http://www.newsday.com/news/nationw...94867,print.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines Russia Upset by Chechen Warlord Interview By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press Writer July 29, 2005, 10:57 AM EDT MOSCOW -- Russia's Foreign Ministry summoned the U.S. Embassy's charge d'affaires Friday to protest an American television network broadcast of an interview with Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev. Basayev has claimed responsibility for organizing last year's Beslan school siege that ended in the deaths of more than 330 children and adults and the 2002 seizure of a Moscow theater that resulted in 129 hostages dying when police staged a rescue raid. Ministry spokesman Boris Malakhov said Daniel Russell was informed of Russia's "strong indignation" that ABC showed the interview Thursday with a man blamed for numerous terror attacks, Russian news media reported. Speaking on Russian state television, Malakhov said ABC "demonstrated its outrageous disregard for the standards of journalists' responsibility and common human values." ABC News had no reaction to the ministry on Friday. But a spokeswoman provided a transcript of anchor Ted Koppel's on-air comments on the Russian government's unhappiness about the story. Freedom of speech is never an issue when a popular person expresses an acceptable point of view, Koppel said at the end of Thursday's "Nightline." "It is of real value only because it guarantees us access to the unpopular espousing the unacceptable," he said. "Then we can reject or accept it, condemn it or embrace it. No one should have the authority to make that decision for us. Not our own government; and certainly not somebody else's." The U.S. Embassy had no immediate comment on the meeting. Russell is the top U.S. diplomat in Russia pending Senate confirmation of William J. Burns as the new U.S. ambassador. The interview also was denounced by Alu Alkhanov, the Kremlin-backed president of Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim region where Russian troops have been battling separatists for most of the last decade. "I was startled by how they allowed this person, who openly claimed responsibility for dozens of terrorist attacks in Russia, which claimed hundreds of human lives, to voice new threats against Russia and the Russian people," Alkhanov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. In the interview, Basayev admitted he was a terrorist but said each Russian had to feel the impact of war in Chechnya before it can stop. Basayev said he was plotting more attacks. "I'm making plans. We're always looking for new ways," he told ABC. Basayev, who has a $10 million bounty on his head and rarely speaks to journalists, was interviewed in his Chechen hideout by Russian journalist Andrei Babitsky, who said the rebels live in primitive conditions, eating mainly "instant soups and canned food" and sleeping on barren ground. Despite the hardships, Basayev struck a defiant note. "The Chechen people are more dear to me than the rest of the world. You get that?" he said. "I admit, I'm a bad guy, a bandit, a terrorist ... but what would you call them?" he said of the Russians. "If they are the keepers of constitutional order, if they are antiterrorists, then I spit on all these agreements and nice words." Asked if a Beslan-type attack could occur again, Basayev said: "Of course. ... As long as the genocide of the Chechen nation continues, as long as this mess continues, anything can happen." Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.
