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Britain Grants Chechen Leader Zakayev Asylum
Reuters, Arab News
LONDON, 30 November 2003 — Chechen leader Akhmed Zakayev, charged with murder and kidnapping by Russia, has been granted asylum in Britain, the Home Office said yesterday.
Russia, which sees its fight against Chechen rebels as part of the global “war on terrorism”, has already criticized Britain’s decision not to extradite Zakayev, accusing London of double standard. The EU has criticized Russia for human rights abuses in Chechnya.
Zakayev has been in Britain since December last year and requested asylum within days of his arrival.
He said he feared he would be killed if he returned to Russia, which accuses him of atrocities dating from the first of two wars in the breakaway Russian region from 1994-96.
Earlier this month Britain rejected Russia’s bid to extradite him, saying there was a substantial risk he would be tortured if he were sent to Moscow for trial.
That decision drew an angry response from Moscow, warning of damage to otherwise friendly Russian-British relations.
“We can confirm Mr. Zakayev has been granted refugee status. His application (for asylum) has been successful,” a Home Office spokesman said.
Russia had sought to extradite Zakayev on 13 charges from the mid-1990s. Russia first asked for his extradition during the notorious Moscow theater siege last year, when a Chechen suicide squad held hundreds of hostages prisoner.
In the years between the first Chechen war and his flight to Britain, Zakayev became the chief Chechen peace negotiator, meeting Russian officials in Moscow as recently as 2001.
Russian forces left Chechnya in defeat in 1997 at the end of the first war but returned in 1999.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python (Alquds, 1/25/03. |
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