On the night of October 3, 1998, a well-armed group of up to 20 Chechen-speaking men captured four foreign workers from their home in Grozny, located in the vicinity of the headquarters of the Chechen security team specifically tasked with fighting the plague of kidnappings in the republic.
[9][10] Nevertheless, the anti-kidnapping unit's officers did not react to the shooting, allegedly because they were not aware of the presence of the foreigners at the house, and the sound of gunfire was frequent in Grozny at night.
[14] On December 8, the abductees' heads were found in a sack on the side of a highway in the Chechen village of Assinovskaya, close to the border with the Russian republic of Ingushetia, and were soon identified by one of the victims' bodyguards.
[17] In a press conference on December 10, Chechnya's vice-president, Vakha Arsanov, showed a recovered video tape in which the kidnappers forced the four to dress in military uniforms and confess in Russian to spying for "German, English and Israeli special services" and the CIA.
According to Chechen security forces, the hostages were executed at an unused factory south of Grozny after a rescue operation that went wrong; it was suggested that their death was a show of defiance to the authorities from the kidnappers.
Family members said the abortive rescue attempt "ruined delicate negotiations" that were going on between Granger and the kidnappers, and also criticized an unnamed news agency that had given out details of where the hostages were being held shortly before the operation.
[14] That same day, the remains of the engineers were transported by Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Turpal-Ali Atgeriyev to Russian republic of Dagestan and flown through Azerbaijan to Gatwick Airport near London.
[19] According to the inquest by the Westminster Coroner's Court, the kidnapped men were starved of food and water, and had been repeatedly struck with rifle butts before being decapitated with a large knife.
[25] In August 2002, Russian military officials announced the arrest of a man named Khusein Idiyev, described by them as a prominent member of Barayev's group, suspected of involvement in the 1998 killings.
[32] In December 2004, members of the Chechen OMON special police summarily executed Isa Sakayev,[33] allegedly a former associate of Barayev suspected to have been directly involved in the killings.