Posted on 05/03/2003 11:10:52 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
2 Men Accused of 1999 Russian Bombing
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Thu May 1, 4:37 AM ET
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MOSCOW -
Russian prosecutors said they had completed their investigation into a series of deadly bombings in fall 1999 that became a key reason for sending troops back into Chechnya (news - web sites).
They said Wednesday that the masterminds of the three bombings that killed 246 people in Moscow and Volgodonsk were two Arabs who have since been killed.
Two other suspects who took refuge in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, on the border with Chechnya, were arrested last year and jailed in Moscow. Yusuf Krymshamkhalov and Adam Dekkushev are accused of accompanying shipments of the explosives used in the attacks.
The two face charges of participating in an illegal armed group, committing terrorist attacks as part of an organized crime group, murder, and illegally producing and possessing weapons. They are to go on trial after they have read the state's case against them.
Overall, four of the nine suspects in the bombing conspiracy are dead, the Interfax news agency reported, citing the prosecutor's office. The dead masterminds are: Omar Ibn al Khattab, a prominent Saudi-born warlord who is alleged to have been poisoned last year in Chechnya, and Abu-Umar, who security services said was also killed there.
Two of the accused, Achemez Gochiyayev and Khakim Abayev are at large and may be in Georgia, Interfax reported. Gochiyayev allegedly rented space to store explosives in the two Moscow buildings that were blown up, and Abayev allegedly accompanied an explosives shipment.
Kommersant said the conspirators were trained by Khattab at a camp in Chechnya and then at a fertilizer factory in the Chechen city of Urus-Martan and an explosives factory in the village of Mirny, in the Karachayevo-Cherkessiya region of southern Russia.
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