MOSCOW, August 25 (RIA Novosti) - Exiled former Chechen militant leader Akhmed Zakayev has been sentenced to death for abandoning Islam, Chechen militants said on their website on Tuesday.

Zakayev, 53, was the foreign minister of the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. He has lived in London since 2002 and acted as an official militant representative until 2007.

"Public statements made by Akhmed Zakayev show that he has forsaken the religion of Islam," kavkazcenter.com website quoted a ruling by a Sharia court in the Caucasus as saying.

In a recent statement, Zakayev said Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov was not to blame for the recent murders of rights activists in the republic, and recognized Chechnya's Kremlin-backed government.

Kadyrov has frequently urged Zakayev through the media to return to his homeland and contribute to the revival of the Chechen Republic in exchange for amnesty.

"He practices a democratic religion, calls for secularism and prefers laws established by people to the law of Allah," the statement said, adding that the trial was initiated by Chechnya's most wanted militant leader, Doku Umarov.

The court pronounced him an apostate and said that killing Zakayev was "a duty of every Muslim."

Russia, which issued an international arrest warrant for Zakayev in 2001, has accused him of terrorist activities and repeatedly asked Britain to extradite him, but the request has invariably been refused.