Moscow demands that the Chechen hijackers be extradited

Moscow has received from the Saudi side assurances that the situation around the extradition of the Chechen hijackers of the Russian airliner TU-154 "will be settled in keeping with international law," said Alexander Yakovenko, official spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry. Saudi Arabia, like the Russian Federation, is participant in the Tokyo convention on crimes and some other acts committed on board of airliners (1963), the Hague convention on the struggle against unlawful seizures of aircraft (1970), and the Montreal convention on the struggle against unlawful acts against the security of civil aviation (1971), stressed the official spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, RIA Novosti reports. Yakovenko noted that in keeping with instructions from President Vladimir Putin, the Russian Foreign Ministry continues to actively work with the Saudi side for the early resolution of issues connected with the extradition to Russian law-enforcement bodies of the criminals who hijacked the Russian airliner which left a flight attendant and a passenger dead, and another flight attendant wounded. In this connection the Russian ambassador to El-Riyadh is in constant contact with the Saudi authorities, pointed out the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry.