More on Maskhadov's end

A Step at a Time follows up on the many stories about the death of Chechen rebel president Aslan Maskhadov. Specifically, he quotes a Russian Newsweek report that in fact, Maskhadov may have died much earlier without Russian assistance - his body, in this version, was sold to the Russians after death. On the day, I blogged a German report that Ramsan Kadyrov, the Russian appointed boss of Chechnya, had said that Maskhadov had been killed by a negligent discharge of a weapon during negotiations. According to the Independent, Kadyrov later took this back and said it was a joke. Funny ha ha! Another version given by Newsweek.ru suggests Kadyrov's private army gave the job to the Russian army in fear of the vendetta that would follow Maskhadov's death.