Watchdog

Journalist Idrak Abbasov is in a Baku hospital after being questioned at the National Security Ministry in Azerbaijan's Naxcivan exclave, RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service reports.

Abbasov and his colleague from the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety were on a fact-finding visit to Naxcivan to compile a human rights report on February 20.

Abbasov was invited to the ministry in response to his request for an interview. But his colleague was not allowed in and Abbasov said he was restrained and blindfolded when he entered.

His mobile phone, photo and video cameras were taken and then he was questioned.

Abbasov said he was then subjected to physical and psychological pressure. He said he told them he had heart problems and needed medicine, but they treated him "aggressively" before releasing him two hours later.

Azerbaijan's National Security Ministry and the branch in Naxcivan refused to comment.

Austria is seeking the extradition of a man arrested by Polish police who is suspected of involvement in the killing of a Chechen refugee in Vienna last month.

The man, arrested near Warsaw on February 19, is a Russian national of Chechen origin.

He is suspected of involvement in the killing of 27-year-old Umar Israilov, a former bodyguard of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov who was shot dead on January 13.

Israilov had filed a criminal complaint last year accusing Kadyrov of torture and other abuses in Chechnya.

Kadyrov's critics fear Israilov's death could effectively quash their best hopes for bringing conclusive evidence to light of alleged torture and other atrocities by the Chechen president.

Visita Ibragimov, the president of the Association of Democratic Chechens in Austria, told RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service that "we have several versions" of who killed Israilov.

Ibragimov said he hopes Austrian police "do everything to find the real murderer."

Kadyrov often has been accused of human rights abuses and of ruling Chechnya with an iron fist.