RUSSIA: FSB DOUBTS CHECHEN PRESIDENT`S SURRENDER DELIBERATELY THWARTED
Interfax quoted an unnamed source within the Chechen division of the Federal Security Service (FSB) on 6 May as
saying that office has no knowledge of any attempt to prevent the surrender of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov. In an
interview with "Trud" on 6 May, Ramzan Kadyrov, who heads the personal guard of his father, pro-Moscow Chechen
leader Akhmad-hadji Kadyrov, claimed that he met with a group of Maskhadov's emissaries to discuss Maskhadov's
surrender following the surrender of Chechen Defense Minister Magomed Khambiev, but that the FSB surrounded and stormed
the two houses where Kadyrov had found accommodation for the envoys, killing three of them and wounding four others. The
unnamed FSB official told Interfax that the FSB would have been aware of it if any such incident had occurred,
regardless of who the attackers were. He also said Maskhadov was in Daghestan last month and that federal forces,
including the FSB, continue both to search for Maskhadov and to seek to establish contact with him in the hope of
persuading him to surrender. LF Copyright (c) 2004. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty
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RUSSIA IN FACTS
