Moscow: native of Chechnya is tried on suspicion of terrorism

The FSB has reported that is has solved the terror acts committed in 1999 in "Intourist" Hotel and "Okhotny Ryad" Shopping Centre. According to the investigation, the crimes had been ordered by Shamil Basaev. Now, the Moscow City Court holds a trial of the suspects of these crimes.

The criminal case of a Chechen Khalid Khuguev, whom the FSB names the financier of terrorist Basaev, and a Dagestanian Magomadzair Gadjiakaev, accused under the article of terrorism, has arrived to the Moscow City Court classified as "secret" and is considered in the closed regime by a troika of judges.

Anna Usachova, head of the press service of the Moscow City Court, could only tell that the indictment was already announced, the victims were interrogated; and now the proofs on the case are studied, as the "Kommersant" writes.

The state prosecutor in the trial refused to tell even the essence of the offences incriminated to the defendants; and their advocates said that Khalid Khuguev refused to admit his guilt and abstained from evidencing, referring to his heavy disease. His supposed accomplice Gadjiakaev, in his turn, cooperates with the investigatory bodies.

According to the information published in the official website of the FSB of Russia, Khalid Khuguev, Shamil Basaev's financier was detained during a counterterrorist operation in the end of 2002 in the Saratov Region.

Under the version of the investigation, which was conducted by the FSB of Russia, Khalid Khuguev was the accomplice of two resonant terror acts accomplished in Moscow in 1999.

In particular, in 1999, according to the investigation, Basaev's attention was attracted by the charitable program "Frontline Children of Chechnya", patronized by singer Iosif Kobzon. Under this programme well-known businessmen, mostly natives of Chechnya, donated millions roubles and dollars the Russian Children's Fund on treatment of Chechen children. By one of the versions, having learnt about the sums donated into the Fund, the field commander demanded that philanthropists should also pay him - "for ensuring safety."

Allegedly, Shamil Basaev decided to punish the donors. By means of Khalid Khuguev the executor of the action was found - Magomadzair Gadjiakaev, who planted, on April 26, 1999, a self-made bomb, equivalent in power to 2 kilos of trotyl, near Iosif Kobzon's office in the "Intourist" Hotel. As a result of the explosion, 11 persons suffered, including a ten-month-old baby - a citizen of Spain.

The second episode incriminated to defendants Khuguev and Gadjiakaev, dates to August 31, 1999. On that day, according to the FSB of Russia, they committed a terror act in the "Okhotny Ryad" Shopping Centre in the Manezhnaya Square. As a result of the explosion in the gambling hall "Dynamite", 40 persons suffered, one of the wounded women later died.