Kidnapped aid worker set free

A Dutch aid worker who was kidnapped in Russia 20 months ago, was freed today.

Arjan Erkel. Who worked for the international humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres, was freed in an operation conducted by police in the southern Russian province of Dagestan, said Abdul Musayev, a spokesman for the local branch of Russia’s Interior Ministry. He was brought to Dagestan’s provincial capital, Makhachkala, and flown to Moscow later.

“I want to thank the Lord who brought me back to life today … I want to thank the Easter bunny, who brought me back to Makhachkala in a big chocolate egg,” Erkel said in a brief statement to reporters.

Erkel, who looked thin and had a full beard, paused and said: “It’s a joke.”

MSF’s Moscow spokesman Mark Walsh earlier said that the group had received a telephone call from an association of veterans of Russia’s foreign intelligence announcing that Erkel had been freed.

“First indications are that, for the circumstances, Arjan is in good health,” MSF said in a statement. It added that it was cooperating with the Dutch government to make sure Erkel could go home “without any delay.”

Walsh said that to his knowledge no ransom had been paid for Erkel’s release.

Valentin Velichko of the intelligence veterans’ association said that no ransom had been paid and declined to give further details, saying he wanted to protect other hostages in Russia.

Velichko said that Erkel had been held in five or six different places in Dagestan, including spending some time in a cellar.

Musayev also declined to give details of the operation, which he said was conducted by police together with the local branch of Russia’s Federal Security Agency (FSB), the KGB’s main successor.

“It’s an amazing feeling of relief. It lasted 607 days,” his father, Dick Erkel, told national broadcaster NOS. “As far as we know, he is in relatively good health. It’s a fantastic liberation for us and for our boy.”

Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman Bart Jochems thanked the Russian government, other governments and international organisations for their actions that led to Erkel’s release.

Erkel, who headed the North Caucasus mission of the organisation also known as Doctors Without Borders, was snatched in August 2002 by three unidentified gunmen in the Dagestan region bordering Chechnya, where rebels and Russian troops have been fighting since 1999.

MSF had stepped up its public criticism of Russian authorities in recent months, accusing them of complicity in the abduction.

The group said Russian authorities had acknowledged two FSB agents had witnessed the abduction. In December, the head of the Dagestani police department charged with fighting kidnapping – who was in charge of investigating the Erkel case – was himself arrested on suspicion of involvement in abductions.

MSF representatives said they received information in December that Erkel was ill and at risk of execution.

That also appears to be the time when negotiations with the abductors, through intermediaries, broke down. MSF had been assured Erkel would be released in mid-December in exchange for a ransom, but the month came and went.

Walsh said last month that Erkel was suffering from pneumonia or a serious lung ailment.

Between February and October 2003, the group received five signs that Erkel was alive, including a list of responses to questions only he would be in a position to answer. But then six months went by without any signals, compounding the group’s concern.

Erkel was the second MSF employee to be taken captive in southern Russia. In January 2001, US citizen Kenneth Gluck was held in Chechnya for 25 days.