Latest Briefs

BRIEFS

--MURTAZALIEVA GETS NINE YEARS Vladimir Suvorov, lawyer for Zara Murtazalieva, the 21-year-old Chechen woman sentenced to nine years in prison January 17 for conspiring to carry out a terrorist attack in Moscow's Okhotny Ryad shopping center, recruiting two Russian women to act as suicide bombers,... MORE

BRIEFS

--BESLAN VICTIMS' RELATIVES BLOCK HIGHWAY Hundreds of Beslan residents whose children and grandchildren were killed in last September's school massacre blocked a section of Rostov-Baku highway on January 20, demanding an objective investigation of the school siege and the resignation of North Ossetian President Aleksandr... MORE

BRIEFS

--TYCOON: CHECHENS TRIED TO SELL ME A NUKE Boris Berezovsky has claimed that Chechens once offered to sell him a nuclear bomb. The exiled tycoon, who first made the claim in an interview published in Komsomolskaya pravda on February 8, later told the Associated Press... MORE

BRIEFS

--ALKHANOV: REBELS' RELATIVES SHOULD URGE THEM TO GIVE UP On February 12, Chechen President Alu Alkhanov called on the relatives, friends and acquaintances of separatist fighters to urge them to surrender, Interfax reported. "Spring is ahead, and we have peaceful constructive work to do," Alkhanov... MORE

BRIEFS

--KLEBNIKOV MURDER SUSPECTS EXTRADITED TO RUSSIA On February 22, Belarus handed over to the Russian authorities two Chechens suspected of murdering Paul Klebnikov, the veteran investigative journalists and editor of the Russia-language edition of Forbes, in Moscow last July. Newsru.com, citing Belarusian national television, reported... MORE

BRIEFS

--WEBSITE CLAIMS BASAEV MET WITH CIA AGENTS The pro-Kremlin Utro.ru website reported February 28 that "military experts" believe that the video posted by the Kavkazcenter website earlier this month in which Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basaev dispelled rumors that he had been killed was shot... MORE

BRIEFS

--BESLAN WOMEN DEMONSTRATE Some 1,000 people, including members of the "Women of Beslan" group, held a demonstration in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, on March 8 after the federal Prosecutor General's Office refused to investigate the fact that clothes, other personal effects and body... MORE

BRIEFS

--ALKHANOV RIDICULES MASKHADOV'S SUCCESSOR Chechen President Alu Alkhanov said that he knew nothing about Aslan Maskhadov's successor, Sheikh Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev, and that the Chechen Interior Ministry had no information about him. "I have never heard of this person before, and I am not the only... MORE

BRIEFS

--POLL SHOWS SUPPORT FOR RUSSIAN PULLOUT AND U.N. PEACEKEEPERS The Caucasus Times reported on March 21 that in a poll of Grozny residents conducted in partnership with Prague Watchdog over March 11-15, 43% of respondents said "the withdrawal of the Russian military from Chechnya" would... MORE

Briefs

--WEEKLY RESUMES ITS CRITICISM OF KREMLIN'S CHECHNYA POLICY Though Russia's electronic broadcast media are increasingly timid about Chechnya, the reformist weekly Novoye Vremya is back in action after an ownership dispute forced it to suspend publication—and is once again publishing severely critical articles about the... MORE