Makhachkala - Andrei Babitsky, the journalist from the US-funded Radio Free Europe whom the Kremlin said had been handed over to Chechen fighters in a swap for Russian soldiers, has been arrested in the Russian republic of Dagestan, an interior ministry spokesman said yesterday.
Babitsky, who was accused by Russia of collaborating with Chechen rebels, disappeared in mid-January. On February 3rd, the Kremlin said he had been swapped, "with his consent", for three servicemen. Yesterday his wife, Lyudmila, speaking from Prague, said she had spoken with him by phone and that he was well and had spent the last month in Chechnya.
In a belligerent article in the English-language Moscow News, a senior Russian diplomat has called for the closure of Radio Liberty.
