By Gareth Jones

Moscow - Russia, shaken by a series of setbacks in rebel Chechnya, scored a coup on Monday when it announced that leading Chechen warlord Salman Raduyev had been captured and brought to Moscow for trial.

ORT television showed footage of Raduyev, who has been one of Russia's most wanted men since a bloody hostage-taking raid in 1996, clean-shaven in a dark shirt, avoiding the gaze of an investigator and calmly answering questions about his identity.

The area around his eyes showed massive scarring from facial wounds he received during the 1994-96 Chechnya war, which he normally conceals with dark sunglasses and a beard. The voice was clearly his, well known from television interviews.

Acting President Vladimir Putin said Raduyev had been transferred to a Moscow prison pending trial after being seized by FSB domestic security agents on Sunday.

The news came as Russian warplanes renewed their attacks on Chechnya's Argun gorge where a group of rebels escaped encirclement over the weekend, crowning a week of heavy losses for Russian forces despite their nominal control of the region.

Russia also faced renewed Western criticism of its five-month-old campaign against the Chechen rebels. The West says the campaign has been excessively brutal and indiscriminate and has caused too much death and suffering among civilians.

On Monday Lord Judd, the British head of a delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe just back from a weekend trip to Chechnya, called for an urgent investigation of alleged human rights abuses by Russian forces in the region.

"We believe serious human rights violations and war crimes have taken place on both sides," Judd told reporters. He urged talks between Moscow and Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov.

But Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Moscow's main Chechnya spokesperson, ruled out talks with Maskhadov, whom Russia wants to put on trial for declaring Chechen independence and instituting Islamic Sharia law in violation of the Russian constitution.

"There can be no talks with Maskhadov except about the criminal case instituted against him," Interfax news agency quoted Yastrzhembsky as saying.

Russia still battling for control

Interfax said Russian planes flew 26 sorties against rebel positions near the village of Komsomolskoye and in the surrounding mountains over the past 24 hours.

Russia has said up to 1 500 fighters were believed holed up in Komsomolsokye. Interfax quoted Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo as denying earlier reports that the commander of those fighters, Ruslan Gelayev, had escaped from the village.

"Gelayev is now in the Komsomolskoye district where the fighting is going on," Interfax quoted Rushailo as saying.

He said other leading warlords, Shamil Basaeyev and Khattab, an Arab, were hiding in Chechnya's southern mountains, on the "third of Chechen territory" still in rebel hands.

On Sunday, the Russian military said a group of rebels led by Khattab and Basayev had slipped an army blockade near the villages of Ulus-Kert and Selmentausen in the Argun gorge.

Russia has said 156 servicemen were killed over the past week, including an entire company of 84 elite paratroops wiped out near Selmentausen, whose funeral took place in their native city of Pskov in northwest Russia on Monday.

The continuing clashes have undermined Russian claims that the rebels have been beaten as a cohesive fighting force and that they have been reduced to small scattered groups which can pose no real threat to the federal military.

The rebels have vowed to wage a partisan war against the Russians. They boast that they still control as much as 30 percent of Chechnya by day and almost all of it by night.

A morale booster

But Raduyev's capture will help raise Russian morale. Raduyev, known for his belligerent anti-Russian rhetoric, is the first top Chechen commander to fall into Moscow's hands.

"Now he is in prison, which is the right place for him. We would like to think that this is just the beginning," Putin told a gathering of senior ministers in televised remarks.

FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev said no shots were fired during the Sunday morning operation to take Raduyev, even though about 100 men usually guard the warlord. "Raduyev was shocked by what happened," Interfax quoted Patrushev as saying.

Near the end of the previous 1994-96 Chechen war Raduyev led a bloody raid into the neighbouring region of Dagestan, taking thousands of hostages. He then retreated into Chechnya after a week-long standoff with Russian troops.

Putin said Raduyev would also be investigated for possible involvement in two bombings at southern Russian railway stations and in a bid to kill Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze.

Raduyev has previously claimed responsibility for both the bombings and the 1998 assassination attempt on Shevardnadze. - Reuters

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