Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 19:47:38 +0000 To: zowie@mail.telis.net From: Steve Reed Subject: Re: Russian Reporter Babitsky MIME-Version: 1.0

In message , Henika writes
:Steve -

>I am going to start checking on a Russian reporter named Babitsky. He is being held by Russian authorities for reports from the Chechnya side which conflict with Putin's lines. I just heard his story on the news. I wonder if Amnesty International knows about him. He faces two years in prison for alledgely falsifying passports.

>Philip

I've been following the Babitsky saga - which has just taken a new twist. It is summarised below:

In message , liberius writes

>Radio Liberty Reporter Detained

>By NABI ABDULAYEV
:Associated Press Writer

:02-25-00 1751EST

Well, well, well - Babitsky has turned up!

>MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) -- More than a month after being detained by Russian forces in Chechnya and then reportedly swapped to rebels in exchange for Russian prisoners, U.S.-funded Radio Liberty surfaced in Russian custody Friday, officials said.

>Andrei Babitsky, who had not been heard from since mid-January, was detained in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, a republic on Chechnya's eastern border, the Russian Interior Ministry said.

>How and why he was detained Friday was not immediately known. A ministry spokesman in Moscow said a full statement would be made on Saturday. Journalists clustered outside the Interior Ministry office in Makhachkala late Friday, clamoring for information.

>Many of Babitsky's colleagues had feared he was dead and international officials had pressed Russia to clear up the case.

>Thomas Dine, president of the U.S.-funded Radio Liberty, said in a statement from Washington that he was ``elated by this news but awaited further information on Babitsky's circumstances both physical and legal.''

>Babitsky was able to make a brief telephone call to his wife Lyudmila, currently in Prague, and told her ``he is not entirely free,'' said Radio Liberty's Moscow editor Vladimir Baburin.

>But Babitsky also said he was in ``pretty good physical shape and he laughed at two reports about his detention that described him as being in Chechen hands,'' said Radio Liberty spokesman Paul Goble in Washington.

>The news agency Interfax, citing unspecified law enforcement sources in Makhachkala, reported Babitsky was detained in one of the city's cafes.

"arrested" in a cafe, I assume..

>Babitsky, whose reporting from the rebels' side had vexed Russian officials, was detained by federal forces in Chechnya in January. Russia claimed it later exchanged him for two Russian soldiers captured by Chechens.

>His detention added to the international concern about alleged human rights violations in Chechnya and also called into doubt the government's adherence to media freedom.

>Officials have denied any wrongdoing and insisted that the swap took place under Babitsky's free will.

>Alexander Yevtushenko, a reporter for the Russian daily newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, knew Babitsky and had traveled to Chechnya to carry out his own investigation. He said in an article published Friday that an official video apparently showing the swap was a fake and that Babitsky had remained in federal custody.

>Yevtushenko cited his conversations with unidentified officers of the Federal Security Service, the KGB's main successor, including one who allegedly posed as a masked Chechen rebel on the tape.

>Copyright ) Associated Press.

>Missing Russian Reporter Alive, Near Chechnya

>Updated 3:57 PM ET February 25, 2000

>MOSCOW (Reuters) - Missing Russian reporter Andrei Babitsky, whose fate has become an issue of international concern, was in good health and at a police headquarters near Chechnya Friday, his wife told a Russian television station.

>Lyudmila Babitsky said her husband, who works for U.S.-funded Radio Liberty, had telephoned to say he was well and that he had spent more than a month in war-scarred Chechnya.

>Interfax news agency said Babitsky, detained by Russian troops in Chechnya last month and then allegedly swapped for captured servicemen, was held by police in a cafe in the neighboring Russian region of Dagestan.

Perhaps he was "detained in a cafe" after all! How unusual!

>Neither Babitsky's wife nor Interfax could explain how the reporter, whose disappearance caused an international outcry, had turned up in the Dagestani capital Makhachkala.

- in a cafe!

>"He told me he was at the Interior Ministry press center in Makhachkala. I don't know if anyone brought him there or anything," Lyudmila Babitsky told NTV by telephone from the Czech capital Prague, where Radio Liberty is based.

>"The conversation was very brief. I asked about his health and he told me everything was all right and he hoped to be home soon," she said. "He said he had been in Chechnya all this time."

>She said she had only just arrived in Prague but would return to Moscow Saturday and fly on to Makhachkala if her husband was unable to come to the Russian capital.

>Interfax quoted Dagestani Interior Ministry sources in its report. It said police refused to confirm he had been detained, saying only they were holding a man resembling the reporter.

>Babitsky's reports from rebel positions infuriated authorities in Moscow. Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo accused him of abetting Chechen rebels, a charge strongly denied by Radio Liberty.

Huh!

>Russian forces captured him last month when he tried to escape from the Chechen capital Grozny, held by rebels at the time. Senior officials later said Babitsky had agreed to be exchanged for several servicemen held prisoner.

>BABITSKY SEEN IN VIDEOS ON RUSSIAN TV

>A video film of him apparently being swapped for a number of Russian servicemen was shown on Russian television stations. Footage of a listless-looking Babitsky saying he was well and hoped to be home soon was shown after his disappearance.

>A series of high-profile Western visitors to Moscow demanded news of his whereabouts and his immediate release.

>Before Lyudmila Babitsky's statement, Radio Liberty officials had urged the U.S. government to do more to determine what had happened to the reporter.

>Radio Liberty and its sister station Radio Free Europe were founded in the Cold War era to provide news from a Western source to east Europeans living under communist rule.

>) 2000 Reuters Limited.

- and like every other organ and institution of western political power, it has continued unremittingly to attack Russia ever since. I don't know what the Russians are up to regarding Babitsky, but I hope it's something rather clever. It's high time they got their act together. They could open radio stations, called "Free World Radio" in London and Washington, to give us their view of what is going on; but I rather fancy we wouldn't let them - so much for our "free media"!

>--== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==-- Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

-- Steve Reed