Four persons kidnapped in Chechnya

On May 20, at 4:30 a.m., four persons were kidnapped from the house at No. 7 Zvyozdnaya Street, Zavodskoy District of the city of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. This is the topic of the application lodged by Eki Paraulidze, a woman-resident of Chechnya, to the ROVD of the Zavodskoy District.

It has become known to the "Caucasian Knot" that members of one family and their relatives were kidnapped: Sultan Machalikashvili, born in 1972, Ramzan Margoshvili, born in 1976, Nugzar Bakagashvili, born in 1972, and Ruslan Tkhadadze, born in 1970.

"They were guests of Nugzar Bakagashvili at the following address: Zavodskoy District, Andreyevskaya Dolina, No. 7 Zvyozdnaya Street, where Ramzan Margoshvili brought his bride," runs the application also submitted to the Prosecutor's Office of Chechnya and HRC "Memorial".

Ms Paraulidze said: "Everybody was asleep, when before dawn the house was surrounded, armed people in camouflage and masks came in, seized all the four men, put them into cars, without asking anything, and took away in an unknown direction." None of the women were allowed to go out under threat of execution.

In the evening, the kidnapped persons were set free. They were put out of the car near the house. The men do not know where they were, as polyethylene bags were on their heads all the time.

"Now, the mechanism is as follows: as soon as relatives of kidnapped persons reach us and write an application, we use the model of sending copies of the application to the public prosecutor of the district, public prosecutor of the republic, to the 'Memorial', ROVD and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) - and people are immediately found," said Natalia Estemirova, an employee of the HRC "Memorial".

In this case, according to her story, the kidnapped men were released less than in three hours after kidnapping.

"The kidnapped persons are ordinary residents; they never had any problems with the militia. However, right now, when the 'Vikhr-Anti-Terror' operation is underway, after the terror act, every power agency wants to expose some activity and show 'results'," Ms Estemirova said.

According to her, quite often the kidnappers themselves suggest to release their victims in exchange of their relatives' withdrawal their applications from the militia.