MOSCOW. July 7 (Interfax-AVN) - No fresh news is available about the Agence France-Press correspondent, kidnapped in Ingushetia, chief of the AFP Moscow bureau Michel Viatteau told Interfax on Sunday.
The reporters' friends think he could have been moved to Chechnya, Viatteau said.
"I don't think the reporter was kidnapped in order to get a ransom," he said, adding that the kidnappers have not telephoned either to the Moscow bureau, or to the central office of the agency.
Journalist Ali Astamirov, who had worked with AFP for a year, was kidnapped in Nazran on Friday.
Three armed men wearing masks and uniforms without identification signs stopped Astamirov's car on Friday and seized his and his two companions' cell phones. Astamirov was taken away.