Yevkurov suggested that the kidnapping of an Amnesty International employee was a provocation

The head of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, believes that the kidnapping of Amnesty International researcher Oleg Kozlovsky in the republic could be a provocation, reports . TASS

“Of course, [the kidnappers allegedly] introduced themselves as security agencies, police officers, but all the threads supposedly lead to the leadership of the republic, to the authorities. And not a word about the fact that these could be provocations from different parties. Immediately the procurement is the responsibility of the authorities,” Yevkurov told the agency. “Since he came [to Ingushetia], it’s definitely not on his own, but he phoned someone, made an agreement, they discussed it - they allegedly took him out and beat him. And he announced it only a week later.”

This afternoon, Amnesty International and Kozlovsky himself reported that he was kidnapped on the evening of October 6 in Magas, where an employee of the organization came to observe protests against the transfer of land to Chechnya. Kozlovsky was invited to a meeting with one of the protest organizers, but then they took him to the city, stripped him and began beating him. The kidnappers identified themselves as employees of the Ingush Center for Combating Extremism.

“They put a gun to my head and said they were going to kill me. <…> They demanded from me the names of my contacts in Ingushetia and threatened to kill my wife and children if I reported what happened,” Kozlovsky said. They took pictures of him and threatened to publish the pictures and rape him. Without seeking agreement to cooperate, the kidnappers took Kozlovsky to North Ossetia and released him at the airport, ordering him not to return to Ingushetia and not write about the republic.