the population that has vanished with little trace.
The causes, and the abductors, are many. Ransom kidnappings have long been a macabre business, practiced by separatists and pro-Kremlin Chechens alike. Human rights organizations and Chechen civilians say the kidnappings have also become insidiously institutional, an oft-used mechanism of state power.
Suspected militants or their supporters, they say, are seized for interrogation and torture and are secretly killed. Other times, Chechen civilians say, relatives of suspected militants are seized to coerce militants to surrender or inform on their peers. People who have complained about government abuses have also disappeared.
The disappearances have scarred Chechen society and infused it with grief; random interviews with Chechens often yield tales of missing brothers and fathers, men who disappeared while on the roads or from their beds, taken by masked men in the night.
Russia has said it is trying to stop the abductions, and the number of kidnappings each year has declined, although it is still high. Last year, according to Memorial, a Russian human rights group, there were 316 cases, and 151 of the abductees were later released. Memorial reported 103 new cases through June 2006.
But prosecutors have also said that examining cases has been complicated because sometimes people who have been reported as kidnapped have actually fled or joined the rebels, and use the reports of their abduction to cover illegal activity.
In the case of Ms. Ersenoyeva, the authorities seem ambivalent. Mr. Kalugin, the senior prosecutor, said investigators did not begin to check into the reports of the abduction until Aug. 26, more than a week after it occurred.
Center Demos and the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, two private groups who have been active in Chechnya, urged prosecutors to examine the case impartially, regardless of the link to Mr. Basayev.
"We stress that family connections to rebels - be they 'the terrorist No. 1' or a common fighter - by no means justify abduction and an enforced disappearance of an individual," the groups wrote in an open letter on Aug. 26.
Timur Aliyev, editor of the Chechen Society newspaper, to which Ms. Ersenoyeva sometimes contributed articles about social problems, said he was astonished by the entire episode. He said she had given no sign of being a terrorist's bride. She was a quiet and well-read young woman, he said, and her future seemed bright.
But given the lawlessness here and her association with his newspaper, he said, the authorities, or the kidnappers, might move next against him or his newspaper. "I am in a light panic," he said. "I do not know what will happen."
GROZNY, Russia The hurried effort to free Elina Ersenoyeva, who was abducted by masked men on the main street of Chechnya's capital on Aug. 17, began like many others.
An account of her disappearance was compiled and circulated. Human rights groups and civil society organizations urged Russia to investigate and secure her release.
She was a journalist and social worker, they said - another victim who had been swept from her life, apparently by Chechnya's pro-Kremlin law enforcement bodies, who had been implicated in many kidnappings before.
But the case has since taken a surprising turn, even by the bizarre standards of violence, organized crime and police brutality that have accompanied Chechnya's lingering war. It turns out Ms. Ersenoyeva, 26, led two lives.
In addition to her public positions, she was a secret bride of Shamil Basayev, the one-footed Chechen terrorist leader and Russia's most wanted man, who died in an explosion on July 11.
Ms. Ersenoyeva's mother said her daughter had not voluntarily married Mr. Basayev, who remained unapologetic and defiant after sending female suicide bombers to Moscow and onto passenger jets, and who had planned the lethal hostage sieges in a Russian theater and a public school. She agreed to marry him, her mother said, only because the separatists had threatened to kill her two brothers if she did not do as they said.
"She was a smart girl, but she was used," her mother, Rita Ersenoyava, said in an interview in the village of Stariye Atagi, south of here, from where she said her daughter was taken for conjugal visits with the terrorist leader. "Now she is gone. I have lost hope. I have lost a golden child."
Whatever the circumstances of Ms. Ersenoyeva's marriage, whether she was Mr. Basayev's occasional hostage or willing wife, her disappearance has offered fresh glimpses into two Chechen netherworlds: the secretive life of Mr. Basayev and the murky circumstances of abductions in the Caucasus, which have persisted even as the pace of combat in Chechnya has slowed.
Ms. Ersenoyeva's mother said her daughter was first taken to Mr. Basayev in late November, after Kheda Saidullayeva, the wife of the president of the separatists' government-in-hiding, told her that she must marry a fighter. The name given was Ali-Khan Abu Yazidov.
Ms. Ersenoyeva agreed. On Nov. 29, a driver, Kazbek, picked her up and drove her to a house in Grozny, the Chechen capital. She entered a room where she was told her fiancé would be waiting, and found Mr. Basayev, her mother said.
"He told her: 'Do not be afraid. I will not do anything bad to you if you do what I say. I do not need you to kill anyone. I need your brains and your head.' "
Mr. Basayev already had had at least three wives, a Chechen woman who was killed in the 1990's, an Abkhaz woman he met while fighting as a mercenary leader against Georgia and a Cossack he was said to have married on Valentine's Day, 2005.
He and Ms. Ersenoyeva were quickly married in an Islamic ceremony and spent three nights together, her mother said. When she left, her mother said, Mr. Basayev gave her tasks on the Internet, including downloading information from a separatist Web site.
But those were details the mother found out later.
When Ms. Ersenoyeva came home, her mother said, she said only that she had eloped and that her husband was away. Much of Chechen society is ordered around male-dominated rituals, and men kidnapping their brides is a tradition that persists.
Over the next three months, her mother said, Kazbek came for Elina three more times. Then Ms. Ersenoyeva announced that her husband had left Russia to find work.
Her mother said she learned the true identity of her son-in-law after he died. (Mr. Basayev was reported killed in July when a small convoy he was traveling in was torn apart by a massive explosion. Russia has said the blast was a special operation to kill him; the separatists claim that munitions the rebels were moving exploded by chance.)
Ms. Ersenoyeva seemed relieved as she watched news of his death, the mother said, and a fuller story came out when officers from the F.S.B., Russia's domestic successor to the K.G.B., visited the house and interviewed her, saying they had had her under surveillance and needed to close their case.
But her problems continued. On Aug. 16, Ms. Ersenoyeva sent a note to human rights organizations, saying she and her family were being harassed by pro-Russian Chechen forces and that she was afraid, according to the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, a private group.
The next day, Ms. Ersenoyeva and her aunt were abducted by masked Chechen men as she commuted to work, according to human rights groups, her mother and the editor of the newspaper to which she contributed. The men put bags over their heads, forced them into cars and sped away.
After a morning of being held in a basement, her aunt was released. Ms. Ersenoyeva was not. Her captors allowed her to make three phone calls in the first day, her mother said. She has not been heard from since, and no one has made any demands or ransom requests.
Her mother has said she does not know who kidnapped her. She has carefully avoided blaming the pro-Kremlin Chechen forces, or kadyrovsty, as they are called, which can be dangerous here.
Further details of her married life and corroboration that she was forced into the union cannot be readily confirmed. Kazbek, the driver, was arrested, the mother said. Abdul Khalim Saidulleyav, the separatist president, was killed in June; his wife has gone into hiding. Mr. Basayev is dead. The authorities have not commented on the case beyond saying that they were notified of the kidnapping.
"We have information that allegedly a kidnapping happened, but we have no real information of it," Nikolai V. Kalugin, one of Chechnya's senior federal prosecutors, said in a telephone interview.
Abductions have been a sinister part of life in Chechnya for more than a decade, and especially since the second war began in 1999. Human rights organizations say at least several thousand Chechens have disappeared in the second war, a slice of the population that has vanished with little trace.
The causes, and the abductors, are many. Ransom kidnappings have long been a macabre business, practiced by separatists and pro-Kremlin Chechens alike. Human rights organizations and Chechen civilians say the kidnappings have also become insidiously institutional, an oft-used mechanism of state power.
Suspected militants or their supporters, they say, are seized for interrogation and torture and are secretly killed. Other times, Chechen civilians say, relatives of suspected militants are seized to coerce militants to surrender or inform on their peers. People who have complained about government abuses have also disappeared.
The disappearances have scarred Chechen society and infused it with grief; random interviews with Chechens often yield tales of missing brothers and fathers, men who disappeared while on the roads or from their beds, taken by masked men in the night.
Russia has said it is trying to stop the abductions, and the number of kidnappings each year has declined, although it is still high. Last year, according to Memorial, a Russian human rights group, there were 316 cases, and 151 of the abductees were later released. Memorial reported 103 new cases through June 2006.
But prosecutors have also said that examining cases has been complicated because sometimes people who have been reported as kidnapped have actually fled or joined the rebels, and use the reports of their abduction to cover illegal activity.
In the case of Ms. Ersenoyeva, the authorities seem ambivalent. Mr. Kalugin, the senior prosecutor, said investigators did not begin to check into the reports of the abduction until Aug. 26, more than a week after it occurred.
Center Demos and the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, two private groups who have been active in Chechnya, urged prosecutors to examine the case impartially, regardless of the link to Mr. Basayev.
"We stress that family connections to rebels - be they 'the terrorist No. 1' or a common fighter - by no means justify abduction and an enforced disappearance of an individual," the groups wrote in an open letter on Aug. 26.
Timur Aliyev, editor of the Chechen Society newspaper, to which Ms. Ersenoyeva sometimes contributed articles about social problems, said he was astonished by the entire episode. He said she had given no sign of being a terrorist's bride. She was a quiet and well-read young woman, he said, and her future seemed bright.
But given the lawlessness here and her association with his newspaper, he said, the authorities, or the kidnappers, might move next against him or his newspaper. "I am in a light panic," he said. "I do not know what will happen."
