Akhmadov to get asylum in USA?

The US Homeland Security Ministry has refused to comment on the ground for canceling its appeal to the decision of the Boston immigration court to provide a political asylum in the USA a leader of Chechen separatists, Ilyas Akhmadov.

In April the court granted Akhmadov a political asylum, but two days later the ministry launched an appeal.

The Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum wrote that in the appeal the ministry informed that "by his action and comments" Akhmadov had "supported acts of terrorism and crimes of Chechen separatists" and thus should be deported from the USA.

On Thursday the Washington-based American Committee for Peace in Chechnya announced that the appeal had been "revoked" and that the decision on granting the asylum was "final".

"The issue of political asylum is considered private here and we never give any comments in order not to influence a specific case," said a spokesman of the ministry's US citizenship and immigration services office.

Last December the Russian Foreign Minister urged the USA to take into account Russia's stand when trying Akhmadov's case. "The American party is well aware of our attitude towards this accomplice of terrorists," the Russian Foreign Ministry's official spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told journalists then.

Russian law-enforcement bodies say they have evidence Akhmadov is connected to Chechen separatist leader Shamil Basayev, who is on international warrant list.