Basayev admited planning and carrying out the Moscow hostage-taking

TBILISI, Georgia, November 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A Tbilisi court upheld a request by Georgian investigators to delay the extradition of three suspected Chechen fighters sought by Russia, court officials said Saturday, November 2.

Georgia's security services argued that such a delay is necessary to positively identify the men, who were arrested in the Pankisi gorge region of northern Georgia in August, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Two of the men were born in the Pankisi gorge and as such could not be extradited to Russia, while the other was a legal refugee to the area, Georgia's Prosecutor General Nugzar Gabrichidze said.

An investigative team has left for the gorge to clarify the matter, he added.

The Georgian court agreed to a three-month delay in the extradition process while the status of the three was verified.

The three are among eight men sought by Moscow but currently held by the authorities in Tbilisi.

A further five suspects were handed over to Moscow on October 4.

They had been captured by Georgian forces in the lawless Pankisi region bordering Chechnya.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg had earlier called on Tbilisi to suspend the extradition of seven of the men it still holds, following a complaint by their lawyers.

The eighth man did not appeal to the court.

Russian and Georgian Presidents Vladimir Putin and Eduard Shevardnadze agreed in principle earlier this month, at a summit of former Soviet republics in Moldova, that the eight detainees held in Tbilisi should be handed over to Moscow.

Moscow says it regards the Chechen fighters detained in Georgia as terrorists.

Relations between Moscow and Tbilisi have deteriorated sharply since October 1999 when Russia sent its troops into Chechnya to put down an independence insurgency, driving several Chechens to take up residence in the neighboring Pankisi Gorge region.

There was no word on whether or when the Georgian authorities would hand over the five Chechen suspects whose cases do not require further clarification.

Meanwhile, Denmark rejected an extradition request from Russia for detained Chechen envoy Akhmed Zakayev as Moscow failed to provide proof of its accusation that he is a terrorist, Danish Justice Minister Lene Espersen said Friday.

She warned that Zakayev would be released if Russia failed to provide the necessary documents to back its extradition request by November 30.

"After a preliminary examination of this request Thursday, the Justice Ministry decided that it did not fulfill the demands (conditions) of the European Convention of December 13, 1957 on the extradition of offenders," Espersen said in a written statement.

Zakayev was detained Wednesday, October 29, by Danish police acting on a Russian arrest warrant claiming he was involved in last week's hostage-taking by Chechen fighters who held more than 800 people captive in a Moscow theater, demanding an end to the Russian war waged against their homeland.

Russia has been pressing Denmark to hand over Zakayev, the main envoy of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov.

In remarks on Danish television, Espersen called the extradition request "unacceptable" as it is "incomplete."

"There is not even an official translation of the documents," she said.

The Danish government "naturally expects that the Russian authorities assume their responsibilities and supply the necessary documents when it makes such serious accusations," she said on the DR1 channel, following a three-hour meeting with the parliamentary foreign affairs committee.

Espersen said she sent a letter Friday, October 31, to Russian authorities requesting additional information, "which must be in the hands of the Danish government by November 30."

At a news conference later, she warned Russian authorities that Zakayev would be released if they failed to comply.

Moscow has guaranteed Denmark that Zakayev will not face the death penalty if extradited.

Denmark, which currently holds the rotating E.U. presidency, refused to bow to a Russian request to cancel a Chechen congress in the country last week, and an upcoming E.U.-Russia summit has been moved from Copenhagen to Brussels.

In a separate related development, Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, claimed responsibility Friday for the Moscow hostage-taking and absolved Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov of involvement in the operation.

In a statement issued on the Chechen Kavzak Center website, Basayev asked "forgiveness from him (Maskhadov) and my fellow fighters for the fact that I hid the planning and carrying out of this operation from them."

His comments came after the Kremlin accused Maskhadov, who was elected president of Chechnya in 1997 shortly after the republic gained de facto independence from Russia following a 1994-1996 war, of helping plan last week's Moscow theater attack.

Some 119 civilians and 50 Chechen hostage-takers died in the three-day siege, with almost all of the civilian casualties attributed to a powerful gas used by the Russian special forces before they had stormed into the building.

The Russian attack came hours before a deadline expired in which the Chechens, who were demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya, threatened to start executing their hostages.

The most feared surviving warlord of the north Caucasus republic, Basayev, 37, announced his resignation Friday from the Chechen government of Maskhadov, after claiming responsibility for an attack "on the very lair of the Russian enemy."

"Although, unfortunately, we did not achieve our main goal, the end of war and genocide of the Chechen people, ... we thank Allah for the help and grace which he has bestowed on us," said Basayav's statement.

"We thank Allah for the chance for letting us bring the war back home" to Russia, he added.

The attack was claimed by a group of Basayev's Riyadus Salikhin.

The bearded Basayev became Russia's public enemy number-one in 1995 when he took several hundred people hostage in a hospital at Budyennovsk, in southern Russia.

Basayev has sought to restore a 19th-century Islamic state in the north Caucasus and continued fighting despite losing a leg after stepping on a landmine in February 2000.

Russian authorities put a one-million-dollar bounty on Basayev's head shortly after the start of the second Chechen war. 

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