Murder
On December 8, the abductees' heads were found in a sack on the side of a highway in the Chechen village of Assinovskaya, close to the border with Ingushetia, and were soon identified by one of the victims' bodyguards. In a press conference on December 10, Chechnya's vice-president, Vakha Arsanov, showed a recovered videotape in which the kidnappers forced the four to dress in military uniforms and confess in Russian to spying for "German, English and Israeli special services and the CIA." According to Chechen security forces, the hostages were executed at an unused factory south of Grozny after a rescue operation that went wrong; it was suggested that their death was a show of defiance to the authorities from the kidnappers. Family members said the abortive rescue attempt "ruined delicate negotiations" that were going on between Granger and the kidnappers, and also criticized an unnamed news agency that had given out details of where the hostages were being held shortly before the operation.
On December 29, the Chechen officials found the four headless corpses on the outskirts of Grozny, reportedly after paying $2,000 a piece for the return of the bodies. That same day, the remains of the engineers were transported by Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Turpal-Ali Atgeriyev to Dagestan and flown through Azerbaijan to Gatwick Airport near London. According to the inquest by the Westminster Coroner's Court, the kidnapped men were starved of food and water, and had been repeatedly beaten with rifle butts before being decapitated with a large knife. Examination of the bodies showed all the men had been extremely malnourished and Rudi Petschi had suffered particularly horrific injuries.
Read more about this topic: 1998 Abduction Of Foreign Engineers In Chechnya
Famous quotes containing the word murder:
“What drivel it all is!... A string of words called religion. Another string of words called philosophy. Half a dozen other strings called political ideals. And all the words either ambiguous or meaningless. And people getting so excited about them they’ll murder their neighbours for using a word they don’t happen to like. A word that probably doesn’t mean as much as a good belch. Just a noise without even the excuse of gas on the stomach.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.”
—Anonymous. Late 19th century ballad.
The quatrain refers to the famous case of Lizzie Borden, tried for the murder of her father and stepmother on Aug. 4, 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts. Though she was found innocent, there were many who contested the verdict, occasioning a prodigious output of articles and books, including, most recently, Frank Spiering’s Lizzie (1985)
“There’s in people simply an urge to destroy, an urge to kill, to murder and rage, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated, and grown will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again.”
—Anne Frank (1929–1945)