Qatar holds Russians for Chechen's murder

Qatar said yesterday it had charged two Russians with involvement in the assassination of a former rebel Chechen president, prompting a furious Moscow to demand the release of what it acknowledged were Russian spies.

In a statement on Russian television, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said the agents had been "illegally detained". He said they had been waging a war against international terrorism but "had nothing whatsoever to do" with the killing of the Chechen.

Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, added at Russia's request last year to a UN list of people with suspected links to the militant Islamist al Qaeda group, was killed by a car bomb in Qatar on February 13. He had been living in Qatar for three years.

A Qatari Interior Ministry official said three men had been arrested last week but one was freed after Russian officials met Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani on Tuesday to request the release of all three.

"One of the men who was holding a diplomatic passport has already been released and the other two have been charged and referred to the prosecutor general for investigation," he said.

Russia, in a separate statement attributed to Ivanov, accused Qatar of having connived with global terrorism in giving refuge to Yandarbiyev, whom it blames for the deaths of hundreds of Russians in a decade-long separatist war.

The statement posted on the Foreign Ministry Web site said Qatari officials had used force in last week's arrests.