02:20, 19 April 2005

NGO leader detained

The Information Centre at the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society obtained more accurate information about the number of those killed in a special operation in Grozny's Ippodromnyi micro-district on 15 April 2005. Eyewitnesses from among local residents say the military loaded in cars a total of fourteen bodies after the operation. Apparently, those were the bodies of not only federal law enforcement and security agents, but also civilians.

Milana Yunusovna Shidayeva, b. 1975, living in the immediate vicinity of the scene, was wounded during the combat. Other news agencies say a local resident, Musa Matayev, died in his own flat on the floor above the one where the rebels were hiding. He was poisoned by the smoke of the arising fire.

The Information Centre also learned today the leader of the Let's Save the Generation NGO, Murad Khamidovich Muradov, b. 1976, was detained by law enforcement / security agencies during the operation. His flat and, on the next day, his mother's house were searched without authorisation and without observing other required procedures. Some assets were seized.