PRIVATE’S MOTHER ACCUSES OFFICERS OF SELLING HER SON TO REBELS

Yelena Arefyeva, resident of the town Oktyabrski in the Nizhni Novgorod Region, has applied to the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers for help. She asks to assist her in saving her son who from July 26th has been kept in captivity by Chechen rebels. The rebels, in her words, are offering to exchange her son for two young detained Chechens suspected of preparing a blast in Argun. The rebels seized Denis and his comrade Aleksandr Chernikov of the Voronezh Region when the soldiers, obeying their officers’ orders, had walked to Shali for vodka, IMA-press reports. The soldiers were seized at the bazaar. The soldier’s mother argues that her son was sold by the officers themselves who are said to have received $8,000 for him.