Rizvanov and Kurbanmagomedov who disappeared in Dagestan had been shadowed - details of kidnapping

Three days before their kidnapping in Dagestan, Abubakar Rizvanov and Timur (Suleiman) Kurbanmagomedov, employees of the Media Centre "Khuda-Media", noticed that they were shadowed; the young men managed to make a video of the cars, which - as they thought - were pursuing them.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported earlier that Rizvanov and Kurbanmagomedov disappeared in the afternoon on August 20 in Makhachkala.

Their relatives are sure that the young men are kept by the militia. However, Abdurashid Magomedov, head of the MIA of Dagestan, refutes this information. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed at the on duty units of the MIA and FSB of Dagestan that they possess no information about the incident.

Abubakar Rizvanov was engaged in video filming and dissemination of CDs and DVDs with religious sermons; many of them were translated from the Arabian language. Timur (Suleiman) Kurbanmagomedov was also registered among translators. As reported by a source of the "Caucasian Knot", who preferred to remain anonymous, the missing young men professed Islam and worked towards its promotion; they "never hid from law enforcement bodies and did not express any extremist ideas."

At the same time the source said that information was arriving from "different sources close to law enforcement bodies" that "the kidnapped persons are kept at the Centre Against Extremism and tortured there with the aim to knock out some evidences."

The source informed that on August 23 "as a result of the efforts undertaken by Rizvanov's and Kurbanmagomedov's relatives and friends, it was established on the basis of eyewitnesses' evidences that the kidnapping of them was committed in the evening on August 20 in central Makhachkala, in the area of Dynamo Stadium, in the crossing of Kotrova and Gorkogo Streets." According to the eyewitnesses of the kidnapping, as quoted by the source, "the car with Rizvanov and Kurbanmagomedov was blocked by two UAZ militia vans and several other cars with no militia signs on them; people with automatic firearms jumped out of them, grasped the young men, forced them into their cars and took away to some unknown place."