Top Chechen jailed for murder

A senior intelligence aide to Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov was jailed for 13 years for murder by a Russian court today.

The Volgograd regional court convicted Khamzat Khasarov of premeditated murder and other charges including illegal weapons possession.

Khasarov and three accomplices were accused of opening fire with automatic weapons on a crowd of people outside a Volgograd restaurant in 1993, killing three and wounding three more, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.