Criminologists have begun examining for authenticity a videotape recording of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev placed on an Internet site of extremists on Tuesday. A man resembling Basayev dismisses the reports alleging his death and asserts that he is "absolutely well"."Firstly, we do not rule out that that this could be an old tape of the Chechen terrorist number one that was shot earlier for the case of his death "for ideological purposes," an expert of one of federal security services told Itar-Tass. "Specialists are now carrying out a careful analysis of the tape and comparing it with other tapes of Basayev made in different years," he said. In addition, "there is a probability that one of his doubles could be engaged instead of Basayev himself". The expert said the "man on the video tape is too nimble for one who long since wears a prosthetic device".
"Besides, Basayev as a rule spoke fastly and expressed his thought rather clearly in his previous statements, while on this tape he stammers and sometimes even garbles ends of sentences," the expert said. He said "several doubles of Basayev have been noticed on the territory of Chechnya at different times, in particular in the Vedeno and Nozhai-Yurt districts". The Federal Security Service's public relations centre denied an Itar-Tass correspondent any comment on the Internet video recording of Basayev's statement.