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| Russia |
| Russia’s Kidnap/Murder Unit Apparently Targeting Whisle-Blowers |
| 2004-06-08 |
| From The Washington Post Allegations about Russia’s kidnap/murder unit were published also in a previous posting from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. The young men started disappearing a few months ago, one by one, often with no trace. Prosecutor Rashid Ozdoyev suspected a dark conspiracy: Maybe the abductions were the work not of ordinary criminal gangs but of Russia’s top law enforcement agency. Then Ozdoyev himself disappeared. Shortly after he got off an airplane from Moscow, where he had delivered a report criticizing alleged abuses by the agency, the Federal Security Service, Ozdoyev climbed into his car, drove off and has not been seen since. The case has sent a chill through the southern region of Ingushetia, already anxious because of the recent wave of kidnappings and violence. The search for the missing prosecutor has turned up nothing; the investigation has gone nowhere. No one at the security service has been interviewed. And some of Ozdoyev’s nervous fellow prosecutors said they assume the [Russian] security service snatched their whistle-blowing colleague to shut him up, yet they feel powerless to do anything about it. .... In places like Ingushetia, right next door to the war-ravaged region of Chechnya, the FSB [Russian initials of the Federal Security Service, successor of the KGB] increasingly operates with impunity, largely unchallenged by the local government, which is headed by a former KGB officer and Putin ally. At least 40 men have disappeared in the last six months, mostly members of the Ingush and Chechen ethnic groups, according to human rights activists who said they suspect involvement by the security service. ... [Rashid Ozdoyev’s] most recent report, according to [his father] Boris Ozdoyev, was a 14-page paper outlining FSB abuses. His son delivered it to Moscow, then flew back to Ingushetia on March 11. .... Boris Ozdoyev said his investigation into Rashid’s disappearance points the finger directly at [local FSB chief Col. Sergei] Koryakov. Ozdoyev said his other son found Rashid’s missing car, a green Lada, covered by a tarp at an FSB garage, but it was later moved. Ozdoyev said he then picked up rumors that the kidnappers were FSB officers. So, following the customs of local Ingush society, Ozdoyev and other male elders from his family convened a council meeting with one of the FSB officers and his relatives. At the meeting, Ozdoyev said, the FSB officer admitted involvement and said the operation was ordered by Koryakov. .... Musa Ozdoyev, 65, a retired economist and Boris’s cousin, confirmed in an interview that he was at the council meeting and heard the FSB officer admit his involvement. .... |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |