President of Dagestan holds a meeting on kidnapping

On August 1, President of Dagestan Mukhu Aliev held a meeting on the problem of kidnappings that are frequent in the Republic. The meeting was attended by heads of the Republic's law enforcement bodies and representatives of human rights and public organizations.

President of Dagestan marked discrepancies in statistics on kidnapped people as presented by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office of Dagestan, and called the law enforcement bodies "to meet journalists on the weekly basis and provide them with all available information. Then, the relatives of kidnapped persons and representatives of mass media would have no questions to you."

Adilgerei Magomedtagirov, Minister of Internal Affairs of Dagestan, has resolutely refuted any information about involvement of the workers of law enforcement bodies in kidnappings. According to his story, the majority of citizens announced as kidnapped are the persons involved in this or that sort of criminality, including terrorist activities.

Meanwhile, Igor Tkachov, Public Prosecutor of Dagestan, who also spoke at the meeting, said: "More than 20 released persons evidenced that people in camouflage had kidnapped them and brought out to the territory of the Chechen Republic."

Uma Omarova, Ombudswoman in the Republic of Dagestan, has also confirmed that out of 10 persons who had submitted applications to her on their kidnapped relatives, four applicants later found them in pre-trial detention facilities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.