AZERBAIJANI GENERAL WANTED IN BAKU IS PROTECTED IN MOSCOW.

Russia’s Office of the Prosecutor General announced yesterday that it refuses to extradite Major-General Shahin Musaev to Azerbaijan. The prosecutor general claimed that Musaev was in the possession of military secrets from the time of his service in the USSR armed forces and can therefore not be sent to “another country” (apparently meaning other than Russia).

Musaev, who was chief of staff of Azerbaijan’s armed forces during the Karabakh war, is accused of involvement in the series of Russian-supported coups against President Haidar Aliev in 1994-96. He fled to Russia and was identified there last November. Baku has repeatedly demanded the extradition of Musaev for trial. Aliev raised the issue again on the occasion of the April 29 CIS summit in Moscow. Baku suspects that the Soviet army “secrets” possessed by Musaev refer to the January 1991 massacre staged by Soviet troops in Baku. (Russian agencies, May 4; Turan, March 12 and 13 and April 28, 1998).

UZBEKISTAN REPUDIATES OLD DEBT TO RUSSIA.