Two Russian hirelings arrived in Moscow handed over by Qatar

Two Russian hirelings accused of assassinating former Chechenia president Salim Khan Bander Yaieve arrived yesterday in Moscow after Qatar had approved a Russian request that the two men spend the so remaining period of their imprisonment in the Russian jails.

The two Russian news agencies Itar-Tass and Inter- fax said that the two hirelings arrived in Moscow on board of a private plane hired by the Russian government after Doha's consent to hand them over.

For its part, the Qatari news agency said yesterday that the handing over of Anatoli Belashkov and Vasseli Bushkov was made according to enforced rules and measures.

The defendant lawyer Mohsin Ziab al-Sweidi said that the "two men handing over was not surprising, rather expected since October, when a new law was introduced allowing Qatar to transport the convicted persons to their country if their government ask for that." Six months ago, a Qatari court sentenced the two Russian agents for life imprisonment under the charge of assassinating the former Chechenia President Yander Baieve in Doha. The Kremlin was accused of standing behind the operation and the Russian embassy in Doha to coordinate for it.

In the beginning, the Kremlin denied that two persons to be members in the Russian intelligence, and they later admitted they are. The Kremlin also defended the two men by saying that they were just in a mission to collect information about "terrorist activities."