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Redgrave says Zakayev's arrest was politically motivated
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COPENHAGEN,
November 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - British actress and
peace activist Vanessa Redgrave is to lobby Danish deputies Friday,
November 1, in the case of top Chechen envoy Akhmed Zakayev, held in
Copenhagen on a Russian extradition request.
The
veteran campaigner, who was in the Danish capital for a Chechen
conference earlier this week at which Zakayev was the main speaker,
visited the Chechen envoy in his cell Thursday, October 31, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Redgrave,
who said Zakayev's arrest was politically motivated, also met with
Copenhagen's police chief and the Chechen envoy's lawyers, one of whom
said that Zakayev would not appeal his 13-day detention in the Danish
capital.
"But
if the justice ministry approves his extradition, he will challenge
the case in the Danish courts and in the last instance before the
European Court of Human rights," his lawyer, Ervin Birk Nielsen,
told journalists.
Zakayev
was arrested Wednesday, October 30, by Danish police acting on a
Russian arrest warrant claiming he was involved in last week's hostage
crisis in which desperate Chechen fighters held more than 800 people
in a Moscow theater, demanding an end to the bloody Russian war on
Chechnya.
The
Russian authorities resorted to a ‘callous’ means to end the
crisis; they pumped fentanyl – a potent gas – into the theater,
killing at least 119 civilians.
Redgrave
said Thursday the allegations against Zakayev were "absolutely
untrue," AFP reported.
"He
is in no way connected with the terrorist attack on the Moscow theater
or in any other acts of terrorism," she told DR1 public
television.
Zakayev
was ordered Wednesday to be held until November 12, while Danish
authorities rule on a Russian request to have him extradited.
The
arrest comes amid a broad crackdown by Moscow on Chechen activists in
the wake of the theater hostage siege.
