July 5, 2003

Journalist from French agency kidnapped in Russia

Reuters News Service


MOSCOW - A journalist working for Agence France-Presse was kidnapped in Ingushetia in Russia's north Caucasus on Friday, the French news agency's Moscow bureau chief said today.

Ingushetia neighbours Chechnya, where kidnapping for ransom has been epidemic for years.(*)

AFP reported that Ali Astamirov, a Chechen who used to work in television in the Chechen capital Grozny and has been with the agency for over a year, was kidnapped in Ingushetia's largest city Nazran by three armed men, two of them masked.

He was with two other journalists, one working for Reuters and one for U.S.-funded Radio Liberty. But only Astamirov was kidnapped, while the others had their mobile phones stolen.

AFP's Moscow bureau immediately contacted Russia's Interior Ministry and its office in Ingushetia, but the agency said that 24 hours after the kidnapping it still had no news of Astamirov.

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Comment:

* As usual the Western press simply repeats the Kremlin propaganda. Such a statement seems to imply that some Chechen formation or mafia band stands behind this kidnapping. Whereas, according to the following excerpt, it is highly probable that the Russian FSB are involved in all this. M.M.

Reporters without Borders

From an excerpt of "Russia - Annual Report 2003"

The Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent in Nazran (Ingushetia), Ali Astamirov, and two members of his family were arrested on 17
December [2002] in front of their home and interrogated for two hours at a police station. This was officially to see if he was involved in a
shootout earlier in the day but Astamirov, whose activities were being closely monitored by the FSB secret police, said it may have been an
attempt to intimidate him.

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=6529