Antonio Russo

New York, September 26, 2001— Japanese free-lance journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka has now been missing since late July, when he reportedly left Georgia for Chechnya to interview Chechen rebels.

Tsuneoka, 32, last communicated with his family via e-mail at the end of July after arriving in Tbilisi, Georgia's capital, the Japan Economic Newswire reported. He wrote that he planned to visit Chechnya.

Tsuneoka also e-mailed his friend Kendziro Kato, a military journalist based in Tokyo, telling him that he would return from Chechnya to Georgia by August 15. Tsuneoka was traveling on a one-month Georgian visa, ITAR-TASS reported.

ALONG WITH ORGANIZED CRIME, SEPARATIST MOVEMENTS, and the excesses of regional strongmen, spillover from Russia's war in neighboring Chechnya added to Georgia's woes in 2000, making the lives of local journalists even more difficult.

On October 16, the body of an Italian journalist who had covered the Chechen conflict was found on a mountain pass some 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. The reporter, Antonio Russo of Radio Radicale, had befriended Chechen separatist fighters in the course of his work, and colleagues said he claimed to have videotaped evidence of Russian atrocities in Chechnya. Local journalists and investigators, including Georgian prosecutor general Dzhamlet Babilashvili, have suggested Russo may have been killed to prevent this material from coming to light.

Read more about press freedom conditions in Georgia


October 24, 2000

His Excellency Eduard Shevardnadze
President of Georgia

Via Fax: 011-995-32-99-74-75

Your Excellency:

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely disturbed by the death of Italian radio journalist Antonio Russo, whose body was found on October 16 outside the capital, Tbilisi. Because of the highly suspicious circumstances surrounding his death, Russo's colleagues in Tbilisi fear the journalist may have been murdered in reprisal for his coverage of the conflict in neighboring Chechnya, according to local media reports.