MOSCOW, June 10 (RIA Novosti) - A former Russian army colonel who killed an 18-year-old Chechen woman was not involved in the murder of three other Chechens, Russian investigators said on Wednesday.

In 2000, 18 Chechen residents were illegally detained at a military checkpoint in Chechnya's Shali District. Three of them were later found dead. Locals said Yury Budanov was behind the killings.

The case was reopened earlier this year after several Chechen residents filed a document stating that Budanov himself stopped the car containing the victims, and took them away.

The relatives of those killed identified Budanov from television reports and photographs in the press. Budanov dismissed the accusations as "nonsense."

During questioning, Budanov provided evidence that he could not have been at the checkpoint at the time of the incident.

"The investigator has therefore decided to drop the pre-trial restrictions. No charges have been brought against him," the Russian Investigation Committee said in a statement.

Budanov, who commanded a tank regiment during the second Chechen war, was convicted in the summer of 2003 of strangling 18-year-old Elsa Kungayeva three years earlier, and was sentenced to 10 years in jail. He was paroled in January 2009.

Russia's top investigation body said is maintaining contact with the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which monitors Russia's execution of the Strasbourg court's judgments on Chechen residents' appeals.

"The Russian side is undertaking all measures to investigate the circumstances of each case," the Investigation Committee said, adding that the probe faced "serious difficulties" due to the time lapse since the crime.