MOSCOW, May 7 (RIA Novosti) - Over a hundred representatives of Britain's political and intellectual elite have urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to restore "peace and justice" in Chechnya, The Independent reported Monday.
In an open letter sent to the British newspaper Sir Menzies Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats, the country's third-largest party, his predecessor Charles Kennedy, Malcolm Rifkind, the former foreign secretary, Lord Judd, the former head of the PACE mission to Chechnya, playwright Sir Tom Stoppard, philosopher Alain De Botton, other figures of culture and representatives of all British parties are asking President Putin "to use his time left in [his] office to act ... to restore peace and justice in Chechnya," where almost a decade-long war was waged from 1994.
The letter was initiated by the Chechnya Peace Forum, whose leader Ivar Amundsen was a friend of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, killed in Moscow in October 2006.
