Woman from Dagestan reports disappearance of her son and his friends in Moscow

Arip Magomedov, a resident of Makhachkala, went with friends to Moscow on business and disappeared. This was reported by his mother Zumrat Magomedova, who appealed to human rights activists asking to help to find her son.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by Oksana Chelysheva, deputy head of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, Arip's mother appealed to human rights activists only after February 10, hoping before that her son would reveal himself or anything would be known about him.

Zumrat Magomedova writes in her application that her son Arip Magomedov, born in 1987, a native of the village of Gigatli, Tsumandin District of Dagestan, left for Moscow back on December 7, 2010, by bus with his friend, Akhmed Shikhabudinov, born in 1984, with the aim to buy second-hand cars.

The young men arrived in Moscow on December 9, where they were met by their friend Askhab Nurmagomedov, born in 1985. They stayed at the hotel "Ostankino", room 1986; they paid for the room till December 26.

Zumrat Magomedova had the last talk with her son on December 24, 2010. He phoned his father to report that he had come out from his Friday prayer in the mosque, located in Mira Avenue. Some 1.5-2 hours later his relatives tried to call him by themselves, but his telephone was switched off and never functioned again.

"Before January 1, 2011, we had no information about our son; therefore, my elder son Gadjimagomed with his friends in a car went in search of his younger brother," wrote Zumrat Magomedova.

According to her story, in Moscow Gadjimagomed visited the hotel "Ostankino", where the administration told him that the missing persons had paid for their room till December 26.

On January 7, 2011, Arip's brother asked, along with law enforcement officials, the hotel administration to look through observation video records, but they were told that the video surveillance was not working for two weeks. In the room, where the missing persons lived, they found their clothes, a laptop and other personal belongings. An application was filed to the Morfino ROVD (District Interior Division) of Moscow.

Later, information from law enforcement officials reached the relatives that all the missing young men were kept at the militia in St Petersburg. Gadjimagomed went to St Petersburg.

All the time he was in St Petersburg, he noticed that he was shadowed by unknown persons in four cars. There Gadjimagomed hired a lawyer Nikita Filatov, who began searching for the missing young men and after some time said that he had information that the Dagestanis were taken back to Moscow.

"Then, my son returned to Moscow with his friends, where they were also shadowed by unknown persons. They decided to leave their car, and went to Voronezh. In Voronezh, shadowing continued. They were even filmed on video camera; and they had a scuffle, when they demanded explanations from those who filmed them. Then, seeing that unfavourable environment was built around them, two days later they went back to Dagestan," said Zumrat Magomedova.

Currently, as she said, nothing is known about Arip Magomedov.

So far, the "Caucasian Knot" has no information from law enforcement bodies of Moscow and St Petersburg regarding the missing persons.