AT FIRST glance the grainy video seems to show a routine reprimand being meted out by the security forces of Ramzan Kadyrov, the 30-year-old president of Chechnya, to one of their men. But the scene soon turns sinister.

Standing to attention in front of three officers, the soldier suddenly jerks and screams as a powerful jolt of electricity is passed through some wires attached to his fingers.

Another shock follows. He twists in agony and hunches forward, crying out again and again as the punishment is repeated.

The soldier’s torture, carried out on the officers’ orders in front of a dozen comrades watching in silence, was recorded on a mobile phone in one of three videos obtained by The Sunday Times which seem to corroborate human rights campaigners’ allegations of growing abuse by Kadyrov’s forces.

The shock treatment was delivered in apparent retribution for the theft of some oil that the victim is accused of having sold illegally.

“We’ll show you what happens to those caught stealing oil,” yells the man administering the shocks. “We’re not going to kill you or let you live. We’ll keep you in this state for two months until you’re neither a man nor a woman.”

He then turns to the onlookers. “You watch and be warned of what happens to those caught stealing oil. I’ll either kill you or leave you like this,” he said.

The video and two others, featuring a man being beaten with a stick as he sits on a bed and a woman being kicked on the ground where she is lying tied to a flagpole, are believed to show forces controlled by Kadyrov, who was rewarded for his loyalty to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, in April when he was made leader of war-torn Chechnya.

According to human rights campaigners, Kadyrov – a flamboyant former boxer who invited “Iron” Mike Tyson, the ex-world heavyweight champion, to watch a competition at his club two years ago – is presiding over a republic of fear. His militias have been accused of abducting, torturing and executing opponents with impunity.

The war launched by the Russians in 1999 is finally over, life is being slowly rebuilt and Kadyrov has launched an ambitious reconstruction programme, which has earned him praise even among his critics.

But opponents say that by backing Kadyrov, who keeps a lion and tiger as pets, Putin has left Chechnya at the mercy of a despot backed by thousands of heavily armed men who have been brutalised by years of war. Kadyrov, whose father, the former president, was killed three years ago, has vehemently denied claims that men loyal to him are to blame for crimes committed against suspected rebel Chechens.

Now that mobile phones with tiny video cameras have become common in Chechnya, the perpetrators of abuses often record them and use the footage to boast about their exploits to their fellow militia men. The videos are passed on to ordinary citizens in what human rights campaigners claim is a deliberate tactic to intimidate the population.

“It’s impossible to keep statistics, since many victims do not survive to tell of their ordeal, while others are too scared to talk once they are released,” said a leading rights campaigner.

“Abuse is commonplace. Once detained it’s normal for the accused to be severely beaten, tortured and given electric shocks. Life is better than it was during the war, but people still live in fear. I’ve no doubt that the videos are authentic, not least because I know some of the people in them.”

In the second video, a Chechen suspected of having links with the rebels is severely beaten during questioning by a burly man. The attacker’s black uniform, Chechen sources say, belongs to the security forces.

Viciously striking his prisoner with a rod on his legs, arms, hands, shoulders and ribs, the officer screams at the detainee, demanding to be told the whereabouts of a secret arms cache. Seated on the edge of a metal bed in what looks like an improvised cell, the victim howls in pain and tries in vain to shield himself from the blows. He begs his jailor to stop and denies any knowledge of a rebel arms depot.

In the short third clip, a Chechen woman who, locals say, was falsely accused of helping to kidnap a child, is blindfolded on the ground with her hands tied. Two men speaking Chechen are seen kicking her and hitting her with a rod. The men laugh as she moans.

“It used to be Russians against Chechens,” said a source in Grozny familiar with the videos. “Now it’s Chechens against Chechens. Kadyrov and his thugs are kings. They can get away with anything.”

Mobile-phone footage which showed Malika Soltayeva, a young pregnant Chechen woman, being abused by some of Kadyrov’s men was handed to his office a year ago. Then prime minister, Kadyrov vowed to investigate the incident, in which Soltayeva had her head shaved and was beaten, kicked and made to dance naked – a humiliation that was followed by a miscarriage.

Three members of the security forces were accused but charges were dropped after Soltayeva received threats, according to campaigners. The men, who faced up to six years in jail, were let off after apologising to her.

Asked about the latest footage last week, Kadyrov’s staff were dismissive. “I’ve seen similar videos,” said Lyoma Gudayev, a spokesman for the Chechen president. “They’re put out by the rebels and first impressions usually turn out to be misleading. It’s all part of an information war being waged against us.”

Republic of fear

The Kadyrovsty, as the president’s militias are known, have been accused of:

Running illegal detention centres where witnesses claim to have seen people scorched with blowtorches

Holding detainees without food or water in open-air pits

Kidnapping relatives of suspected rebels and holding them for ransom

Torturing and murdering people suspected of links with rebels

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