Shakhid Baysayev

Who was Shakhid Baysayev?

Shakhid Baysayev was Chechen civilian who was forcibly disappeared after being detained by Russian special police forces on the outskirts of Grozny, Chechnya in March 2000. His body was never found.

Shakhid Baysayev was born in 1939 in Podgornoye, a suburb of Grozny in the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In 2000 he worked as an auto mechanic at a local company; he was married with five children.

In the morning of March 2, 2002, the Russian OMON paramilitary police forces, who just suffered significant casualties from a notorious friendly fire incident in this neighbourhood of Grozny, conducted a search operation for suspected rebel fighters who were blamed for the incident. Baysayev was detained on his way to work; a witness described him as being in pain and his appearance suggested that he had been beaten. Russian troops filmed the detention themselves and later sold the videotape to Baysayev's wife Asmart for $1,000; the video showing Baysayev lying on the ground and being kicked by a soldier before being taken away. She was also given a sketched map purportedly showing where her husband was buried; at the site, she found a fragment of cloth that looked like it came from his coat.