A missing man whose public complaint about corrupt officials in his tiny village in Chechnya brought him fame across Russia and local condemnation has fled the region after fearing for his life.
Russian rights defender Svetlana Gannushkina wrote on Facebook on November 10 that Ramazan Dzhalaldinov had told her that he had to escape from his village to neighboring Daghestan on November 2-3 after Chechnya's Deputy Interior Minister Apti Alaudinov personally threatened to kill him and his wife unless he stopped his complaints.
According to Gannushkina, Dzhalaldinov told her that police in his village took away his and his son's passports and his mobile phone.
Dzhalaldinov also claimed Alaudinov and local police were doing everything to prevent his meeting with Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, with whom Dzhalaldinov wants to discuss his village's problems.
Dzhalaldinov's relatives reported his disappearance on November 7.
It's the second time Dzhalaldinov has disappeared since his April video complaint alleging corruption among local authorities.
Chechnya's officials, including Kadyrov, denied the complaint, staging a televised public meeting of Dzhalaldinov's fellow villagers to deny the allegations.
Dzhalaldinov and his family fled to Daghestan then and returned a month later. Dzhalaldinov then apologized in a video that was posted to Kadyrov's own Instagram account.
