Audit chamber reveals major abuses of federal funds allocated for Chechnya's reconstruction

MOSCOW, March 19, 2004 (RIA Novosti) - More than 5 billion of a total of 62 billion rubles the central government has allocated for Chechnya's reconstruction since 2000, have been spent with grave violations of Russian law, Sergei Ryabukhin, an auditor at the Russian Audit Chamber, said at press conference on Friday.

Audit Chamber experts have to clear things out with Anatoly Popov, the ex-head of the Chechen government. "Violations go back to the time period when Mr Popov was heading the directorate for Chechnya's rebuilding and the government," said Mr Ryabukhin.

Over 1 billion rubles of federal funds were paid for the work and services, which had been provided in violation of tender arrangements, according to the auditor. Another billion rubles were paid for services provided without any tender whatsoever, which caused a sharp rise in the prices of these services, said Mr Ryabukhin. And it is unclear how 69 million rubles were spent, added the expert.

Relative data have already been handed over to Chechnya's Prosecutor's Office, said Mr Ryabukhin. Criminal investigation has been opened.

Calls made to Russian security from phone of kidnapped Dutch aid worker

Copyright 2004 Agence France Presse Agence France Presse

March 18, 2004 Thursday

Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors without Borders) Thursday backed up its claim of official involvement in the kidnapping of a Dutch aid worker in Russia by saying that his cell phone was used to call the FSB (ex-KGB) security service.

The head of Paris-based MSF earlier this month hit out at what he called the involvement of Russian and Dagestani officials in the kidnapping of one of its workers, Arjan Erkel, in the Russian republic of Dagestan bordering war-torn Chechnya more than a year and a half ago.

"Among the numbers called from Arjan's phone after his abduction were those of FSB officials in Dagestan but also at a federal level" in Russia, Thomas Nierle of the Swiss section of MSF, told reporters.

Nierle said the NGO had proof of this in the telephone bills it had received. "We passed them onto the authorities, but instead of investigating, they cut off the line," he added.

The MSF official earlier in an interview on Moscow Echo radio denounced the "political reasons" behind the failure to resolve the kidnapping.

The detention in December 2003 of the chief Dagestani investigator, Imamudin Temirbulatov, MSF's main contact, "for unclear reasons" is one of the "strange" aspects of the inquiry, Nierle added.

He also dismissed rumours of links between Erkel and US secret services but confirmed that the Dutch aid worker had in the week before his kidnapping met "two US military observers."

"Of course, to meet US agents in the North Caucasus was not a very good idea," the MSF official conceded, but denounced the accusations of spying as "a bid to discredit" Erkel.

Moscow has angrily denied accusations that Russian officials were involved in abducting Erkel and insisted that everything is being done to secure his release.

Dutch national Erkel was abducted in Dagestan, which neighbours the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya, by unknown assailants who bundled him into a car in August 2002.

The kidnapping of the aid worker is part of a campaign of "pressure and intimidation aimed at silencing people who still talk about Chechnya, where for the past decade a crime on an exceptional scale has been taking place," MSF President Jean-Herve Bradol has said. HR activists want to create computerized data base on all thosw who have disappeared

http://www.ng.ru/regions/2004-03-19/4_chechnya.html (tr. by M.L.)

HR activists want to create computerized data base on all those who have disappeared

Data bank about people kidnapped in Chechnya hasn't been created yet

By Andrey Riskin

In Chechnya since the beginning of this year more than 60 people have been abducted. Among them, 26 people have been freed, 35 have disappreaded without a trace, two were found killed. About this stated recently the representative of the Memorial human rights center - Dmitriy Grushkin. He noted, that in the case of these kidnappings, increasingly more frequently proved to be participation of soldiers of the security service of the President of Chechnya Akhmad Kadyrov.

Head of the center Oleg Orlov in his conversation with NG's correspondent has confirmed these numbers. True, with respect to Ramzan Kadyrov's people participation, who heads the security service of the President of Chechnya, he was more careful: "There are grounds to assume that behind these abductions stand military structures subordinated to Kadyrov. This could be concluded from investigating circumstances of these abductions". Oleg Orlov did confirm version of NG (10.03.04) about the fact that Minister of the Defense of Ichkeria - Magomed Khambiyev was forced to lay down his weapons after Ramzan Kadyrov's people took his relatives hostages.

Certainly, to some statements of human rights activists it is possible to relate critically, but the fact is that not one official structure has a normal data bank on those abducted and those who have disappeared without a trace in Chechnya. In his time, about creating of a similar base declared authorized by the President of Russia on the issue of human rights of man in Chechnya Abdul-Khakim Sultygov. "I don't know anything about this kind [data] base" - said Oleg Orlov to NG. - Yes, there was that issue, Sultygov was talking about this. But where and who is Sultygov now"? Actually, during dismissal of Kasyanov's government, the authorized post of person on human rights in Chechnya has been liquidated. This was justified by the fact, that in the republic there is freely elected President - Akhmad Kadyrov, who will ensure human rights. True, the President, is also is in Russia, but this does not prevent Vladimir Lukin from fulfilling his responsibilities as an ombudsman.

"The idea to set up one base, we've talked about this not just for one month" - stated to NG the chairman of the Commission on Human Rights by the President RF Ella Pamfilova. - Sultygov had to coordinate this work. But as they've abolished his post, everything has been halted. With this reorganization it is difficult to do anything. Today in every department something exists, in the procuratorship of Chechnya, for example, or the military prosecutor's office. But everything is contradictory and it's unsatisfactory. People in despair  turn to all official bodies, but practically not one department gives any answers to them. Yes, the fact is that simple people don't get any answer from the officials".