19:32, 31 October 2005

Chechnya's president demands stopping abductions

Speaking in Grozny, Chechnya's President Alu Alkhanov demanded that law enforcement and security agencies should "put an end to the shame connected with abductions of people" and "conduct a careful investigation into these facts."

"I have demanded that law enforcement agencies should look into the grounds for taking the people hostage and find and punish those guilty. I assume I am authorised to know who took those people," he remarked.

According to him, around 200 people abducted in Chechnya have come back home since the beginning of the year. "Many from among those who have returned are not gang members, they are mostly businesspeople and leaders of enterprises, which gives evidence that the crime is based on seeking profits," he pointed out. "I am very much concerned that abductions have been more for ransom than for other motives lately," the president of Chechnya remarked.

He also said that 16 facts of abductions had been registered in Chechnya in the current month. At the same time, Mr Alkhanov believes that basically the situation with abductions of people in the Chechen Republic has been "overcome," RIA Novosti reports.