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Poland frees Chechen leader

18 September 2010 22:22 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Exiled Chechen separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev has been released from custody by the order of a Polish court after he was arrested on an international warrant issued at the request of Russia, APA reports quoting Press TV.

The court in Poland freed Zakayev on Friday after taking into consideration the fact that he was granted political asylum in Britain in 2003, the BBC reported.

Zakayev, who had come to Poland to attend a Congress of Chechens, is wanted in Russia on terrorism charges but lives in Britain as a political asylum seeker.

Zakayev has denied involvement in any acts of terrorism. Speaking to TVN24 television as he left the Warsaw courthouse on Friday he said "Poland respects democratic values,â€ AFP reported.

A Polish police spokesman said Warsaw was forced to detain Zakayev as Interpol had put him on its most wanted list.

"Because there was an international arrest warrant, police were under an obligation to detain him and to take him to prosecutors," spokesman Mariusz Sokolowski said.

"It is clear that a decision by any member state has the same effect across the entire European Union," the hearing judge Piotr Schab told the Polish television station.

Zakayev currently has plans to attend the final day of the Chechens Congress, the event that had drawn him to Poland in the first place.

Radical leaders in Chechnya turned their backs on Zakayev, the former culture minister of the separatist government in Chechnya, after he called for negotiations with Russia.