Freed Aid Worker Disputes Russian Rescue Account

The U.S. aid worker who spent nearly a month in captivity in Russia’s separatist republic of Chechnya provided an account of his release Thursday that sharply contradicted the official Russian version.

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 may have been behind his abduction.

“I’ll leave the speculation and the theorizing to you,” Gluck told a news conference, his first since his Saturday release.

Russian officials announced Sunday that Gluck had been freed in a “special operation” by agents from the Federal Security Service, the main successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB.

“Not a single penny was paid for his release. And I can tell you that the special FSB troops took part,” FSB spokesman Alexander A. Zdanovich said at the time. He implied that the agents had been tracking Gluck as he was moved around Chechnya and that the rescue operation had been some kind of raid.

But Gluck didn’t describe any such operation. He said that his captors simply told him one day that he would be released.

“I was told to put my glasses in my coat pocket, and a wool hat was pulled down over my eyes,” Gluck said. “I was driven by car for some time, during which I was repeatedly apologized to and told that my kidnapping was a mistake and that my release had been ordered without any conditions or ransom.”

Eventually, the car stopped and he was told to get out. He heard the car drive off, and when he uncovered his eyes, he found himself standing in front of a surgeon’s house in Stariye Atagi, the village where he had been seized by masked men Jan. 9 after delivering supplies to the local hospital.

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

“During this whole long month, we’ve never been contacted by anyone claiming to be Kenny’s kidnappers,” Davis said. “We were never asked to participate in any form of negotiations, and no demands were ever made of us.”

Chechen commanders and some Russian media have speculated that Russian officials may have had a hand in Gluck’s abduction. They note in particular 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.

Zdanovich and other Russian officials have complained about the presence of humanitarian aid 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.

“We found a wedge in this situation . . . which resulted in the release of Gluck,” he said on state television. “For some reason, it is always perceived that an FSB operation is carried out by our special forces.”

Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups suspended their Chechnya relief work after Gluck’s abduction. Davis said they will now reevaluate the situation and decide whether it will be possible to resume deliveries of medicine and other supplies to doctors and hospitals inside Chechnya.