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Russia offers "proof" on Chechen envoy, but
no link to hostage drama
AFP
November 5, 2002
Russia handed Denmark material it said proves the "guilt" of rebel Chechen envoy Akhmed Zakayev whose extradition Moscow is demanding, but provided no evidence linking him to last month's hostage crisis in which 120 theatre-goers died.
State prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov gave visiting Danish Justice Minister Lene Espersen material that "proves Zakayev's guilt" but acknowledged that the incriminating documents referred to events that took place in the 1990s, said deputy prosecutor general Sergei Fridinsky.
Moscow is pressing Denmark to extradite Zakayev, Chechen rebel president Aslan Maskhadov's senior envoy who was arrested last Wednesday in Copenhagen where he attended a two-day international conference on Chechnya.
Danish authorities asked Russia at the weekend to provide further evidence to back up the arrest warrant it issued against him. They are to decide by the end of the month whether to accede to the extradition request.
"We are charging Zakayev with setting up a rebel group that operated from 1991 to 2001. The number of its members varied from 300 to 1,500. The group has been involved in a number of crimes, including some linked with terrorism," Fridinsky said in televised remarks.
Russia has been fighting a separarist insurgency in Chechnya for most of the past eight years. Chechen leaders declared the republic independent in 1991.
Russia asserts that Zakayev and Maskhadov were involved in the preparation of the October 23-26 hostage crisis staged by heavily-armed Chechen commandos, all of whom died in the special forces operation to rescue the hostages.
Maskhadov denied involvement, and the hostage-takers said they were obeying orders from the radical Islamist warlord Shamil Basayev.
After Fridinsky's announcement, a Chechen rebel spokesman in southern Russia warned that Russian intelligence services were "capable of forging any document to accused Zakayev of being linked to terrorist organisations."
Maskhadov's spokesman urged Denmark to "check meticulously" the Russian documents which they said would prove to be faked.
Fridinsky said the materials handed to Espersen "offer evidence that Zakayev's rebel group captured two employees of the prosecutor's office in the Urus-Martan district in October 1995."
The documents enumerate a series of attacks in the same region and in Grozny in the months to August 1996 which Zakayev's group is said to have launched and indicate that the group "played a role in an armed uprising in Dagestan (neighbouring Chechnya) in 1999," Fridinsky said.
Aslambek Aslakhanov, the Chechen deputy who represents the southern republic in the Russian State Duma (lower house), noted that Zakayev had travelled to Moscow in November last year for official talks with President Vladimir Putin's envoy to the region, Vladimir Kazantsev.
"If all these accusations are true, I wonder why this meeting was authorised. If this is true, our security forces made a serious mistake," he said.
Zakayev had never previously been linked with the Chechen raids into Dagestan in September 1999 attributed to radical warlords Shamil Basayev and Khattab.
Chechen rebel sources said Zakayev had denounced the raids at the time.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Russia would "do what it can" to prevent the extradition issue souring relations between the two countries.
"We have an incident to resolve and we will do what we can to see that it does not hinder the development of our future relations. ... There was not and is not any question of downgrading our relations (with Denmark)," Interfax quoted him as saying.
Espersen is in Moscow as part of a delegation from the European Union which Denmark currently presides.
Russian and EU justice and interior ministry officials discussed a wide range of judicial issues including terrorism, legal reform, organised crime and mutual aid, Danish officials said.
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