In Chechnya, a group of kidnappers convicted

On June 22, five residents of the Chechen Republic accused of kidnapping people for ransom and of other grave crimes were sentenced by the Republic's Supreme Court to long terms of imprisonment.

Hussein Abdulkadyrov, Kazbek Kiev, Magomed Musaev, and Rizvan and Ruslan Khasiev were sentenced in aggregate to 69 years of imprisonment. They were charged with a whole series of grave crimes - kidnappings, illegal deprivation of freedom, rapes, extortions and illegal firearms circulation.

"The investigation has found out that in March 1999 Abdulkadyrov, Kiev, Musaev and Khasievs, acting as an organized criminal group, kidnapped a woman of 37 in Grozny, for whom afterwards they claimed ransom of 0.5 million US dollars from her relatives. She was kept hostage and raped for almost two months. Later in May of the same year the woman managed to run away from the criminals," an employee of local law enforcement bodies said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"Right on the following day after their first victim managed to escape, gangsters kidnapped in Grozny another local woman of 49. In that case they tried to extort ransom of 50,000 US dollars," said the source. Three days later the woman, having promised the kidnappers to personally bring the money, managed to convince the criminals to let her free; she immediately addressed law enforcement bodies. But then the gangsters managed to escape detention and punishment; and soon warfare began in the republic.