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The military tried to persuade the rebels into stopping resistance and releasing the hostages. After all the means to persuade them into voluntarily giving themselves up had been exhausted, the decision was made to storm the house.

When three hours passed after the detention, no formal charges had been brought against the detainees and no report had been drawn up.

Chairman of the Georgian Central Election Commission Zurab Chiaberashvili has made a request to commission members today to release him from his duties.

Al-Walid's bother, Bender al-Gamdi, said in his interview with the Al Hayat newspaper published today that he had been informed of the death of his brother in Chechnya. According to him, he received this information from a Chechen, a brother of Abu al-Walid's wife.

The office of the Chechen prosecutor has not confirmed that Abu al-Walid, an Arab mercenary, has been eliminated in Chechnya.

The press conference titled "Chechnya, Ingushetia: the Safety of the Population and State of IDPs [internally displaced persons]" will take place at the Independent Press Center on April 20.

Field engineers neutralized a self-made bomb, which was mounted on a railway line.

As reported by locals, law enforcers in masks tried to illegally detain the man, but he put up armed resistance.

An officially authorized picket against war in Chechnya was staged on Pushkinskaya Square in Moscow on April 15, for the first time after a long break. To remind, the picket on Pushkinskaya Square has been existing for four years already. Its participants were detained on March 11, the picket was banned, and its organizers stood trial.

The field commander's brother said to Al Arabiya TV channel in El Riyadh, "It is true. We got to know about it already a day ago, but we don't know any details of the happening."

The following political parties will be represented in the Georgian parliament: the ruling United National Movement - Democrats party, which won 66.2% of the vote, and the Right - Industrialists bloc, which got 7.5% of the vote.

The people said Beso Kokaya had been beaten four days earlier by about 10 servicemen who then tied him to a tree.

Policemen are allowed to open aimed fire first if there is a real threat to their life in the course of special operations to detain criminals.

Djambul Shaminadze, head of the precinct election commission in the village of Danisparauli, which is in the Khulo election district, was detained by officers of law-enforcement agencies in the morning of April 16 in a hospital ward, to which he had been taken with signs of beating the day before.

At about 19:00 local time April 16, the opposition staged a meeting on the square adjacent to Matenadaran in downtown Yerevan. About 10 thousand people gathered in spite of the cold weather and torrential rain.

When an UAZ car with members of the Russian interior ministry's mobile detachment for Chechnya was moving near the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya, an improvised radio controlled bomb went off.

An unidentified bomb went off near the village of Alleroy in Chechnya's Kurchaloy district.

The Prime Minister of Abkhazia and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Georgia met on April 16 in Sukhum to discuss the Georgian-Abkhazian meetings set for April - in Moscow and Geneva.

In its report, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) has summarized the evidence of violations of freedom of assembly, of freedom of movement, of freedom of the media, and of the persecution of political dissenters that have occurred in Armenia.

The human rights organization recommends that the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture examine and establish clear standards and criteria for the use of diplomatic assurances by governments with the purpose of ensuring that governments adhere to their absolute obligation not to expose persons to a risk of torture.