2005 raid on Nalchik

Militant attack during the Second Chechen War in Russia

The 2005 raid on Nalchik was a raid by a large group of Islamic militants on Nalchik (pop. 250,000), in the Kabardino Balkar Republic (KBR) of southern Russia, on 13 October 2005. A number of buildings associated with the Russian security forces were targeted. At least 80 people (142 according to official tallies), including at least 14 civilians, were reported to have been killed during the ensuing shooting, which continued into the next day. At least 240 were wounded.

After the raid, Arsen Kanokov, the newly appointed president of the KBR, admitted publicly that it could have been triggered at least in part by brutal crackdowns by local police. The Nalchik attack came just over a year after the Beslan school hostage crisis, for which Basayev also claimed responsibility. An Ingush militant, Ilias Gorchkhanov, leader of the Ingush Jamaat, was said to have been one of the attack's commanders on the ground. The trial proper began in March 2009 in a specially constructed and heavily guarded building in Nalchik and continued as of June 2011. Fifty eight men are being prosecuted, one of the original 59 accused having died in custody in 2008. The men are indicted on a range of charges including murder, hostage taking, terrorism and illegal possession of weapons. Nine of the men admit illegal possession of arms, one admits being part of a "criminal armed group" and one has admitted "partial guilt". The rest deny all charges. During hearings the defendants are held in four or five groups in metal cages and they address the court via microphones placed at the front of each cage. Several of the men on trial have claimed they were tortured in custody. The defendants have used court hearings to threaten their enemies in the police and security forces. In February 2011, one of the accused said that Khachim Shogenov, the former interior minister of Kabardino Balkaria, should be called to give evidence "while he was still alive." He added: "Such people will be killed in this republic. By the time this process ends, praise be to Allah, they will all be destroyed."

The Russian government and the terrorists have published significantly different casualty figures. According to the Russian officials, 89 attackers were killed and 36 captured, while 35 federal servicemen and 14 civilians also died. At 15:40 GMT, CNN reported that 97 people were hospitalized in connection with the attack, according to the Russian Health Ministry. According to the Basayev's later statement, 37 attackers died in the operation. The rebels put the federal losses at over 300 dead and wounded. In his statement, Basayev blamed guerrilla casualties on the information leak before the operation.

According to news reports, some of the dead classified as "terrorists" were actually civilians accidentally killed in the crossfire. There were also reports that young men have simply vanished without a trace despite having no proven connection to the raid, some other allegedly detained in the day after the raid and then presented dead as the killed insurgents. Despite public protests by family members, the bodies were not released. A year later, many relatives were still demanding in vain that authorities return for proper burial the bodies of 92 men allegedly killed during the attacks; a number of families have taken cases to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to petition for the return of bodies. In June 2007 the government said it had cremated the bodies of the 95 suspects on 22 June 2006. The relatives argue that the decision, taken by one of investigators for the Southern Federal District, Aleksei Savrulin, and former Deputy Prosecutor for the Southern Federal District Nikolai Shepel, was unlawful.