Russia Offers Plastic Surgery for Info on Chechen Warlord
Russia’s security services have said they will pay for plastic surgery for anyone who gives information leading to the killing or capture of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, on top of the $10 million bounty already promised, the Associated Press reports.
The agency also quoted a top Russian prosecutor as saying that a leader of the militants who took part in the seizure of more than 1,000 hostages at a school in the town of Beslan in September had implicated the late rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov in the attack, which left more than 330 people dead.
Russian authorities said Tuesday they had paid an unprecedented $10 million reward to people who betrayed Maskhadov. Officials said Maskhadov was killed last week in a raid by Russian special forces. They reaffirmed that an identical sum would be paid for information leading to the death or arrest of Basayev, the Kremlin’s No. 1 foe.
A spokesman for the Federal Security Service, the main successor agency to the KGB, said the informers who did not have to be Russian or even live in Russia would be offered a new identity and place of residence, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.
“The law enforcement agencies guarantee their safety, with the option of taking a new passport, changing their residence, and if necessary, undergoing plastic surgery to change their features,” said spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko.
Pursuing militant leaders, Russian military and law enforcement authorities have struggled to penetrate the closely knit clan structure in the breakaway southern territory of Chechnya, where a guerrilla conflict has raged for much of the past decade. Analysts have warned that informers risk reprisals.
Basayev, a radical Islamic warlord who claimed responsibility for the Beslan school seizure and other terror attacks, is now seen as the most powerful rebel figure in Chechnya.
Critics of the Kremlin’s policy in Chechnya say the death of Maskhadov, a former president of the region who was seen by many as a secular moderate, could crush any hopes of a negotiated settlement. Russian authorities, however, say he was a terrorist and accuse him of backing the Beslan raid and other major attacks.
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