MOSCOW, Sept 7 (AFP) - Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov on Tuesday denied any role in the bloody Beslan school hostage-taking through his spokesman after a suspected hostage-taker said Maskhadov had ordered the raid.
"Claims of Maskhadov's involvement in the terrorist act are part of a campaign of disinformation," the spokesman Akhmad Zakayev said in a statement faxed to AFP from London, where he was been granted political asylum.
"There can be no justification for terrorist acts against innocent citizens," the statement added in reference to the deaths of more than 330 adults and children hostages in the three-day siege in southern Russia.
Russian state television Monday paraded what officials said was the only hostage-taker still alive, who said that Maskhadov and radical warlord Shamil Basayev had ordered the hostage-taking to "provoke a war across the Caucasus."
Russia's foreign ministry repeated the official claim of the Chechen rebel leader's role in the attack on Tuesday, saying in a statement that "preliminary results of the investigation already point to Maskhadov's involvement."
Maskhadov, who was elected as president of Chechnya in 1997 during its short-lived de facto independence after the first 1994-96 Chechen war, has traditionally been seen as a moderate force in the splintered separatist movement although he has now moved closer to radical elements.
President Vladimir Putin was quoted Monday by two British newspapers as angrily rejecting calls for negotiations with separatist hardliners, branding the Chechen rebels "childkillers."
"Why don't you meet (Al-Qaeda leader) Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace? Why don't you do that?" he said.
"You find it possible to set some limitations in your dealings with these bastards," he added, "so why should we talk to people who are childkillers?"
Zakayev said the televised confession of the hostage-taker had only one aim, "to intimidate those who cast doubts over Vladimir Putin's policies and are calling for negotiations to be opened with Maskhadov."