RUSSIA - July 11 - Army Actions In Chechnya Rebuked.

Acting Commander of Russian forces in the North Caucasus Gen. Vladimir Moltensky says his soldiers committed "widespread crimes" during a "mopping up" operation on July 3-4 when they inflicted beatings and electric shocks on 1,500 civilians and looted homes in two villages. (After mine blasts had killed 11 Russian soldiers 50 km west of Grozny, hundreds of the Interior Ministry soldiers arrived in a column of more than 100 armoured vehicles to Kurchaloi and Assinovskaya villages, disarmed the village police, detained local officials and religious leaders and rounded up all local male population between the ages of 15 and 55 for supposed document checks. The soldiers took them to "filtration" points and made them lie face-down in the sun all day, or crowded them into open pits. Although no deaths were confirmed, three people are still missing). Moltensky assembles his subordinate officers at the main military base in Khankala near Grozny and in front of reporters says: "Those who conducted the searches did so in a lawless fashion, committing numerous outrages and then pretending that they knew nothing about it". (Moscow's usually uncritical administrator in Chechnya Akhmad Kadyrov rebuked the military move on July 9, saying the local population was beaten and tortured. Some were not released until their families paid bribes. He said: "Not a single bandit was detained, not a single rifle was confiscated". Civilians "were humiliated, insulted and robbed". Initially, Moscow officials brushed off complaints about the roundups, with Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov calling them "tough but necessary special operations". On July 10, Pres. Putin aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky acknowledged that soldiers might have committed offences in the villages, adding that the matter was under investigation).