BC-France-missing Photographer, 0583

Photos on exhibit by French photographer missing in Chechnya

AP Photo PAR101

By JASON STRAZIUSO

Associated Press Writer

PARIS (AP) - Black and white photos show soldiers lying low and alert, high grass ail around, In war-torn Bosnia. The danger of war simmers in the soldiers' eyes.

That danger is real for the photographer too, in this case French photographer Brice Fleutiaux, whose work is now on display in Paris.

The independent photographer disappeared Oct. 1 apparently captured while covering the war in Chechnya. His whereabouts are not known, and efforts to secure his release so far have failed.

“The message we want to get out is that Brice is a photographer," said Alexandre Levy, a Reporters without Borders official responsible for Europe and Russia.

“He's not someone who just picked up a camera and went over there. he has covered major events all his life," he said.

No one has claimed responsibility yet for Fleutiaux's capture and no demand have been made, Levy said.

Dana Fleutiaux, Brice's wife, has said her husband was kidnapped in Georgia by a group who had promised to help him get into Chechnya.

The 30-odd photos in the Parisian gallery hosting Fleutiaux's work prove he doesn't shy away from hotspots_.

The exhibit captures a 10-year career from Romanian sewer children to poverty in India. In 1989, he captured images of rock-throwing protesters in Cambodia.

The exhibit is cosponsored by the independent creative Photographers union and Reporters without Borders, the France-based reporters' rights group. They hope to raise awareness about Fleutiaux.

Unlike the case of Andrei Babitsky, a Russian reporter for American-funded Radio Liberty recently released from captivity, few people have heard of the French photographer.

"Mr. Fleutiaux is an independent. He doesn't have a large media company behind him,” Levy said.

Babitsky, who covered the Chechnya war front rebel positions_, was arrested in January for allegedly failing to have proper accreditation. Feared kidnapped and dead, he resurfaced in February. He said he was held by men he believes were working for the Russian secret services.

Fleutiaux's family has received two videos. The first showed the photographer in bad shape, asking for help and saying he was beaten regularly. A second tape, received in January, showed his condition had improved. There has not been any contact since.

The family hasn't publicly commented on the case.

France has been actively lobbying Moscow for help in securing Fleutiaux' s release.

"We are and have been moving on this affair, in Moscow as well as in Paris," French Foreign ministry spokeswoman Anne Gazeau-Secret said.

French President Jacques Chirac asked former Russian President Boris Yeltsin to help Fleutiaux in December and reiterated those requests to acting President Vladimir Putin in January.

Brice's wife travelled to Moscow over the weekend for four days to meet with officials and to try to create public awareness for her husband.

Alexander Zdanovich, a spokesman for Russia's Federal service of Security, formerly known as the KGB, has said that Fleutiaux illegally entered Russia, travelling Into Chechnya through Georgia with the help of "criminal groups in relations with Chechen bandits."

Some 1,300 people have been kidnapped in and around Chechnya during the last three years. More than 700 were freed.