A leading human rights activist was abducted and killed in Russia Wednesday, the organization she worked for told CNN.
Natalya Estemirova, of the Russian human rights group Memorial, was kidnapped outside her home in Grozny, Chechnya, Oleg Orlov said, citing eyewitness reports. She was later found dead in the neighboring Russian republic of Ingushetia, said Orlov, the head of the organization’s Moscow office. Estemirova was a leading human rights activist in the North Caucasus area who had been openly criticizing Chechnya’s authoritarian president, Ramzan Kadyrov, and his methods.
She shouted that she was being kidnapped as she was forced into a white Lada automobile that had stopped on the road in front of her house around 8:30 a.m. (12:30 a.m. ET), Orlov said. An unidentified man grabbed her and shoved her into the car, he told CNN. “This is a kidnapping,” she yelled, he said.
