UNITED KINGDOM/RUSSIA: HERBERT GREGG, A U.S. CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY, ARRIVES IN LONDON AFTER SEVEN MONTHS AS A HOSTAGE IN CHECHNYA

Record ID: 336874

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM/RUSSIA: HERBERT GREGG, A U.S. CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY, ARRIVES IN LONDON AFTER SEVEN MONTHS AS A HOSTAGE IN CHECHNYA
  • Date: 30th June 1999
  • Summary: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM (JUNE 30, 1999) (REUTERS - NO ACCESS UK) 1. SV PLANE STOPPING 0.10 2. SV RELEASED HOSTAGE HERBERT GREGG GREETING PEOPLE IN TERMINAL 0.30 3. SCU (English) RELEASED HOSTAGE HERBERT GREGG SAYING :"Extreme, extreme happiness, enjoying being with my wife and soon with my children, immediate plans are to be here in London for
  • Embargoed: 15th July 1999 13:00
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  • Location: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM/ MOSCOW, RUSSIA /FILE
  • City:
  • Country: England United Kingdom Russia
  • Reuters ID: LVA9VK66FPKVHS4AFJ9SOWA3BG90
  • Story Text: Herbert Gregg, a U.S.Christian missionary, has arrived
    in London after seven months as a hostage in Chechnya, his
    hand bandaged where his captors had chopped off a finger to
    press their ransom demands.

    Herbert Gregg, 52, a former teacher at the University
    in Dagestan, North Caucasus, arrived in London on Wednesday
    (June 30) after spending seven months in captivity in
    Chechnya.

    Chechen gangsters have held hundreds of Russians and at
    least two dozen foreigners for ransom since the end of a war
    for independence from Moscow.Many victims have been killed.

    Some have been mutilated.Survivors have said they were
    tortured, starved, bought and sold, worked as slaves, raped.

    But the ransom video for Herbert Gregg, an American
    missionary kidnapped in a neighbouring region seven months
    ago, was by far the most visceral image to reach the outside
    world of the terror of a hostage epidemic that Russian and
    Chechen officials have been powerless to stop.

    The video was released on Tuesday by Russia's Interior
    Ministry, which said security forces had freed Gregg and no
    ransom was paid, but gave no further details of the operation.

    Gregg's captors used his videotaped mutilation to press
    their demands for cash.

    "This is Herbert Gregg, an American.April 12," he says in
    the video, his hand freshly bandaged.

    "My situation, you can see, is very very serious.Today
    they cut off a finger.The situation is that, without money, a
    finger will go, each time, over certain periods.

    The situation is very, very serious."
    Gregg and his wife came to Dagestan in 1995 to teach
    English philology at the Makhchkala University.The couple
    were also involved in missionary activity.

    Gregg was kidnapped on November 11, 1998.Four men
    stopped him in the street, forced him into their car and drove
    away.While in captivity Gregg was beaten and tortured.

    Herbert Gregg arrived in Moscow with a Russian hostage,
    "Dynamo "soccer player Sergey Medvedev, who was kidnapped
    September 20th, 1998 in Nazran, Ingushetiya.
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