MOSCOW - Medicines Sans Frontiers said on Wednesday that Russian and Dagestani officials were involved in the kidnapping of Arjan Erkel, an aid worker with the international agency. 19 months after Erkel, a Dutch national, was kidnapped in Dagestan, MSF has accused Russia of being involved, saying the kidnapping was aimed at ''silencing those criticizing conditions in neighbouring Chechnya''.

MSF openly accused officials in Russia of being involved in kidnappings in the southern republic of Dagestan. The head of Medecins Sans Frontieres, Jean-Herve Bradol, said his kidnapping was aimed at silencing criticism of conditions in Chechnya.

Some very powerful people are involved, including parliamentarians, Bradol claimed in an interview to the AFP news agency. ''After 19 months of pragmatism we have decided to break the silence,'' he said. ''We do not make these comments lightly. Some very powerful people are involved, including parliamentarians. Everyone knows that.''

Bradol accused the Russian authorities of leading a pressure and intimidation campaign against those still talking about Chechnya, where, he said, ''a crime on an exceptional scale'' has been taking place over the past decade. He said they had seen evidence that their colleague was still alive in October, but believed he was suffering from a lung infection and faced execution threats. Erkel was seized by three unknown gunmen in August 2002.

Erkel headed the Dagestani section of MSF, based in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. He was kidnapped late in the evening on his way home after visiting friends who lived on the outskirts of Makhachkala.

Three men armed with pistols attacked him and forced him into their Lada car, police reported. According to some reports, Erkel was returning home by car when the abductors ordered his car to stop, forced his driver to the floor and then bundled Erkel into another car that sped off. No ransom request was ever made.

Incidentally, only a week before Erkel’s abduction MSF had said it was suspending its operations in Chechnya, following the news of the abduction of Nina Davidovich, the head of the Russian NGO Druzhba. In an official statement released following her abduction the MSF strongly condemned the kidnapping of Ms. Davidovich and urged all parties to ensure her immediate release.

18 months before Erkel’s abduction Kenneth Gluck, another MSF aid worker, was kidnapped in Chechnya. He spent 26 days in captivity before being released unharmed.

39-year-old Gluck, head of MSF's operations in the North Caucasus, was abducted on January 9, 2001 by armed men while travelling in an unarmed humanitarian convoy near the village of Starye Atagi in Chechnya.

Since late 1998, Gluck and his team had been helping to rebuild and support clinics and hospitals in Chechnya for people who had been trapped by the war without access to medical care.

Gluck was forced into a car, but the gunmen allowed him to take his medicine with him (Gluck suffers from asthma). He spent almost a month in a cellar before he was released and brought to the house of a doctor who lived in Atagi.

Federal commanders then triumphantly reported on a successful operation that resulted in Gluck’s liberation. However, the doctor’s story was quite different. Upon returning to the Moscow office of MSF he said that the notorious rebel leader Shamil Basyaev personally apologized to him for the incident. At approximately the same time a Chechen separatist web site posted a letter written by Basayev, in which the warlord explained that he had mistaken the doctor for a spy.

A year after Erkel’s kidnapping MSF launched an international campaign to put pressure on Russia to help secure his release. In February this year the United Nations warned the Kremlin not to expect any increase in its or other aid agency staff in Chechnya until the kidnapped Dutch aid worker was set free.