At the end of 2004, Zhamalayl Yanayev checked in for a flight at an airport outside Vladikavkaz, a city near Chechnya in southern Russia.
Waiting in the departure lounge to board a plane to Moscow for medical treatment, Yanayev was suddenly summoned by security. After that encounter, his family never saw him again. And, as far as we know, neither did anyone else.
It is not clear why Russia’s security services detained him, or why they murdered him, or why they never informed his wife or relatives that he was dead, but the general nature of his offence is pretty obvious: he was of fighting age, male and Chechen. He was inconvenient.
