RUSSIA summoned the US envoy yesterday to protest over an American television network’s broadcast of an interview with Shamil Basayev, the Chechen rebel leader.

Moscow expressed its “strong indignation” to Daniel Russell, the US charge d’affaires, and accused Washington of double standards in the latest sign of tension between the former Cold War rivals. In the interview, broadcast by ABC on Thursday, Mr Basayev accepted that he was a terrorist who masterminded last year’s Beslan school siege, but said that the Russian Government was worse.

“I admit, I’m a bad guy, a bandit, a terrorist . . . but what would you call them?” he said of the Russians. “If they are the keepers of constitutional order, if they are antiterrorists, then I spit on all these agreements and nice words.”

Mr Basayev, who has a $10 million (£5.7 million) bounty on his head and has not met a reporter for several years, was interviewed in his Chechen mountain hideout by Andrei Babitsky, a Russian journalist.

Asked if there could be another Beslan-style attack, Mr Basayev said: “Of course . . . as long as the genocide of the Chechen nation continues, as long as this mess continues, anything can happen.”

The Russian Embassy in Washington had written in vain to ABC asking it not to screen the interview on the ground that it was giving a public platform to Russia’s most wanted terrorist.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said: “The TV channel has shown outrageous neglect of the standards of responsible journalism and general human values.”

Dmitry Kozak, one of President Putin’s closest aides, said: “We believe there should be a ban on all media outlets preventing them from providing the chance to speak to those accused of or suspected of perpetrating acts of terrorism.”

Alu Alkhanov, the Moscow-backed President of Chechnya, also protested, as did many Russian politicians.

Mr Basayev has claimed responsibility for a string of deadly terrorist attacks, including the Beslan school siege, in which 331 people were killed, and the Dubrovka theatre siege in 2002 in which 129 hostages died.

He said in the interview that he was plotting more attacks. “I’m making plans. We’re always looking for new ways,” he said.

All Russians, he said, bore responsibility for the war in Chechnya and “if the war is not felt by each one of them personally, then it will never end in Chechnya”.

Mr Babitsky was not immediately available for comment, but is expected to come under strong pressure from Russia’s security services to explain how he arranged the meeting with Mr Basayev.

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