Briefs

Policeman Abducted and Killed in Chechnya

Chechnya’s Interior Ministry said on March 25 that a police officer was abducted by militants and killed in the republic’s Vedeno district, The Associated Press reported. The ministry reported that the officer had been kidnapped the night of March 24 by armed men wearing masks and that his body was found the following day with multiple gunshot wounds. In a report about the same incident, Interfax quoted a spokesman for the Investigative Committee’s Investigative Department for Chechnya, Said Seriev, as saying the victim was a local police officer in the Vedeno district village of Neftyanka and was praying at the time that he was forced out of his house by a group of armed men. His relatives then heard shots fired, after which his body was found 700 meters away from his house with two gunshot wounds to the head, Seriev said.

One of Umar Israilov’s Suspected Killers Extradited from Poland to Austria

One of the two suspected killers of Umar Israilov, the former Chechen rebel fighter who was forced to become a member of Ramzan Kadyrov’s bodyguard unit and subsequently fled Chechnya and accused the Chechen leader of torture, has been extradited to Austria from Poland, where he was arrested last month, Agence France-Presse reported on March 24, citing Vienna prosecutors. AFP quoted prosecution spokesman Gerhard Jarosch as saying that the Chechen suspect, named as Turpal Ali J., was handed over to the Austrian authorities on March 23 and subsequently questioned, but that he refused to give any more information. Turpal Ali J., who was arrested in a hotel near Warsaw on February 19, is suspected of being one of two gunmen in the murder of Israilov on January 13. According to AFP, his alleged accomplice is still on the run, while three other men are also in custody, including one, identified as Otto K., who is believed to have driven the get-away car used by the two gunmen.