“LUKOIL” Vice-President Was Kidnapped to Belarus :: Charter'97 :: News

First Vice-President of the “LUKOIL” company Sergei Kukura was hidden by the abductors in the remote Belarusian village in the middle of nowhere, reports the newspaper “Izvestia” on Tuesday. According to the newspaper, Kukura was held in the Moscow region for one and a half days after his kidnapping. Then, having recorded on video Kukura’s request to pay for his liberation $3mln and 3mln euros, the criminals dispatched him to Belarus. They immured him in the basement of a wooden house.

On September 25 they put a bag on Kukura’s head and boarded him on their car. After a two-hour ride they let him off on some faraway road. The kidnappers told Kukura to wait on the roadside for fifteen minutes and hitch-hike all the way to Moscow, not contacting local police or anything.

On Monday “Interfax” reported that the law-enforcers suspect that the abduction was masterminded and carried out by the former military office, builder Alexander Vetlugaev and former air borne, who had been previously sued for plunder, Sergei Melchakovsky.

On Tuesday the chief of the Russian police Alexander Ovchinnkov will report to the press about the course of investigation into the abduction of “LUKOIL’s” first Vice-President.