| Don't really know *who* to believe in Russkiland right now. We report... you tell me what the heck it all means... |
Separatist emissary Akhmed Zakayevs claims that federal forces were allegedly using radioactive isotope polonium-210 during the anti-terrorist campaign in Chechnya are wrong and unfounded, Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov said in Grozny on Thursday, according to the Interfax agency.
Zakayev is an actor. He can make up any tale. If they have poisoned their associate [Alexander] Litvinenko, they now want to ascribe similar actions to law enforcers in Chechnya, he said. Federal forces have never used poison during the anti-terrorist campaign in the Chechen republic, Kadyrov said.
Kadyrovs remarks came in response to Zakayevs statement made in a recent interview. The separatist also accused the West of standing by passively as Russia passed laws allowing its agents to hunt down opponents overseas, saying these had led directly to the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, Reuters reports.
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Chechen separatist Akhmed Zakayev, a close friend of Litvinenko, accused Western countries of helping to strengthen a criminal regime in Moscow by their failure to stand up to President Vladimir Putin.
He linked Litvinenkos suspected murder in London last month to the authorization given by Russias parliament in July for Putin to send soldiers or special forces anywhere in the world to fight those whom Moscow sees as terrorists.
Not one of the political leaders of Western countries who were meeting under Putins chairmanship in the Group of Eight made any protest about this, Zakayev told Reuters in an interview.
They didnt say we wont allow Russian special services to carry out murders in our countries. Putin took their silence for approval, and he began to implement these laws.
Russia fiercely denies deathbed accusations by Litvinenko, a former spy who became an outspoken critic of Putin, that it ordered his killing in London last month by radiation poisoning. The macabre episode has strained relations between London and Moscow, and British police said for the first time on Wednesday they were treating it as a murder investigation.
Authorities said on Thursday that Russian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation into the mans death.
Zakayev, a Chechen rebel leader whom Russia has tried in vain to extradite from Britain, confirmed he drove Litvinenko in his car on November 1, the same day the former agent fell ill. He said traces of polonium 210, the radioactive poison that killed Litvinenko, had been found several weeks later on the back seat where he sat. But Zakayev himself has tested negative for the substance. 
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