ON THE GRANTING OF POLITICAL ASYLUM TO ILYAS AKHMADOV BY US AUTHORITIES

Unofficial translation from Russian

PRESS RELEASE

News of the coming into effect of the decision of Boston's immigration court on the granting of political asylum in the US to Ilyas Akhmadov, who calls himself "minister of foreign affairs of Ichkeria," has been received by the Russian MFA with profound disappointment. Nor can we fail to note that this outcome stems from the decision of the US Department of Homeland Security to recall the appeal filed earlier by it against the court's decision to grant Akhmadov political asylum.

We had repeatedly approached the US side with well-grounded demands for the extradition of this accomplice of international terrorists on the Russian law enforcement agencies' most wanted list. It has to be stated with regret that these requests were finally ignored.

In this connection we can only regard the decision to grant Akhmadov political asylum in the US as an obvious manifestation of double standards in questions of the fight against terrorism. Against this background, news of the receipt by Ilyas Akhmadov of a grant from the US Congress-financed National Endowment for Democracy sounds particularly cynical.

Such actions in no way correspond to either the partner spirit of the Russian-US relationship or the task of jointly countering international terrorism.

August 6, 2004