MAKHACHKALA. Nov 16 (Interfax-AVN) - Three members of illegal armed formations, including a British national, were detained by the police in Dagestan on Thursday.
Senior official at the Dagestani Interior Ministry Salikh Gajiyev told Interfax on Friday that at about 3:45 p.m. (1245 GMT) on Thursday British citizen John Beneni was detained carrying a weapon near a police post in Novochurtakh, Novolakskoye district. During an interrogation he said he was a Muslim living in London. He had entered Chechnya via Turkey and Georgia. In Georgia he joined a rebel group.
The other detainees were Mukhtar Pasha Ismailov, a resident of the Khasavyurt district of Dagestan, and Sergei Tiunov, a native of the Bashkortostan autonomous republic and a former Russian army serviceman who did his army service with a marine unit in Chechnya in 1999 and joined the rebels, with whom he fought against federal forces.
The police found the detainees carrying a submachine gun, explosives, detonators and medicines.
Preliminary reports say they had come to Dagestan to commit acts of terrorism. They are currently being interrogated.ml cj <>