As the Radio Liberty reporter Andrei Babitsky was freed on the orders of Acting President Vladmir Putin, news reached Moscow that Mr Vladimir Yatsina, a photo-journalist with the ITAR-TASS news agency, had been shot dead by armed Chechens near the southern village of Shatoi.
Mr Yatsina (51) had been held hostage by Chechen bandits for almost eight months and it is understood that he was executed because he was unable to keep pace with his captors who were moving him on foot to Shatoi.
Mr Babitsky (35) has claimed in Moscow that he was beaten by "sadists" while detained in a controversial Russian "filtration camp". He was arrested by Russian forces in January and held in the Chernokozovo filtration camp near the Chechen border before being handed over to Chechen rebels in exchange for a number of captured Russian soldiers. In an interview on Radio Liberty, Mr Babitsky said: "I can tell you, for the first time, that I was not in the hands of the secret services but of sadists, who held me in the Chernokozovo concentration camp."
He said he, and many at the camp, had been badly beaten. Human rights organisations have called for an inquiry into activities in the camp in which male Chechens suspected of being rebels are brought for interrogation. The handing over of Mr Babitsky to Chechen rebels engendered a storm of protest from Western governments and human rights activists.
Having been missing for more than a month Mr Babitsky turned up in the neighbouring republic of Dagestan and was arrested for possession of a false passport which he claimed had been planted on him.
Released on Mr Putin's orders, he was brought to Moscow and instructed to remain in the capital. The public prosecutor's office said it still intended to press charges against him on possession of a passport in the name of an Azeri citizen.
Mr Yatsina was captured by Chechen bandits on July 19th last year and held for ransom as a hostage. A Kazakh citizen, Mr Alisher Orazaliyev, released by the Chechen group said Mr Yatsina was killed on February 20th while being transported to the rebel stronghold of Shatoi in the southern mountains.
Mr Orazaliyev said that Mr Yatsina was suffering from leg pains which slowed up the movement of the group. "There were only five kilometres left when gunmen shot him dead," he said.
A further 11 journalists taken hostage in the region since 1995 are still missing, according to Mr Oleg Panfilov of the Russian Journalists' Union.
Russian forces yesterday claimed to have taken the Shatoi stronghold which had been the major centre of Chechen resistance after the fall of Grozny.
Col Gen Gennady Troshev, deputy commander of Russian forces, said his troops had seized most of the key Argun gorge, including the village of Shatoi, a redoubt midway up the gorge in the Chechen mountains.
"Yes, today the military has occupied the main heights over the whole Argun gorge. Yes, Shatoi and nine other villages . . . have been completely freed . . ." he said. A military success in southern Chechnya would further boost Mr Putin's chances of success in the presidential election on March 26th.
