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Alert

Kidnappers still not identified three weeks after journalist's abduction in Ingushetia

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has expressed great concern over the Russian authorities' failure to locate Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalist Ali Astamirov, kidnapped on 4 July 2003. The organisation has called on investigators to step up their efforts to obtain his safe release. The French news agency said it had learned he was alive and being held in Chechnya.

The official inquiry, set up on 6 July in Nazran, Ingushetia, where Astamirov was abducted, has not been able to determine the kidnappers' identity or motive. No ransom demand has been received by the journalist's 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 abducted by three armed men, two of whom were masked. They threatened him with a gun and bundled him into an unmarked white car. He had recently received anonymous threatening phone calls and had moved, fearing for his safety.