RUSSIA TARGETS BRITISH ACTRESS AND DENMARK FOR ZAKAEV TIES

Hundreds of people reportedly connected to the pro-Putin youth group Marching Together demonstrated near the home of actress Vanessa Redgrave in west London in December to protest her links to Chechen separatist emissary Akhmed Zakaev, Britain’s Sunday Times reported on January 2. They also held a demonstration in London’s Trafalgar Square, during which some of them held placards reading: “Merry Xmas, Mr. Zakaev, stop your bloody business” and “Zakaev get out of the UK”. “Why they have raised my profile is precisely because I work with Mr. Zakaev and Russian human rights activists…This is the first time they have mentioned me publicly,” Redgrave told the newspaper. “It is very worrying both for him and for myself and I don’t think the KGB will stop at anything.” While Marching Together denies it has any presence in London, the Sunday Times said a source that attended meetings with the demonstration organizers said they openly talked about their membership of the group.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Ministry summoned Denmark’s ambassador to Russia, Lars Vissing, on December 31 concerning “information that has been received concerning a possible trip by Chechen emissary Akhmed Zakaev to Denmark in spring 2005 at the initiative of the so-called Danish support committee for Chechnya,” Itar-Tass reported. The ministry said in a statement that Moscow “is proceeding on the basis that the Danish authorities will do everything possible to prevent Zakaev from entering Denmark, either by meeting their responsibilities to combat terrorism by detaining the terrorists’ accomplice at Interpol’s request for later extradition to Russia if he arrives on Danish territory or by launching a criminal investigation against him.”