World

Chechnya Vows To Punish Killers

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

December 8, 1998 / 10:45 AM EST / CBS

Chechen kidnappers beheaded four foreign hostages because they feared capture and wanted to prevent their victims from serving as witnesses, an official in the breakaway territory said Wednesday.

Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov said on Wednesday the kidnappers had murdered their captives during a failed rescue operation.

"The kidnappers cruelly massacred the hostages during an operation to free the hostages," Maskhadov, fighting back his emotions, said in a statement which he read to reporters in the Chechen capital Grozny.

"It is a new barbaric act against foreign citizens who came to work in the Chechen republic, were guests of the republic, internationalists. It has filled Chechens' souls with hatred towards those who carried out this evil act."

Maskhadov, whose small region fought a war for independence from Russia from 1994-96, gave no details of the rescue attempt or who had carried it out.

He offered his condolences to Britain and New Zealand and vowed to find and punish the killers.

One suspected kidnapper was arrested Sunday and his detention triggered panic among the rest, Chechnya's Prosecutor General Mansur Tagirov told the ITAR-Tass news agency.

The kidnappers then killed the three Britons and the New Zealander, whose severed heads were found Tuesday along a highway in Chechnya.

Hundreds of Chechen law enforcement officers were searching for the bodies Wednesday, officials said.

Tagirov said authorities believe they know the names of those involved in the kidnappings, but he did not release additional details.

The victims, Peter Kennedy, Darren Hickey and Rudolf Petschi of Britain and Stanley Shaw of New Zealand, were identified by their former bodyguard. They were abducted Oct. 3 by unidentified gunmen in Grozny, Chechnya's capital.

The men were working to restore phone services in Chechnya, which was devastated during the 1994-96 war with Russia.

Chechnya now runs its own affairs but it is plagued by kidnappings for ransom. This year, 176 people have been kidnapped in Chechnya and surrounding regions in southern Russia, and 90 of them have been released, officials have said.

Ray Verth, chief executive of Granger Telecom, the British company the hostages had worked for, said the deaths apparently were the result of a rescue attempt by Chechen authorities Monday that went "tragically wrong."

Russian President Boris Yeltsin expressed outrage at the killings and urged law enforcement officials to crack down on kidnapping, presidential spokesman Dmitry Yakushkin told reporters.

However, the Russian government has no authority in Chechnya, and ethnic Russian citizens are among those who have been kidnapped.

Chechnya has suffered from poverty and lawlessness since fighting the 21-month war of independence from Russia that ended when Moscow withdrew its troops in 1996.

President Maskhadov, seen aa relative moderate in Moscow, is opposed by renegade warlords who say they want to set up a stricter Islamic state and maintain a firmer stance toward Russia.