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US suspects a POW still alive in Stalinist prison
RUSSIA, June 19: American investigators arc continuing to look into reports a US TOW may be Alive in a Stalinist prison, but camp officials Insist there arc no Americans in the re-mote Pechora region, reports AP. ,
"We don't have any Americans here,” said Maj. Gen. Leonid Khamluk. chief of the region that comprises roughly 10 labour camps built before and during World War II.
The American investigators arrived in the Pechora area Thursday to probe reports a US POW was still alive. All they found were freshly painted walls, smiling prisoners and officials who insist their search was in vain.
The delegation of two civilians and one military investigator — part of a joint US-Russian commission on POWs — met local officials Thursday and then trekked over rough gravel roads through the Taiga forests to reach Camp No. 5 in the once-closed area known as PL-350.
The delegation travelled to Camp No 5, 10 kilometers (six miles) from Pechora, after get ling word an American pilot was believed to be
held al one of the camps here.
Camp No 5 and the others are serviced by Pechora, a blue-collar town of 70,000, which Is located about 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) northeast of Moscow.
The trip was quickly organized following the disclosure by President Boris Yeltsin that American POWs imprisoned in the Soviet Union might still be on Russian soil.
The delegation Intended to keep working Friday before returning to Moscow.
A private American group searching for POWs, the Ark Project, said it believed the man being sought was 1st Lt. Robert Martin who was taken prisoner by North Korea during the Korean War.
The American investigators refused to speak to reporters. They filed from room to room in the prison's dilapidated, three-story administration building, its Interior walls freshly painted white, In search of Information about the missing American.
Soldiers, inmates and prison officials all said there were no Americans present.
"We heard some rumors that somebody was around here, but nobody has ever seen him. And I don't believe them." said 18-ycan-old Alexander Babenko, one of a half-dozen young soldiers posted at a guardhouse overlooking the campyard.
The labor camp, home to more than 200 prisoners, is surrounded by a high brick and wooden fence topped by barbed-wire. It Is set in a clearing surrounded by birch trees for miles on all sides.
Journalists were not allowed inside, but could sec several buildings behind the fence, including a hospital, barracks and small factories where prisoners produce wooden furniture.
The entrance road is lined with freshly planted pine saplings. The crumbling concrete road winding around the camp has been swept clean and the few prisoners allowed outside were wearing clean, black uniforms.
Vladimir Alexandrov, a 38-ycar-old convicted burglar serving a four-year term, said camp officials ordered Inmates to clean up the
grounds in the previous two days, evidently to put a good face forward to the Americans.
Our conditions arc pretty good anyway." Alexandrov said, managing a half-hearted smile as he cleaned potatoes at a kitchen outside the compound.
Alexandrov, who has one year left on his term, said he has never seen an American during his lime at the camp, "but J don't know about the other places."
Most of Its residents work in the local timber-cutting or oil exploration industries. The arrival of the delegation stirred skepticism among some people about the true nature of the Americans visit.
They didn't really come here to save anybody This Is purely political." said Yuri Kokuashvlil, deputy chief of the Pechora police department and an official In charge of security outside the camp.
The POW commission, headed by Russian Gen. Dmitri Volkogonov and former US Ambassador Malcolm Toon.