Qatar charges Russian agents with murder

DOHA: Qatar charged two men with the murder of former Chechen president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, provoking an angry denial from Moscow on Thursday that the two Russian security agents were involved in the murky plot.

“The two suspects arrested during the inquiry into the murder of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev have appeared before the prosecutor, who, after questioning, brought charges of murder against them,” said a Qatari spokesman quoted by the official QNA news agency.

The report gave no details about the suspects, but in a vehement protest from acting foreign minister Igor Ivanov Moscow revealed the men were Russian security agents.

A third Russian agent was also arrested but subsequently freed.

“The authorities’ attempt to charge them with Yandarbiyev’s murder is baseless, they are not in any way involved in this incident,” Ivanov said, adding that “such insinuations can only be interpreted as provocation.”

The trio had been arrested in Doha last week, Ivanov said, adding that “the arresters used weapons and brute force.”

“Qatar’s authorities not only seized Russian citizens by force, but also did not immediately inform the embassy of it, violating the most elementary norms of international law,” Ivanov fumed. —AFP

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