Criminal case opened over kidnapping of Muscovite by Chechen police

The Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case over the kidnapping of businessman Areg Shchepikhin in Moscow. The department reported that the defendants were taken to the Moscow division.

At the same time, a criminal case has also been opened against Areg Shchepikhin. Earlier, Chechen Minister of National Policy and Information Akhmed Dudayev stated that the man was not kidnapped, but detained in Moscow by law enforcement officers from the Chechen Republic. He "publicly and repeatedly called for ethnic cleansing and Nazism, insulted religion and God, and also expressed clearly extremist views," Dudayev said. The minister stated that Shchepikhin's actions could fall under several articles of the criminal code at once.

On the evening of June 3, near Moscow's Yaroslavsky Station, several men, in front of witnesses, dragged Areg Shchepikhin into the trunk of a Mercedes with flashing lights and Chechen license plates. He had previously published videos on social networks with xenophobic statements about Chechens, Dagestanis, and Islam.

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