STAVROPOL, February 23 (AVN) - Border guards of the Tagirkent-Kazmalyar outpost on the Russia-Azerbaijan frontier detained an Azerbaijani citizen at 5.00 Moscow time (0200 GMT) on Friday, a spokesman for the North Caucasus regional border guard department told the Military News Agency.
The Azerbaijani's only ID was a certificate confirming his release from the detention centre of Derbent, a town in Russia's Dagestan autonomous republic, the spokesman said. The investigation found that the detainee had been held hostage in Chechnya for about two years.
As many as 400 pilgrims crossed the border heading for hajj on Thursday. Border guards banned 65 people from crossing the border, including 37 at the Dagestani border strap and 19 at the Astrakhan strap. Two woman residents of of Georgia's breakaway Abkhazian region were detained at the Vesyoloye-Zheleznodorozhnoe outpost for producing alien passports. The documents were seized and the woman had to pay a RUR200 (USD7) fine before being expelled to Georgia.
Border guards of the Novotechnoye outpost of the Caspian detachment detained a GAZ-66 vehicle with three residents of the town of Kizlyar and 21 sturgeons inside. Their colleagues from the Artezian outpost found two abandoned poacher boats with 500kg of fresh fish at the Caspian sea shore.
On the whole the situation in the area controlled by the North Caucasus department remains quite calm, the spokesman said. No attacks on cordons and outposts have been registered on the Chechen and adjacent border straps in the past 24 hours.