Movladi Baisarov (1966 – November 18, 2006) was a Chechen warlord and former Federal Security Service (FSB) special-task unit commander. Baisarov was shot dead on the street in central Moscow by members of the Chechen extra-agency guard on November 18, 2006.
Career
During the separatist regime of Aslan Maskhadov, Baisarov was a minor field commander whose forces operated in the Grozny area, described by the Russian Grani.ru website as a "prominent 'Wahhabi'". When the Second Chechen War began, he became attached to Akhmad Kadyrov, who was mufti of Chechnya at the time. Baisarov's former rebels turned into Kadyrov's bodyguards and Baisarov became the commander of the Chechen Presidential Security Service.
In 2004 when Akhmad Kadyrov, the president of Chechnya at the time, was assassinated in a bomb attack, his security force was disbanded. Baisarov's people turned into the secretive Gorets ('Highlander') paramilitary unit, subordinate to the tactical department of the North Caucasus FSB and based in the hamlet of Pobedinskoye (Pobedinskoe), north-west of Grozny. According to Chechen human rights activists, its main function was kidnapping operations and summary executions. In Chechnya it had a reputation of a death squad and Baisarov was believed to maintain a prison and torture chamber in the village.
Conflict with Ramzan Kadyrov
At the end of 2005, the regional FSB was closed down under pressure from Chechen authorities. At that time, Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov decided to dissolve Gorets unit as well and reassign its members to various law enforcement structures under his control. Baisarov was counting on support from his former FSB managers to let him maintain the unit, perhaps by making its members a special unit of Chechen MVD's extra-agency guard department, which he would lead.
When Baisarov refused to be subordinate to Ramzan Kadyrov, his forces were blockaded at their base in Pobedinskoye and the Chechen prosecutor brought back the 2004 criminal case against Baisarov. At that time, ten members of the local Musaev (Musayev) family were kidnapped and killed in Grozny; they were later found in a mass grave. The prosecutor and Chechen UBOP established that members of the Gorets unit kidnapped them and that Baisarov personally shot some of them with a noiseless VSS Vintorez sniper rifle. According to investigators, Baisarov thus avenged the death of his brother Sharani, who also served in Akhmad Kadyrov's personal security service and died with him in the bomb blast.
Baisarov denied his involvement in the murder of the Musaev family members and was eventually declared wanted on those charge but only as a witness. Chechen prosecutors did not place Baisarov on a federal wanted list, and the Chechen MVD only did so three days before Baisarov died but he was also formally not charged with anything. There are also questions about the jurisdiction: if Baisarov was really a senior officer in the FSB (he had identification in his pocket showing him to be a Lieutenant Colonel of the FSB), the military prosecutor or the FSB itself should have summoned him for questioning, not the civil prosecutor.
Death in Moscow
Baisarov went to Moscow and appeared in the Russian media saying that Ramzan Kadyrov was trying to hunt him down to get rid of possible competition. He accused the young Kadyrov of directing numerous political murders and kidnappings. At the same time, he told Kommersant that he was not hiding from anyone in Moscow and was expecting to return to Chechnya soon to become the deputy prime minister in charge of law enforcement.