State Duma Deputy from Chechnya Aslambek Aslakhanov claims that Chechens throughout Russia have been forcibly fingerprinted, Ekho Moskvy reports. According to Aslakhanov, he prepared a letter addressed to the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Prosecutor General and the head of the FSB with an appeal to "remove distortions." Meanwhile, well-known human rights activist Sergei Kovalev considers the situation unacceptable.

US federal authorities have filed 20 counts of charges against 41-year-old John Allen Mohammed, one of the suspects in the "Washington sniper" case. Mohammed is accused of using a firearm to extort money, killing seven people in Maryland and injuring three others, one in Maryland and two in Virginia, AP reports. According to U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Paul McNulty, such a crime could be punishable by death under federal law.

In St. Petersburg, 400 grams of TNT were found in an abandoned wrecked car in a plastic bag near residential building No. 8 "b" on Moiseenko Street, Interfax reports. A suspicious package was reported by residents of one of the nearby houses. At present, explosives experts have taken the TNT to a safe place.

The famous author of detective novels Patricia Cornwell claims to have managed to identify the legendary villain - Jack the Ripper. This British killer terrorized the inhabitants of London in 1880, cracking down on prostitutes. The American writer claims that Jack the Ripper was none other than the British artist Walter Sickert.

German doctors who examined and treated two German citizens who were among the hostages taken by Chechen terrorists in the Moscow theater found the remains of the anesthetic "halotan" in their bodies. Traces of this substance were found in the blood and urine of patients, Interfax reports citing EFE. Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, toxicologist Ludwig von Meyer did not rule out that with In the release of the hostages, not only "halotan" was used, but also some unknown means.

On Wednesday, Ytro.ru published a memo that was given to former hostages in the GPP recreation center upon discharge from the 13th city hospital. The memo lists the tests that victims must pass.

img src="/images/saveus_s.jpg" height="150" width="215" border=1 hspace=8 vspace=8 align=left alt="NTV Filming" class="anonsPic" Grani.ru together with REN-TV , radio station "Echo of Moscow" , the center of civil support Important.ru and Newsru continue to search for hostages evacuated from the Theater Center. Since the beginning of the action, we have managed to find out the fate of 88 former hostages. 34 of them died. 54 are alive.

A scandal erupted in Liberal Russia over the exclusion of Boris Berezovsky from the ranks of this party. According to Interfax, on October 27, a meeting of some members of the political council of the party took place. Then it was decided to suspend the activities of the political council of the party until extraordinary congress of "Liberal Russia", which is scheduled for December 7.

Ahmed Zakayev. Photo from the site www.ej.ru The authorities of Denmark arrested on Tuesday evening Ahmed Zakayev, a representative of the leader of the Chechen separatists Aslan Maskhadov. According to Interfax, Zakaev participated in the World Chechen Congress, which was held in Copenhagen. The Russian government considers him involved in the organization of hostage seizures at the Moscow Theater.

The volume of drug trafficking in Russia over the past ten years has grown 80 times. From January to September 2002, 76 tons of drugs were detained at the southern borders of the Russian Federation. These figures were given at a meeting of the State Duma on Wednesday by Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Vasilyev, the parliamentary correspondent of Graney.Ru reports.

Another echelon with ammunition from the former 14th Russian Army left the Kolbasno station (Pridnestrovie) for Russia on Wednesday, Interfax-AVN reports. "An echelon with artillery shells, mines, portable anti-aircraft missile systems left for the destination station in the Moscow Military District," a source at the headquarters of the Operational Group of Russian Forces (OGRF) in Pridnestrovie told the agency.

Three former hostages, discharged on Sunday from the Research Institute of Emergency Medicine. Sklifosovsky, was asked to be hospitalized again on Wednesday. This was reported to the RIA Novosti agency by the director of the institute, Alexander Yermolov. According to him, these people are "in a satisfactory condition." At the same time, at their request, they will undergo an additional medical examination, Yermolov said. At the Research Institute of Emergency Medicine.

The Basmanny District Court of Moscow on Wednesday issued a warrant for the arrest of well-known businessman Boris Berezovsky and his associates Yuli Dubov and Badri Patarkatsishvili, Interfax reports. The Prosecutor General's Office of Russia applied to the court with a corresponding petition, which charged Berezovsky and two of his associates - the former heads of the LogoVAZ company Dubov and Badri Patarkatsishvili - with embezzlement on an especially large scale by fraud.

In the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, a car with a load of hexogen was detained. As RIA Novosti was informed on Wednesday by the press service of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of KhMAO, the day before, a Ural car was inspected at a police checkpoint on the Nizhnevartovsk-Samotlorskoye field highway.

The Moscow authorities forbade the Anti-War Actions Committee to hold a picket in Moscow against the war in Chechnya. The Committee for Anti-War Actions told Ekho Moskvy that this is the first refusal to hold a picket, although the committee has been organizing such actions for the past three years. Despite the authorities' ban, the protesters intend to go out on October 31 to the site in front of Novopushkinsky Square, where they usually held protests against the war in Chechnya.