TALLINN • A 19-year-old Estonian student who was kidnapped to be married against her will in Russia’s Caucasus republic of Dagestan was yesterday returned safely to her parents, Estonian officials said.
“The kidnappers returned the girl to her parents, and she was alive and well,” Aarne Veedla, an adviser to the Estonian Population Minister, said.
“She was returned after her parents negotiated with the kidnappers in Makhachkala,” the capital of Dagestan, he added.
Aminat Makhmudova, daughter of Dagestani businessman Apandi Makhmudov, a leading figure in an Estonian-Dagestani cultural society, was kidnapped by masked assailants while she visited her father in Dagestan’s capital at the beginning of the month.
The Estonian authorities turned to Moscow for assistance in solving the case, as the young woman has ........
........ Estonian citizenship and is student of a Tallinn university.
Makhmudov said his daughter had been kidnapped in order to be married off, adding that such incidents used to be traditional practice in Dagestan.
Makhmudov told Estonian officials the kidnap had been organised by the 19-year-old son of a deputy mayor of Makhachkala, and that the young man wanted his daughter for a bride.
Makhmudov accused the local authorities of being passive over the incident, adding that the kidnapping of a woman to be married was not considered “a real crime” in the Caucasus.
He also said the local investigators had not been not interested in pursuing the case as the kidnappers were linked to a senior local official.
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