BY MATTHEW LUCAS<\/p>\n
The soldiers beating on the thick iron door yelled for Isa Sakaev to surrender.\u00a0 Two of his sisters, Khutmat and Lursa, barefoot and in the clothes they had slept in, stood outside, surrounded by Federal and pro-government Chechen troops.<\/p>\n
Isa, a law student in Moscow, knew that it was dangerous for him to visit Chechnya.\u00a0 According to another sister, Gistam, he still came often to see his family, even though he knew what happened to people who were taken away.<\/p>\n
Isa refused to surrender to the soldiers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen other people decide to do whatever they want with you,\u201d Gistam said, \u201cI think its better to die.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within moments he would be killed and his sisters led off to prison.<\/p>\n
The day after her brother was killed in Grozny, the news alleged that Isa was the \u201cright hand\u201d of Shamil Baseyev, an infamous rebel commander, according to his sister Gistam.\u00a0 Kommersant, an online Russian newspaper, also linked him to Arbi Baraev, a renegade Chechen commander implicated in the 1998 murder of foreign engineers in Chechnya.<\/p>\n
Her brother was never involved in the fighting, Gistam said.<\/p>\n
To Gistam, \u201cIsa was the most peaceful person I have seen in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was very honest,\u201d she said of her brother, \u201cvery gentle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gistam talked about the apple trees that Isa planted near their home outside of Grozny and how he cared for their mother when she was sick.\u00a0 The spring after Isa\u2019s death, when the apple trees were in bloom, Gistam found her mother sitting in the kitchen, looking out at his trees, crying and begging God to protect the rest of their family.<\/p>\n
Gistam quietly withdrew.<\/p>\n
The day before his death, Isa and his sister Khutmat were together in Chechnya, waiting at their sister Lursa\u2019s office in Grozny for her return.<\/p>\n
As they waited, Isa told Khutmat about a dream he had.<\/p>\n
He had seen himself in his dream, he told her, sitting on the grass eating with his friends who were already dead.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you eat together with dead people,\u201d Gistam said, \u201cyou are going to join them very soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was getting dark when Lursa returned.\u00a0 Knowing it was unsafe to travel at night, even the 20 minutes to their house, they decided to sleep at the office.<\/p>\n
That evening, according to Gistam, the two sisters watched as Isa paced the room.\u00a0 After looking out the window, he sat down, but refused to eat.<\/p>\n
After dinner, Khutmat and Lursa, thinking little of Isa\u2019s behavior, went to bed.<\/p>\n
Waking up early for morning prayers, Isa discovered the office was surrounded by Russian and pro-government Chechen soldiers.<\/p>\n
Quietly, he went into his sisters\u2019 room.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease get up,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have guests.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGuests? What guests?\u201d asked Lursa. \u201cIt\u2019s not time for guests.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI expected them,\u201d Isa said. \u201cThey are here so please get up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking through the window, Lursa saw the soldiers, Russian and Chechen, taking up positions around the office.<\/p>\n
She began to cry.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t cry and don\u2019t be frightened,\u201d Isa told her.\u00a0 \u201cIt will not help.\u201d<\/p>\n
He told his sisters to open the door and surrender to the soldiers, but refused to go with them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment they are strong, they have guns, they have power and I have nothing,\u201d he told them.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t want them to take me away.\u201d<\/p>\n
He knew that if he were detained, Gistam said, he would disappear.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re at the wrong place at the wrong time,\u201d Gistam said, \u201cyou\u2019re already dead.\u00a0 This is what happened to all his friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
As his sisters left the building, he barricaded himself into a room.<\/p>\n
The soldiers flooded into the building.\u00a0 Expecting Isa to be armed, they yelled for him to open the door and surrender.<\/p>\n
He refused.<\/p>\n
The soldiers pushed grenades through the iron-barred window.<\/p>\n
Seconds later, the explosion shook the building, filling the room with smoke.<\/p>\n
The soldiers sent his sister Khutmat into the room to see if Isa was still alive.<\/p>\n
The bitter smoke burned her throat, suffocating her.\u00a0 She began coughing.\u00a0 Unable to see, she knelt on the ground and blindly felt along the floor.\u00a0 Finally, her hand rested on Isa\u2019s body.<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t moving.<\/p>\n
She pulled away, his blood thick on her hands.\u00a0 She fled the room.<\/p>\n
The soldiers pulled open the door and windows, allowing the cold winter air to flush out the pungent smoke.<\/p>\n
When it cleared, they could see Isa\u2019s body in a heap on the floor.<\/p>\n
The soldiers went through his pockets, looking for an identity card.\u00a0 Then they just covered him and left, leaving the body behind.<\/p>\n
That morning, Gistam, then living in a neighboring republic, got a phone call from another family member.\u00a0 They told Gistam that soldiers had detained Isa, not realizing that he was already dead.<\/p>\n
It took Gistam four hours to reach Grozny.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went directly to the place where this mop up operation was held,\u201d Gistam said.\u00a0 \u201cI just saw an empty office that was completely destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy that time,\u201d she said, \u201cmy brother was already exploded.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her two sisters were already arrested and taken away.<\/p>\n
As Gistam stood helplessly outside the ruined office building, a neighbor approached.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they saw me, they came to me,\u201d she said, \u201cand they told me that my relatives came to pick up the body of my brother.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI just left everything and ran home.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I arrived,\u201d she said, \u201cmy brother, he already was on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family had wrapped Isa\u2019s body in a blanket to prepare him for funeral rites.<\/p>\n
Gistam knelt down to see her brother, but her relatives pulled her away.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey didn\u2019t allow me to pick up the blanket and see his face,\u201d she said. \u201cThey just took me away.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s better you not see him,\u201d they told her.\u00a0 \u201cKeep him in mind as if he is alive.\u00a0 If you see him right now, it will be hard for you to forget.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her family led her out of the room, away from the body of her only brother.<\/p>\n
Outside, Isa\u2019s apple trees, stood bare, crippled by the harsh Chechen winter.