In Caucasus, Responding to a Kidnapping in Kind

They came to the showdown carrying every weapon they could. On one side stood five dozen men, fingers ready on triggers. Staring back at them across a bleak stretch of grass and sparse shrubs were a couple of hundred warriors, guns raised, holding an emaciated prisoner.

Magomed Keligov waited. His face was gray and gaunt, his hair shaggy, his legs shackled. He had seen the sun just once in nearly 12 months. Most of that time he had been fastened to the wall of a cellar by a yard-long chain.

As he stood that summer day in the shadow of the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia, he knew his fate would be decided by the two warring clans: the Chechen group holding him for ransom, and his own family from neighboring Ingushetia, led by his wealthy brother.

When Keligov, 44, was kidnapped in September 1998, the two clans began stalking each other, mounting ambushes, retreating and attacking, picking at each other’s flanks like wild mountain wolves. But Aug. 31, the day of the exchange, had come at last. Sixty warriors of the Keligov clan had come to reclaim their kinsman.

It was not just his life that mattered. It was not just the ransom money. Above all, family honor was at stake. And according to the ruling of the clan elders, vengeance must be taken. They would have Keligov returned to them alive. But they would have blood too.

The scene played out before the Russian invasion of Chechnya last fall. But in many ways it tells as much about the brutality of life in the Caucasus as the current dispatches from the besieged Chechen capital, Grozny. The men of the region, the vainakh, live by traditions as immutable as the mountains’ sheer, dark peaks. In these parts, bravery in violent combat is revered. When the old men swear a feud, it commits the young warriors to spill the blood that family honor requires or to die trying.

As well as guns on their hips, these mountain warriors carry mobile phones. They make death sentences by fax and use Japanese video cameras to record gun battles or issue ultimatums. They speed to vengeance in boxy Russian cars, as chunky and solid as mountain ponies.

Two fraternal peoples share this severe corner of the Earth, the Ingush and the Chechens, the vainakh. The word means “our people.” They are close ethnically and culturally, and bound together by mutual suffering at the hands of Russian czars and Soviet rulers. As neighbors, they were locked in one republic during Soviet times, and all shared the cattle cars when Josef Stalin deported almost the entire population to the arid and hostile steppes of Kazakhstan in 1944. Keligov’s father was among the deportees.

Eight years ago, Chechnya declared independence from Russia. Twice since then, Chechens have gone to war with Russia to defend their independence. They defeated Russian forces in 1996. Last September, war broke out again.

The Bandits Became the Rulers

Chechnya was in effect independent between the wars, but it could not be called a state. Like an ancient society torn by rival warlords, there was no rule but the law of bandits. The fighters who drove the Russian army out of Chechnya more than three years ago split into small armies arrayed around different commanders. Some focused on radical Islamic revolution. Others for the most part engaged in violent crime and kidnappings.

Next door, the tiny Russian republic of Ingushetia became a hunting ground for Chechen bandits, who sniffed out rich Ingush families.

The magnet that attracted them to the Keligov clan was brother No. 4, the family success story: Musa Keligov, born nine years after Magomed. The younger Keligov is the Moscow-based vice president of Lukoil International, a subsidiary of Russia’s largest oil company.

Magomed was in the same business, on a smaller scale: He ran several gas stations in Ingushetia.

On Sept. 15, 1998, Magomed was ambushed while driving alone to Grozny.

The family heard nothing for weeks. Then came a ransom demand: $5 million.

In Moscow, Musa set aside his suit and tie and took a leave of absence from the company. He and his family never considered paying any ransom. Instead he returned to Ingushetia, formed his own small army of crack commandos and vowed to free his brother.

Musa Keligov looks like the businessman he is. His hair recedes. His fingers are plump and his waist is just round enough, beneath his crisp business shirt, that it defies one to picture him as a commando. Yet, when he is armed and clad in fatigues, it would be equally difficult to picture him in his plush Moscow home. From 1984 to 1986, Keligov fought in a special Soviet reconnaissance unit in the Afghan war. Future Ingush President Ruslan S. Aushev was a close comrade in that unit.

Even amid the telling of his intensely personal story, Musa Keligov gives away little of himself. He is still and collected, almost reticent. The events have to be drawn out of him slowly.

Help From High Places

Given his connections, Keligov got any help he needed from the Ingush Interior Ministry. At the final showdown, several members of Ingushetia’s anti-kidnapping squad were present. A colonel with the Interior Ministry, though not present at the exchange, is familiar with what occurred there and confirmed Keligov’s account.

After receiving the ransom demand, Keligov gathered 45 trusted men, relatives and friends of the clan. They set up base across the border in Chechnya not far from the town of Bamut, about 20 miles from Urus-Martan, the vortex of Chechnya’s kidnapping trade. They began training as commandos.

But Keligov still did not know the name of his enemy. The ransom demand had come from a go-between who did not know the kidnappers. In November 1998, he could wait no longer: He had to provoke a response. So he took his small army in 10 cars right into Urus-Martan. Almost immediately, his group found itself surrounded by heavily armed warriors, marked as fundamentalist Wahhabite Muslims by their long, shaggy beards. Each side froze, guns raised. Any abrupt move would trigger a gun battle. The standoff lasted almost an hour until Keligov withdrew his men, confident that news of his visit would reach his brother’s kidnappers.

Still, it took Keligov’s allies and spies several months to trace the gang. The kidnappers were based in Urus-Martan under the leadership of Rezvan Varayev. It took many more months to build up a full picture of the gang. By then, Keligov had the names and photographs of all its members. He discovered that Varayev had three wives. He found out everything he could about the main gang members: where they usually traveled, with whom they met, when and why.

Eighteen days after Magomed Keligov’s kidnapping, a group of Urus-Martan bandits seized three Britons and a New Zealander in Chechnya. The four telephone workers’ decapitated heads were found two months later, discarded in sacks by the roadside.

With these images fresh in his mind, Musa Keligov met Varayev for the first time in early December 1998. The meeting lasted minutes. Keligov said Varayev threatened to kill Magomed unless the ransom was paid, and he offered Keligov a video--for $100,000--to prove that his brother was alive.

A few weeks later, there was another meeting called by the Keligov side. Varayev sent an envoy, who was told by Keligov that Magomed’s 16-year-old daughter had recently died of heart failure and that the family elders blamed the gang for her death. But in that early conversation, Keligov said the clan would not take vengeance for her death if his brother was freed. The envoy repeated the ransom demands to Varayev.

“It was a very difficult time,” Keligov said in an interview. “I was very much afraid of losing my brother. He, of all my brothers, is the most respected. . . . When I was small, I always wanted to be like him, to look like him. He was a judo expert and was much stronger than me. But I remember he always treated me fairly, even though he was much older.”

Throughout Magomed’s captivity, the gang kept warning his family that they would mutilate him, chop his arms off, each time threatening some elaborate torture. But the elders of the clan were adamant. To them the girl’s death meant that blood had been spilled. Vengeance must be taken to satisfy the family honor.

Chechnya’s History of Lawlessness

Chechnya has long been a dangerous place. Its history is tied up in seething resistance to successive powerful invaders.

During the 1800s, Russians fought a 30-year war to win control of the Caucasus for the czar. As 19th century writer Leo Tolstoy told the story, the roads were never safe for the Russians, day or night. Any Russian soldier who ventured unprotected from his fort was killed or kidnapped. The only safe way to travel was in a slow, cumbersome military convoy.

It is not much different today, except the story is told in shocking detail in video excerpts that appear on television. In one, a Russian captive kneels to die. The camera wielded by one of his Chechen captors zooms in for a close-up as a coarse, thick blade goes into action. The man’s agony is conveyed in his guttural, fluttering final grunts. And then someone’s fist grabs the severed head by the hair and holds it up for display.

In another, a crying Russian holds up his hand so that his Chechen captor can shoot off his fingers one by one.

The Chechens’ attacks on and kidnappings of Russians, their perpetual enemy, is an almost inevitable result of the many acts of cruelty and violence on both sides going back to the 19th century.

But Chechen gangs also have preyed on the people who helped Chechnya. They seized a television team from NTV, the Russian network that had exposed the abuses and blunders of the military during the 1994-96 Chechen war. They kidnapped women from the Soldiers’ Mothers organization, which was the most effective campaigner against that war. Foreign aid workers have been seized, Russian road-builders kidnapped and beheaded, children taken as hostages.

“These are hardened criminals. They are people who have no honor, no god and no consciences,” Musa Keligov said. “Ninety percent of the Chechen population despises them. They’re beasts.”

From the time Keligov and his commandos launched their fight against Varayev’s gang, every day was war. They laid ambushes and were ambushed themselves. Once, a sniper fired on Keligov’s convoy as it sped by. Three bullets struck the metal frame between the front and rear windows, lodging near Keligov’s head.

As the months passed, the Chechens reduced their ransom demand to $1 million.

Keligov’s goal was to take Varayev alive and trade him for Magomed. Two dozen times his men attacked. There were many shootouts, but the bandits always got away. Often, Keligov’s men were attacked in turn.

In an ambush last June, Keligov’s men captured one of Varayev’s gang and squeezed out a deal from him. To make sure that the prisoner would keep his word, Keligov videotaped him begging for his life and promising to betray Varayev. Then Keligov released him.

Keligov had doubts about the scheme. But a month later, the man called and told Keligov the details of Varayev’s planned movements for July 22. Keligov and his men weighed the advantages of taking Varayev at night and on the highway outside Urus-Martan. After long debate, they decided to set their trap during daylight in the center of town, because it was the time and place Varayev’s gang would least expect it.

For the ambush, Keligov brought 13 people with him in three Zhigulis--small Russian cars. He armed himself with his favorite weapon, an AKM-74 automatic assault rifle, the gun he used during the Afghan war. One of his men was assigned to videotape the battle.

The bandits’ convoy approached at high speed. Varayev was in the front passenger seat of the middle car, as the Keligov men had expected. The moment the first car passed, Keligov’s driver sped forward, cutting off the other two cars. Keligov’s commandos leaped out and raced to their positions, firing everywhere but at Varayev. Keligov’s cameraman dropped his camera and grabbed his gun. The fire coming from Varayev’s men was so heavy it transformed one of Keligov’s cars into shattered metal lace. Four of Keligov’s men went down, badly wounded. Four of Varayev’s men went down, killed. Varayev’s brother was hit and seriously hurt.

After 35 minutes of fighting, Keligov’s men gained the upper hand. The battle ended as suddenly as it had begun. The victors took Varayev, the brother, another wounded prisoner and one of the Chechen dead. Then they filmed their lolling trophies.

Varayev and his dying brother were dumped in the trunk of one Zhiguli. The third prisoner, who eventually would die of his wounds, was dumped in the other trunk with the corpse. Keligov and his men abandoned the third, shattered Zhiguli.

Somehow, 14 large armed men, four of them wounded, managed to squeeze into the two tiny cars--three in the front of each, four in the back--for the trip home. Varayev’s brother died next to him in the trunk during the journey back to Ingushetia.

Negotiating the exchange should have been simple at this point--one live hostage for another. But the elders still wanted vengeance for the death of Magomed’s daughter. To them, nothing was resolved if Varayev lived.

Nearly a month passed and the Chechen gang grew tired of waiting to get their leader. They dragged their hostage from the basement. Magomed had lost 60 pounds in captivity. His beard was long and straggly, his hair greasy and unkempt. His eyes were like black hollows in a skull.

The Chechens sent a video to the Keligov family, and the men gathered around the television to watch the image of Magomed in chains and shackles. They were stunned to see him so physically reduced. Once a stocky, athletic fellow, he looked a wretched shadow of a man.

There was a sudden gunshot, then a pool of blood. Magomed had been shot! A scramble for the rewind button. No clarity, rewind again. It looked as if the shot was to the leg.

It was a terrible thing to see a kinsman maimed. The clan elders met to decide their response. The mood was grim, and Musa Keligov felt their decision was uncompromising. They sentenced Varayev to death.

But how to get his brother back in return for a few corpses? Keligov hatched a new scheme and called on the Chechen gang to meet Aug. 31.

On that day, the Chechens sent an envoy to settle the terms of the exchange: one life for a life. First, the envoy was taken to see Varayev. Then he met Keligov. After it was agreed that Varayev would be swapped for Keligov’s brother at a bleak stretch on the Chechen-Ingush border, members of the Keligov clan drove Varayev to a remote site. He must have known what was coming. There, the sentence of the elders was read out, and one of the Keligov clansmen shot him to death.

The two sides then met for the exchange. Keligov, now with 60 men behind him, waited in a minivan, his gun ready. In the back were the four twisted and bloodied corpses he was returning. He could only hope that the envoy sent by the Chechens had a greater desire to live than to uphold a sense of honor.

The Chechen negotiator, Apti Arbitayev, approached and swung casually into the van expecting to find his leader waiting. Instead, he felt a gun shoved against his head and heard Keligov’s voice. “I’m counting to five. Just tell them to let my brother walk across the border.”

Arbitayev raised his radio to call his Chechen comrades.

Fifteen yards away, Magomed waited, surrounded by guns. When the call came through, he was sent forward still shackled, and painfully shambled the short distance to freedom on his injured leg.

His face as still as a pond, Musa Keligov embraced his brother. Magomed’s skin was like an old sack, all bony protrusions. He looked a ruin of a man, sapped of health and strength.

Now the Chechens had no hostage and the Keligovs still held Arbitayev. They had nothing with which to bargain; the tables were turned.

Musa Keligov released Arbitayev with the four corpses and left him with the difficult task of explaining how he had allowed himself to be tricked. He told Arbitayev to drive the van across the border and not to stop within 200 yards or the Ingush would pursue and attack.

Then the two sides departed without a shot fired.

“I’ve always known that if a man is in the right, God will help him,” Keligov said.

The celebrations lasted a week. All the members of the clan gathered to welcome Magomed home. Magomed’s mother broke down when she saw him. His father, like an old mountain tribesman, showed nothing when he embraced the son he almost lost. Many other Ingush, who had been avidly following the clash of the clans, saw it as a victory for their people.

“It was a matter of family honor, and my own personal honor,” Musa Keligov said. “We wanted to break the stereotype and to show that they are not the strongest, most powerful people in the world. There was something stronger. It is God who gives you your brother. You cannot buy him.”

Back in Moscow, several weeks later, he received a death sentence of his own from the Chechens. By fax.

*

Sergei L. Loiko and Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.