EFFORTPOST 'Chechclear' unclear story, going back to 2000 book

Here are stillshots:

Description says:

Another one documenting video made by killers themselves. This is how non-humans dealt with those who got into their hands. According to data from Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, 1815 people were abducted in Chechnya between 1992 and 2000. Bandit groups specializing in taking hostages were led mainly by former commanders - Basayev, Hattab, Barayev, Umarov, Bakyev and Ahmadov brothers.

Video for reference:

Here's longer comment from thecupfrom2girls1cup https://old.reddit.com/r/ClassicDepravities/comments/x8b3be/comment/iyhaeyq/?sort=controversial I recommend reading it, he did really good job - including reaching out people directly involved in some events in Chechnya and mentioned book's author - and describes why he still isn't 100% sure about victim identity.

⠀⠀EARLY SPECULATIONS - FROM 1999 TO 2006 (until Ogrish went down)

Now, online speculations time. I've found mentions of chechclear in very few articles - without name, but either described enough to be sure or undetailed, but likely matching (time, context). They were analizing extremism-related beheading videos being released online as a phenomenon etc. However, I won't link them as despite they were technically scientific articles there was nothing for confirmation. So no valuable info.

One comment from Ogrish - by user Hugh.G.Rection, 4th of November 2004 - was source of reportedly correct story for years. It still is mentioned in various videos, up to 2022. Link at the end:

Although this has been mentioned in passing before, I thought I'd take this opportunity to restate that the Chechen guerilla featured cutting the head off the Russian soldier in the infamous <chechclear> clip is named Salautdin Temirbulatov.</chechclear>

Temirbulatov, notorious in Chechnya for brutality practiced towards POWs, was arrested on 20th March, 2000. In 1996 Russia's office of prosecutor general charged him with murder and banditry, and on 15th February, 2001, Temirbulatov was indicted on charges of torture and murder. Presiding Judge Mukhamed Olmezov said Temirbulatov was "exceptionally dangerous for society" and that he "deserves the death penalty." But citing a decision by Russia's Constitutional Court that only juries can impose the death penalty, Olmezov sentenced Temirbulatov to life in prison.

The <chechclear> clip is one of three executions carried out on the same day by Temirbulatov. Russian secret services have a video tape filming the questioning of four Russian servicemen outside the town of Komsomolskoye on April 12, 1996. Temirbulatov himself shot two of them and then cut the throat of the third serviceman, an un-named 18 year-old conscript to the Russian army.</chechclear>

According to Russia's Channel 2, the clip was bought in September 1999 by the Russian media. Channel 2 was the only station to air this clip in its entirety.

The full video begins with a bearded Chechen guerrilla (Temirbulatov) kneeling on the back of a panicked 18 year-old Russian soldier. There then follows the bloody action that we see in "our" clip. The grotesque video ends with Temirbulatov holding the severed head up to the camera, laughing.

I wanted to trace down earliest possible mention, problem is: Russia didn't have Channel 2 in 1999. Россия-2 didn't exist back then. It may be reference to Россия-1 (Russia-1), as it's Channel 2 in DDTV system and some former names match. I didn't see any specific mention on what documentary it was. Short version with cuts - so longest we currently have - was included in documentary Чечня ХХ век. Террор. Все за други своя ('Chechnya, 20th century. Terror. All for your friends'), but it's 2001 movie. It also depicted other known scenes, including OFEX.

What versions we had that could be better-known (on websites that were popular, not every possible to find)?

Quoting same comment from thecup...:

I have never seen a 5 min version, but there is a slightly longer version that was passed around on KaZaa called 01_5.mpg that was merged with a quick clip of the treestump video. It WAS available on ogrish at one stage.

That's true, but also trace is still available (links at the end). At last in April 2001 there were 2 versions of chechclear on Ogrish:

1. 01_5.mpg as a link to file hosted on http://chechnya.ru (1.3 MB)

2. longer black and white version, cutthroat.asf (381 kB)

KaZaa probably had the first file from the same website. It started in March 2001, and first online mention I've found with link to 01_5.mpg is from February 2001.

Fun fact: 01_5.mpg possibly got someone into trouble, as New Zealand's Office of Film and Literature Classification in 2009 added it to register. Tl;dr: because it 'promotes and supports the infliction of extreme violence and extreme cruelty' and other bullshit you know because of Christchurch video and NZ gov drama. https://archive.org/details/office-of-film-and-literature-classification_802049/mode/2up

Among other versions was e.g. 'Unknown Russian soldier' (hosted on Nausea, mentioned on Ogrish forum) - shortened, black and white, around 8 seconds of actual gore. You can find it, and more Chechen clips, here https://web.archive.org/web/20051028085015/http://thenausea.com:80/elements/Chechenya/ (it's index of files). I've came across another one described only as 'Unknown Russian soldier' which was, like 01_5.mpg, poor-quality Chechclear fragment and tree stump execution. Filename was different, I randomly found it and deleted about week or two ago, didn't know it's something 'lost'/rare (https://archived.moe/b/thread/653426251).

Chechclear.asf was 1.17 MB video considered best version available on Ogrish (you have it in this post unwatermarked).

⠀⠀RANDOM COMMENTS

Post didn't include most prominent false leads, which I may change in some edit, if you're interested. People were messing this case up with Tukchar massacre or OFEX at least from 2004, and combining that with unrelated Yevgeny Rodionov death and 'people who remember a bit longer version'. Same goes for WarLord47 contributions on LiveLeak and search for alleged longer version, apart from how valid reason would it be to take any gore stuff down because of DMCA. It seems it'd be possible to make post about things being anything but chechclear.

In 2009, now non-existent website jArchive (Jihad Archive) posted full version of Tukhchar, apparently unwatermarked. Original links to http://archive.org don't work anymore, only few re-uploads exist.

The good-quality version was first posted on LL by WarLord47, so I guess they could have got it from there. I think if it was in the most viewed (or viewed now) category, then if that legendary longer chechclear was uploaded they should get it, and for sure it would be top few watched videos. Especially that website is from around 2010, so already it was well-known video.

After going through multiple Ogrish forum threads (can link some archived in comments), and not only, it seems that:

1. In 2004 people already were 'remembering they saw a longer version' (more than ~20 seconds at max), but not providing any proofs. It means that's going on for nearly 20 years now, and at least to 2022 still no one claimed the same, but with giving proofs.

2. Speculations about connections to events from 12th of April 1996 were made independently or roughly at the same time as the now best-known 2004 post from Hugh.G.Rection.

3. Although this post mentioned specific time and channel, others' posts mentioned belief about full version stored somewhere in Russian archives. It means: that belief apparently is still alive nearly 20 years later, but it could appear separately from above-mentioned post. Few storylines seem to be half a legend, for which people later were just finding 'confirmations', despite they emerged from other .

⠀⠀SOURCES (skipped some)

Reddit comments linked in text.

1. White Book - pirated, obviously ;]

2. https://beyondhighbrow.com/2019/10/22/nsfw-repost-chechclear/ (linked forum post: https://web.archive.org/web/20100306181629/http://flamevault.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33863 ) - here is description of what was considered to be most accurate background(s) for chechclear, but actually wasn't. So other scenarios/speculations for interested ones, not included in post as basically it's story of everything but chechclear.

3. Early mentiones, February/April 2001: https://web.archive.org/web/20010419072128/http://www.ogrish.com/chechnya.htm and https://oper.ru/news/read.php?t=982331604

4. Widely quoted posts from Hugh.G.Rection https://web.archive.org/web/20041104213409/http://forum.ogrish.com/archive/index.php/t-16367.html