Salman Betyrovich Raduyev was a Chechen militant and separatist field commander, from 1994 to 1999, who masterminded and was responsible for the Kizlyar hostage taking raid.
21 Facts About Salman Raduyev
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Salman Raduyev fought in the battle of Grozny and was wounded in March 1995 during an attempt to capture him by the Russian special forces.
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On 9 January 1996, Salman Raduyev led a large-scale Kizlyar hostage-taking raid in the neighboring Russian region of Dagestan, where his men took at least 2,000 civilians hostage.
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Salman Raduyev even accused Yandarbiyev of treason for agreeing to a ceasefire and threatened to attack him.
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However, further action was blocked by opposition from Salman Raduyev-led war veterans, including a prolonged rally in Grozny.
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Meanwhile, Salman Raduyev kept claiming responsibility for every explosion in Russia, even including accidental gas leaks.
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Salman Raduyev claimed that Dudayev, who had died in 1996, was still alive and issuing orders to him from "a secret NATO base in Turkey" with the goal of the "liberation" of the entire North Caucasus.
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In October 1997, Salman Raduyev was again severely injured by a car bomb which killed three other people.
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In September 1998, Salman Raduyev announced a "temporary moratorium" on acts of terrorism.
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Salman Raduyev claimed he had freed nine kidnapped Russian servicemen from their captors.
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Salman Raduyev came into conflict within Islamist circles and called for a ban of "Wahhabism" in Chechnya.
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In early 1999, Salman Raduyev vanished from the public again while undergoing a major plastic surgery operation in Germany.
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Still seriously ill and recovering from surgery, Salman Raduyev vowed "reprisals" against Russia for the March 1999 sentencing of two Chechen women.
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In September 1999, at the start of the Second Chechen War, Salman Raduyev organized a rally in Grozny attended by 12,000 people where he urged residents to stay home and prepare to defend the city.
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Salman Raduyev's militia was reported to be virtually destroyed by a series of serious setbacks during the early fighting in late 1999, and he stopped talking about planning and organizing new attacks afterward.
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Salman Raduyev was captured in March 2000 by the Russian special operations FSB unit Vympel in his home in Novogroznensky.
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Russian president Vladimir Putin said that Salman Raduyev had confessed to trying to assassinate Eduard Shevardnadze, the president of Georgia.
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Salman Raduyev was tried on 18 different charges, including terrorism, banditry, hostage-taking, organization of murders and organization of illegal armed formations.
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Salman Raduyev's appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in April 2002.
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In December 2002, Salman Raduyev died in the White Swan penal colony in Solikamsk from internal bleeding.
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Salman Raduyev's body was not returned to his family because of a newly introduced Russian law barring the release of bodies of people convicted of terrorism.