Illustration: Nastya Pokotinska / Novaya Gazeta Europe

Chechen operatives suspected of kidnapping a man from a central Moscow railway station last week avoided criminal charges and returned to Chechnya on Saturday after being questioned as witnesses, sources have told Novaya Gazeta Europe.

Blogger Areg Shchepikhin was abducted from the Yaroslavsky station in central Moscow last Tuesday and taken to an unknown location outside the city in the trunk of a car with flashing lights. He was released some hours later, battered and bruised, after being interrogated.

A source in the Investigative Committee told Novaya Europe that the kidnappers, suspected to be tied to Adam Delimkhanov, a Russian lawmaker and a close ally of Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov, had been questioned as witnesses in the case but then released.

“Delimkhanov’s people have not been detained. … After agreeing what to do with the Chechen authorities, they handed themselves in and were interrogated as witnesses. And then they left again,” the source told Novaya Europe.

It was previously reported that a criminal case had been opened into the Shchepikhin abduction, with Telegram news channel Baza writing the day after the incident that six defendants had been charged with kidnapping and abuse of office, and released on bail.

Leaked audio messages published by Telegram channel VCHK-OGPU, which has ties to the security forces, suggest that Delimkhanov had admitted to organising the kidnapping himself.

Shchepikhin, who was kidnapped after posting a video seen as offensive to Chechens and Muslims, has been charged with incitement to extremism and incitement to hatred. While the Investigative Committee said that its investigations into Shchepikhin were ongoing, it said an analysis of the video demonstrated “signs of incitement to commit violent acts against and humiliate a group of persons based on their national and/or ethnic characteristics”.

Novaya Europe has also discovered that the Chechen Prosecutor’s Office and ombudsman are applying to have his case investigated within the North Caucasus republic. In this sense, the case bears a resemblance to that of Nikita Zhuravel, a man accused of burning a Quran whose case was transferred to Chechnya even though the alleged incident occurred outside a mosque in the southern Russian city of Volgograd.