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Qatar returns Russian assassins
Two Russian secret agents convicted of assassinating a former Chechen president living in the Gulf state of Qatar could walk free less than a year after being sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder. The men stood trial in June last year, four months after Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was killed by a car bomb in the capital, Doha. Ibrahim al-Nisf, the presiding judge, concluded that the assassination was "ordered by the Russian leadership" and ordered the agents to serve 25 years in jail. Yet the Gulf state handed over the agents to Moscow last month, and suggested that they complete their sentences in a Russian prison. Their lawyer, however, said that the handover agreement allowed their fate to be determined by Russian law. Last night, Dmitry Peskov, an aide to President Vladimir Putin, said: "In Russia's eyes they are innocent. There is no need for any further court procedure."
I think we all saw this coming.
Yeah, but it's going to have an impact on the next bunch they have to spring. They should have put them up in a "prison" dacha, complete with hot and cold running hookers, and then quietly "commuted" the sentence sometime next year. What the hell is Putin thinking?
It has emerged that the agents received a hero's welcome in Moscow after Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, approved their release on December 23. During their flight home on a Russian government aircraft, the agents were served celebratory drinks and later greeted by dignitaries and a red carpet at Vnukovo airport, on the southern fringe of Moscow. Television journalists were asked to switch off their cameras as the agents left the aircraft and were whisked away to an unknown location.
Implying the same agents may be needed again...
Yandarbiyev, who had lived in Doha for three years, died on February 13 last year when his car exploded soon after he left a mosque where he had been praying. His 13-year-old son was injured. To Moscow's fury, the Russians were arrested six days later at a diplomatic villa and charged with murder. Moscow admitted that the men were intelligence agents but denied any link with the death of Yandarbiyev, whom Russia accused of raising funds for Chechen separatists. Dmitry Afanasiev, a lawyer for the agents, said that they were in Qatar to "monitor al-Qaeda links and sources of financing in the region as part of the war on terror". Mr Peskov confirmed that Mr Putin had a constitutional right to pardon the men, although he said it was "too soon" to say whether he would exercise it. He suggested, however, that the agents' release could be imminent — in defiance of Doha's wishes. "Their return was a gesture of goodwill by the emir, and their future is already the business of the Russian side,'' he said. "The Russian defence team always insisted that these men were innocent and that they were not involved in any way in the killing of Yandarbiyev."
"No, no! Certainly not!"
It is believed that the men, who were referred to in court documents as Anatoly Belashkov and Vassily Bokchov, will be kept in a "soft" prison and released quietly after a short interval.
Oh. So that is what's gonna happen...
The prosecutor general's office did not respond to requests for information concerning their whereabouts. During the agents' incarceration in Qatar, Moscow sent Igor Ivanov, the former foreign minister, to negotiate a deal for their handover. The men complained of being un-able to conduct Orthodox Christian religious rites in the prison, which may have been a factor in their transfer. President Putin phoned the Qatari emir on the agents' release to thank him for the handover, according to the Kremlin.
Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-01-16
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=53796