AFTER surviving two ferocious wars that claimed the lives of 18 relatives, Dzhambulat Dushayev hoped that today’s parliamentary election in Chechnya, the first in eight years, would herald peace.

The 35-year-old builder from the village of Staraya Sunzha believed the Kremlin’s claim that the election signified a return to democracy, stability and security and even served on the electoral commission supervising the polling. But his faith proved to be tragically misplaced.

Ten days ago he went to wash his car on the outskirts of Grozny, the capital, and invited his cousin Ruslan to come along for the ride. Darkness was falling as he left his house. He called out to his wife Raziat, 30, who is eight months pregnant, to lay the table for dinner. His children Deni, 3, and Amina, 14 months, waved as he left.

On the journey home Dushayev and his cousin came across 10 heavily armed Russian soldiers who had spent most of the day drinking vodka in a wood, apparently to celebrate the end of their tour of duty in Chechnya.

The soldiers had just flagged down three scrap-metal dealers in a small truck. They had dragged two of them from the vehicle and ordered them to lie on the ground.

As Dushayev drove up, they were beating the men with their rifle butts. Some of the soldiers ran towards his car, brandishing Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles.

“They were shooting in the air,” said Ruslan Dushayev. “They dragged us out of the car, threatened us and shouted abuse. They were very aggressive. Dzhambulat was calm. He thought it was an ID check.”

Sure enough, one of the soldiers demanded Ruslan’s papers. He checked them, then ordered Ruslan to run away. As he fled, another soldier fired at him but missed.

Dzhambulat Dushayev was ordered to lie on the ground next to the two scrap-metal dealers who were being kicked and beaten.

What happened next was witnessed by the third scrap-metal dealer, Movsar Munayev, who had been held at gunpoint in the truck by a soldier so drunk that he could barely hold his weapon straight.

“He kept shouting that I had killed his brother and that now he would kill me,” said Munayev, 23. “He wanted money and I gave him all I had as well as my watch.”

The soldier shot out the lights of the truck and reached for a hunting knife strapped to his chest, shouting that he was going to cut off Munayev’s head. His commander intervened but the soldier shot Munayev in the leg and he fell out of the lorry screaming.

“I turned my head to the side and saw the other three men on the ground,” Munayev said. “They were beating them severely and one soldier kept yelling that they had killed his brother.

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