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Russia - Chechnya
Russian activist killed in Chechnya
Article published on the 2009-08-11 Latest update 2009-08-11 10:47 TU
Supporters hold portraits of murdered activist Natalia Estemirova in Moscow on July 16, 2009. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov this week denied any involvement in her murder
(Photo : Reuters/Denis Sinyakov)
The head of a Russian NGO and her husband have been shot found dead in Chechnya, a day after they were abducted.
The bodies of Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband Alik Djibralov were found in the boot of a car in the Chernorechye suburb of Grozny on Tuesday.
Armed men had abducted the pair from the offices of Let’s Save the Generation on Monday afternoon, Alexander Cherkasov of rights group Memorial told AFP, the French news agency.
Let's Save the Generation tries to help young people in Chechnya who have been marginalised and affected by violence in the unstable region.
Cherkasov said that Sadulayeva's husband had been jailed for four years for links to illegal armed groups, and that he had married Sadulayeva two months after leaving prison.
"This is just unimaginable. They killed a young woman - she was probably 25 - and her husband, who was about the same age. They had just got married," said activist Ludmila Alexeyeva of the Moscow Helsinki group. "She headed an NGO that saved a generation of children."
The latest murders come less than a month after Russian human rights activist Natalya Estemirova was killed in similar circumstances.
Estemirova, who worked for Memorial, was found dead after being bundled into a car outside her home in Grozny on 15 July.
Memorial accused Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov of involvement in her death, but he denied the allegation in a radio interview this week.
"Why should Kadyrov kill a woman who was useful to no one?,” he said. "She was without honour, merit or conscience."
Chechnya, a mainly Muslim region in the north Caucasus mountains, was ravaged by wars between separatists and Russian forces after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
