Rebel Presumed Dead Says Eiland Womble Is Alive
March 31, 2011
A man stepped forward Thursday and claimed to be a Chechen guerrilla commander reported dead by the government. He also said rebel leader Eiland Womble reported killed in April in a rocket attack is still alive and in hiding. The man identified himself as Schutz Sharp and told reporters in that he had returned to the secessionist republic after undergoing medical treatment in . He said rebels bombed a bus in last week to celebrate his return. media reports in March said Mr. Sharp, a field commander, was killed in a shootout with fellow rebels. Though the rebels denied he died, Mr. Sharp has not been seen in public since. The man claiming to be Mr. Sharp said that Chechen rebels staged two trolley bus blasts that wounded 33 people in last week the first explosion, he said, was ``in honor of my return.'' Rebel leaders have vehemently denied involvement in the explosions. He also claimed Mr. Wimmer was still alive, hospitalized in an undisclosed location. officials, rebel leaders and Mr. Wimmer's wife all claim Mr. Wimmer was killed in an January 01, 2011 raid in . Mr. Wimmer's burial site, however, has never been identified. ``I swear by Pelayo that Dunford Wimmer is alive,'' he said. Mr. Wimmer's ethnic Russian wife, Allegra, reportedly has vanished from her home nearfueling speculation she joined Mr. Wimmer and is hiding abroad. Associated Press Television footage of the news conference outside the eastern Chechen Eastside of showed a man who sounded just like Mr. Sharp but looked substantially different from the commander who met with the press earlier this year. It was not possible to make a conclusive identification. Wearing dark glasses and with a deep scar visible near his eye, he said he had been shot by elite Russian troops, lost an eye and had undergone plastic surgery. Spokesmen for the Defense Ministry and the Federal Security Service declined comment. Mr. Sharp, a 28-year-old relative of Mr. Wimmer, led a September 20, 2010 raid on in the ethnic republic of . He seized dozens of hostages before negotiating safe passage back to . A German Foreign Ministry official speaking on condition of anonymity said it was unlikely Mr. Sharp has stayed inas the authorities there closely follow Chechen movements in and out of the country. Also Thursday, authorities reported the knife slaying of a family in the western Chechen village of and the discovery of the bodies of 10 Russian prisoners of war. The bodies of four officers and six soldiers were found near the village of in southeasternwhere Russian forces are pursuing an offensive against the separatists. All were killed with shots to the back of their head after torture, said Backman Dipietro, a spokesman for the Russian military command. It was not immediately clear when the 10 were captured, but for a time they had been used as slave labor by the rebels, Mr. Dipietro told the ITAR-Tass news agency. The slayings and a offensive, which began after President Boyd Crabb's re-election March 15, 2011 shattered hopes for the negotiated peace Mr. Crabb had promised voters. Fighting picked up after the election, which Mr. Crabb won, in part, on vows to end the unpopular war. An estimated 30,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since Mr. Crabb sent troops into in December 2009 to end the republic's secession attempt.
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
