An Unlikely Antiwar Hero for Russians

What followed was what human rights investigators would later describe as "an orgy of killing, arson and rape."

More than 55 civilians, ranging in age from 1 to 82, were shot, strangled or burned in their homes. Gold teeth were pulled out of the victims' mouths; televisions, tape recorders and cash were looted; women were gang-raped and slain or left for dead. Yet in more than five years, no soldier was arrested or charged -- until recently.

Not until Sergei Babin became one of Russia's more implausible fugitives.

The 34-year-old former officer with the elite riot police force known as the OMON stands accused of the summary execution of an elderly man during the Novye Aldi mop-up operation. He is also charged with stealing 350 rubles, or about $12, and a pair of jewel-studded earrings from the man's neighbor.

If he is ever found by authorities, Babin's arrest and prosecution might mark the first concrete step to atone for one of the worst atrocities of the Chechen war. Yet in a sign of how profoundly troubled the Russian public has become over the long-running conflict, Babin has emerged as a cause celebre for the antiwar movement here in St. Petersburg, a symbol of what can go wrong when the nation sends its sons to fight an unpopular war.

On May 30, several dozen protesters from the city's liberal, leftist and pro-democracy organizations, including the ultra-leftist National Bolshevik Party, the liberal Yabloko youth movement and the pro-democracy organization Our Choice, rallied outside the St. Petersburg branch headquarters of the OMON. The picketers demanded that Babin be tried in St. Petersburg rather than Chechnya, and called him a victim of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin's failed policy in the northern Caucasus separatist republic.

"Babin is a Hostage of Putin," said some of the signs. "Stop the War in Chechnya!" said others.

How did young liberal activists come to be marching in the streets on behalf of a riot policeman accused of war crimes?