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WMissing Russian reporter held over false passport

MOSCOW: Russian reporter Andrei Babitsky, whose fate aroused international concern after he disappeared in rebel Chechnya, has been detained by police in Dagestan for carrying a false passport, Russian media said on Saturday.

Itar-Tass news agency quoted a source at the interior ministry in Makhachkala, capital of Dagestan adjoining Chechnya, as saying police had detained Babitsky for carrying a passport issued in the name of a citizen of Azerbaijan, Ali Musayev.

The report, also carried on Russian television and radio, came a day after Babitsky, a reporter for the U.S.-funded Radio Liberty, rang his wife Lyudmila from Makhachkala to tell her he was well and had spent more than a month in Chechnya.

It was the first time Babitsky, 35, had been in direct touch with the outside world since Russian authorities announced earlier this month he had been handed over to the Chechens in exchange for several servicemen being held captive.

"He told me he was at the Interior Ministry press centre in Makhachkala. I don't know if anyone brought him there or anything," Lyudmila told Russia's NTV commercial television on Friday evening by telephone from the Czech capital Prague, where Radio Liberty is based. She said their conversation was brief.

Lyudmila later told Reuters she hoped to see her husband soon either in Moscow or in Makhachkala. She was expected back in Moscow later on Saturday.

NTV quoted Oleg Kusov, a colleague of Babitsky's now with him in the Dagestani capital, as saying the reporter was fine. "Everything is OK," Kusov was quoted as saying.

Babitsky's reports from Chechnya angered Moscow and Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo accused him of abetting the rebel fighters there, a charge strongly denied by Radio Liberty.

Russian forces had captured him last month when he tried to escape the Chechen capital Grozny, held by the rebels at the time. Officials later said Babitsky had agreed to be exchanged for the Russian soldiers, but Chechen commanders denied knowledge of any such deal.

A video film of Babitsky apparently being swapped for the servicemen was shown on Russian television stations. Footage of a listless-looking Babitsky saying he was well and hoped to be home soon was later shown.

A series of high-profile Western visitors to Moscow demanded news of his whereabouts and his immediate release.

Radio Liberty and its sister Radio Free Europe were founded in the Cold War era to provide news from a Western source to east Europeans living under communist rule.-Reuters