| Akhmed Zakayev was not noticed in Germany The State Duma Committee on International Affairs addressed the Prosecutor General's Office with a request in connection with the Berlin blitz visit of the European representative of the Chechen separatists, Akhmed Zakayev. Mr Zakayev spent three days in Berlin last week. He arrived there at the invitation of several Social Democratic deputies of the Bundestag, managed to take part in an informal discussion on ways to further resolve the Chechen conflict and returned to reliable London, as if deliberately teasing Russian politicians.
Russia has been unsuccessfully seeking the extradition of Mr. Zakayev for almost a year and a half - first from Denmark, and then from Great Britain. Last year, London Magistrates' Court put an end to his case, declaring that the evidence of guilt collected by Russian prosecutors was not entirely sufficient for extradition.
But the international arrest warrant for Zakaev did not cease to operate after Foggy Albion granted him political asylum. Therefore, some Russian politicians hoped that Germany would give the domestic Themis another chance to recoup past defeats. However, the Germans did not detain Akhmed Zakayev, although the Moscow Interpol bureau considered that there were quite enough formal grounds for this. “If Interpol continues to act in the same way, then the very necessity of its existence will be called into question,” said assistant to the Russian president Sergei Yastrzhembsky with disappointment.
True, Mr. Yastrzhembsky did not explain why the Prosecutor General’s Office this time relied so much on Interpol and did not contact the German authorities directly, as was done when Zakayev came to Copenhagen and London. The German officialdom, represented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the government, emphasizes in every possible way that it has nothing to do with the visit of the Chechen exile. But Akhmed Zakaev entered the two previous countries quite privately, and this did not prevent the police from being sensitive to the requests of their Russian colleagues. Why the third attempt by the prosecutor's office to get hold of Mr. Zakayev did not take place, deputies from the Duma Committee on International Affairs will probably now find out. However, the answer, whatever it may be, will still be hopelessly belated - the German episode of the hunt for Maskhadov's envoy was ended last Friday with his return to London.
The disappointment of Russian politicians is quite understandable. But one cannot help but admit that they once again repeated the mistake with which the entire European odyssey of Akhmed Zakayev and the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office began in the fall of 2002. The Berlin episode was again given the significance of a major international scandal, specifically inspired by certain political circles in Germany, which flatly refuse to share Russia’s anti-terrorist efforts. At the same time, in Germany itself, in fact, no one noticed Zakayev’s private visit, as Bundestag Speaker Hans Hotter admitted to the Vremya Novostei newspaper.
But overall, the Chechen issue remains a very real obstacle to political friendship between Russia and Europe. Yesterday it was raised again in the European Parliament: 145 out of 624 deputies signed a statement yesterday in support of the peace plan proposed by the leader of the Chechen separatists Aslan Maskhadov. According to this plan, a temporary UN administration should be introduced in Chechnya, which could achieve a final cessation of hostilities, the withdrawal of the Russian army and the disarmament of militants. The UN itself, however, considers the current administration of Akhmat Kadyrov to be the only legitimate government of Chechnya - Deputy Secretary General of the organization Jan Egeland stated this after a trip to the Caucasus. And in Europe, supporters of Maskhadov’s plan are a minority. But among them there are representatives of almost all countries and political factions, and they all believe that the future resolution of the European Parliament on Russia should be extremely tough. Ivan SUKHOV, Yuri SHPAKOV, Berlin |
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