GROZNY, May 13 (RIA Novosti) - Russian police detained a former member of a militant gang led by the late Jordanian-born terrorist Khattab in the Chechen capital of Grozny on Tuesday, a spokesman for the republic's interior ministry said.
The 29 year-old local admitted being a member of the group during May-June 1997. He also said he had been schooled at Khattab's field training camp in the village of Serzhen Yurt in the Shali District of Chechnya. However, he denies involvement in clashes with federal troops.
An investigation is underway into the exact nature of his involvement with the group.
Emir Ibn al Khattab was killed in March 2002 in an operation by Russia's Federal Security Service. Khattab was directly involved in preparing and perpetrating an attack on Chechnya's capital Grozny in August 1996, as well as an attack on Buinaksk, in the Russian Republic of Daghestan, in December 1997.
