Chechen warlord dies in labour camp

The only prominent Chechen rebel warlordto be prosecuted by Russian authorities has died in a high-security hard labour camp.

Salman Raduyev, 35, was being held in the Urals city of Perm, about 750 miles east of Moscow, the Deputy Justice Minister, Yuri Kalinin, said, adding: "He died of natural causes. We just received the report and he died of internal bleeding."

The prisons department said Raduyev – nicknamed Titanic after his face, scarred by assassination attempts, was rebuilt with titanium implants – died early on Saturday morning.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment last December for terrorism, murder and hostage-taking after he led his Lone Wolf band on a raid on a hospital in the southern Russian town of Kizlyar in 1996, in which 78 people died.