Search in office of Internet newspaper "Grani.ru"

Today, at 11 am, in the office of the Internet newspaper "Grani.ru" investigative officer of the Moscow city prosecutor's office A. A. Galkin began a seizure of documents related to a publication about the last year's abduction of Nadezhda Pogosova and Aleksey Klimov who worked for the Chechen prosecutor's office.

Nadezhda Pogosova, the senior assistant to the Chechen prosecutor on personnel affairs, and Aleksey Klimov, the deputy head of the Shatoy interdistrict prosecutor's office, were kidnapped on December 27, 2002 in the north-west of Chechnya. Searching operations began on January 1 of this year. In summer the head of the Chechen administration Akhmad Kadyrov declared that they had been taken hostage by Chechen warlord Doku Umarov. Umarov did not comment on this statement. In August some unknown persons released to the mass media a video footage in which Nadezhda Pogosova was appealing to businessman Boris Berezovsky to release her and Klimov from the captivity. In Pogosova's words, they had been taken hostage by a unit of Chechen rebels. The Russian media received Pogosova's videotaped appeal from a free e-mail box of one of the Internet search systems, called "Grani.ru". Meanwhile, Vladimir Korsunsky, the chief editor of the online newspaper "Grani.ru", said they had borne no relation to the circulation of this videotape, and that they themselves had got it from an e-mail box signed by the Chechen website "Kavkaz-Center".

Today's seizure is conducted in compliance with an order of the Chechen prosecutor's office related to the criminal investigation of Pogosova and Klimov's abduction case.

Vladimir Korsunsky told a correspondent today: "The seizure appears to be at least one month late. We expected investigators to come on August 19, the day when the Chechen prosecutor's office issued its order. But they came one month later which shows they are not very much concerned about the fate of their captured colleagues. But if this helps to release and save the lives of the abducted, it will be wonderful. It will mean we have drawn attention to this information not for nothing."