Chechen Cop Vanishes

MOSCOW (AP) -- A Chechen police officer who worked with a Czech humanitarian organization has been missing for three weeks, presumably the victim of a kidnapping, the organization said Thursday.

Ibragim Zyazikov, an officer of the Leninsky police department in Grozny, works as a guard for the People in Need Foundation, said Petr Kostohryz, chief of the Czech organization's North Caucasus mission. Police guards are often contracted out to private organizations.

Zyazikov was last seen when he left People in Need's Grozny office on Feb. 26, intending to go to Ingushetia, Kostohryz said. He said there had been no word from him since.

Kostohryz said Zyazikov had worked with People in Need since 2000. He said Zyazikov was married to Petra Prochazkova, a Czech journalist who later founded her own aid organization in Chechnya. Russian authorities expelled Prochazkova two years ago without explanation and she has been unable to return.