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Saturday, Feb. 10, 2001

Kenneth Gluck, 39, who directed the Chechnya relief program of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning aid group Doctors Without Borders, declined to speculate as to who might have been behind his abduction. "I'll leave the speculation and the theorizing to you," Gluck said, five days after his release.

In his first extended comments about his 26 days as a hostage, Gluck said that his captors had driven him, blindfolded, to the place where he was released. In a bizarre twist for a land where kidnap victims have been tortured, maimed and killed, Gluck said that the night before he was freed his shirt was washed and ironed, his wallet was returned, and he was offered a shave. Gluck said his captors had repeatedly apologized, telling him that his abduction was a mistake and promising that no aid workers will ever be kidnapped in Chechnya again.

Gluck's account of his release contrasted with the version given Sunday by Russian security troops spokesman Alexander Zdanovich, who had described a "special operation" in which Federal Security Service agents tailed Gluck's abductors for days, waiting for the moment to strike without suffering any losses.

Russian officials accused Chechen warlords of being behind the kidnapping, saying Gluck probably was held for ransom. But Austen Davis, director of Doctors Without Borders' Dutch branch, said no ransom demand was received.

Chechen commanders and some Russian media have speculated that Russian officials might have had a hand in Gluck's abduction. They note that Gluck had provided information to international organizations about human rights abuses witnessed by doctors working with the aid group and that Gluck was seized shortly before a team from a European human rights body arrived to review the situation in the war-torn republic.

Russian officials have complained about the presence of humanitarian workers in Chechnya and repeatedly noted that Gluck's kidnapping demonstrates that the republic remains too dangerous for foreigners to travel without Russian military escort.

But in response to Gluck's comments, Zdanovich altered his account of the release late Thursday, asserting that the FSB role in the alleged operation had been to set rival groups of rebels against each other.

(C) 2001 The Commercial Appeal Memphis, TN. via Bell&Howell Information and Learning Company. All Rights Reserved

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