Chechen Republic of Ichkeria: Akhmadov Granted Asylum in the U.S.

Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation ^ | August 9, 2003 | unknown

[USMMA_83]

Ilyas Akhmadov, the foreign minister in the separatist government of Chechnya under Aslan Maskhadov, has been granted asylum in the United States, U.S. officials said Friday amid criticism from Moscow.

Maskhadov sent Akhmadov and other members of his government abroad to promote the Chechen cause among foreign leaders in 1999, shortly after the return of federal forces to the region.

Akhmadov came to the United States in 2002 and was initially granted asylum in April by a U.S. immigration judge in Boston, Akhmadov said Friday in an interview. But the Homeland Security Department appealed the decision in June on the grounds that Moscow accused him of involvement in terrorism.

After an investigation determined that Akhmadov had no connection to terrorism, the department withdrew its appeal last month, said Ross Knocke, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of Homeland Security. The asylum request was granted last Monday.

The Foreign Ministry criticized the decision Friday. "We cannot consider the decision to grant Ilyas Akhmadov political asylum in the United States as anything other than a clear manifestation of double standards in issues relating to the fight against terrorism," it said in a statement. "Such actions are totally contrary to the partner-like spirit of Russian-U.S. relations and the objective of jointly combating international terrorism."

But John Dunlop, a Chechnya specialist and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said the decision to grant Akhmadov asylum would not have any impact on U.S.-Russian relations. Moscow will "make a noise, but I don't think they expect anything to come of it," Dunlop said.

Daniel Pellathy, program director for the Washington-based American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, said granting Akhmadov asylum in the United States would "dispel the myth" that he is a terrorist.

"It legitimizes him as representative of the [Chechen] opposition here in the U.S.," Pellathy said. "He can now go on the lecture circuit, meet with members of the State Department, meet with Congress, become a public and active figure."

Akhmadov has spent the last year living in Andover, Vermont, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the homes of Nicholas and Ruth Daniloff, former journalists who met Akhmadov in 2000 when he gave a speech at Harvard University.

Source: The Moscow Times

[cleombrotus2345]

Kindly stop tarring the entire Chechen nation with the "terrorist" brush. There is no evidence of links between this man and terrorism. Unless you consider being part of an elected government overthrown by a genocidal army to be "terrorism". Oppressive regimes are using the term "terrorist/terrorism" as a stick to beat dissidents with - including peaceful ones. I agree with the decision to grant Akhmadov asylum.