Kidnappers still not found three weeks after seizure of journalist in Ingushetia

Reporters Without Borders today expressed great concern at the failure of Russian authorities to find Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalist Ali Astamirov, kidnapped on 4 July, and called for investigators to step up their efforts to obtain his safe release. The French news agency said it had learned he was alive and in Chechnya. The official enquiry, set up on 6 July in Nazran (Ingushetia), where Astamirov was seized, has not discovered who the kidnappers are or what their motive is. No ransom demand has been received by his family or by AFP. Astamirov, a 34-year-old Chechen, who has been working for AFP in Ingushetia and Chechnya for more than a year, was seized by three armed men, two of them masked, who threatened him with a gun and bundled him into an unmarked white car. He had recently had anonymous threatening phone calls and had moved house, fearing for his safety.