The bodies of Zarema Sadulayeva and Alik 

Dzhabrailov were found in Grozny

The head of a Russian charity kidnapped along with her husband in the restive region of Chechnya has been found dead, according to Interfax news agency.

The bodies of Zarema Sadulayeva and Alik Dzhabrailov, her partner, were found in Grozny, the Chechen capital, on Tuesday.

 "Their bodies were found in the settlement of Chernorechye in Grozny," Interfax quoted Alexander Cherkasov, a board member of Memorial, a human rights group, as saying.

Cherkasov did not have immediate information on the cause of death.

He said Sadulayeva's husband had previously been jailed for four years for links to banned armed groups and had married the charity head two months after leaving prison.

Interfax also quoted interior ministry sources in the region as confirming the killing. "The rights activists were found in the boot of a car with gunshot wounds," it quoted an official source as saying.

 Chechen president blamed for activist's death 
 Chechnya's battle for independence
 Witness: Chechen fighters
 Witness: Chechen syndrome
 Witness: Lost children of Chechnya

The couple were taken by armed men from the offices of the Save the Generation charity, which provides medical and psychological help to young people who have suffered as a result of violence in Chechnya.

The reported killings came as a journalist for a local newspaper in Dagestan, a province in Russia's volatile south, was found shot dead on the outskirts of Makhachkala, the capital, according to Russian news agencies.

Malik Akhmedilov, who worked for Khakikat newspaper, was found with gun shot wounds to the stomach, a local interior ministry source said. 

The latest incidents follow last month's kidnapping and killing of Nataliya Estemirova, a human rights activist with Memorial. 

'Hostile environment'

Human rights activists have blamed the forces of Ramzan Kadyrove, the Kremlin-backed Chechen president, for the killing of Estemirova.

"The authorities in Chechnya have shown themselves to be very intolerant of criticism," Jane Buchanan of Human Rights Watch told Al Jazeera shortly after the abduction of Sadulayeva  and her husband.  

"Natalia Estemirova had been herself threatened by Kadyrov in the past and he was not happy about the reporting she was doing exposing human rights abuses ... it's frankly a hostile environment to begin with.

"These are just outrageous crimes, the abduction and killing of Natalia Estemirova in a country that aspires to democratic standards is just appalling."

Russia earlier this year ended a 10-year "counter-terrorism" operation in Chechnya, a mainly Muslim region riven by two separatist wars since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

However, Chechnya and other parts of the Russian Caucasus remain the site of a deadly insurgency led by Muslim fighters against the pro-Kremlin local authorities, who in turn have been accused of human rights abuses.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/08/200981154346856185.html

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/04/200941616473833140

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/witness/2009/03/20093874646880797

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/witness/2007/04/200852518464052803

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/witness/2008/12/20081231121466916