Chechen Warlord Dies in Prison in Perm
The Associated Press
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The Associated Press
Salman Raduyev
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MOSCOW - Salman Raduyev, a convicted Chechen warlord who led a bloody raid on a hospital in 1996, has died while serving a life sentence in prison, the Justice Ministry said Sunday. Raduyev died in the Perm region, where he was confined to a high-security hard labor camp, a ministry spokesperson said. "At the present time, the exact cause of death is being established," Deputy Justice Minister Yury Kalinin was quoted by Interfax as saying. But Interfax, citing the prisons department, reported that Raduyev died early Saturday morning after suffering from internal bleeding. It was not clear what led to the bleeding, the report said. "I can admit that some conjectures could appear - but this would be absolutely groundless," Kalinin said, adding that an autopsy was being carried out by Health Ministry specialists. However, the Kommersant daily on Monday quoted an unnamed prison source as saying that Raduyev died after a guard struck him repeatedly during a check of inmates' cells. Prison officials strongly denied the allegation, Kommersant said. Raduyev, who had enjoyed considerable notoriety in Russia but was less respected in Chechnya, was born in 1967, making him either 34 or 35 when he died. He was the first prominent Chechen rebel warlord to be prosecuted by Russian authorities. Last December, a court in Dagestan sentenced him to life imprisonment after he was found guilty of terrorism and murder. The charges against Raduyev, who was arrested in March 2000, focused on a January 1996 raid on the town of Kizlyar, where he and other rebels took hundreds of hostages at a local hospital. The raid, which came at the end of the first Chechen war, left 78 people dead. Raduyev's act seemed a bid to recreate the success of the popular Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, who had led fighters into the southern Russian town of Budyonnovsk in June 1995. Basayev's fighters took more than 1,000 people hostage in a hospital. After gun battles that killed more than 100, an agreement was reached to free the hostages and let the raiders escape back into the mountains. Basayev remains one of Russia's most wanted men. He claimed responsibility for the Oct. 23 to 26 siege of the Theater Center na Dubrovke in Moscow. Raduyev had been injured numerous times. During his trial last year, Raduyev sat in a cage, wearing a baseball cap and large aviator sunglasses that the Russian media reported was to hide significant plastic surgery. He maintained that he only obeyed orders from late separatist leader Dzhokhar Dudayev when he conducted the raid, and that the court was trying to "make me a scapegoat."
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