TOLSTOY-YURT, Russia — The last elected president of independent Chechnya lived and died in a nondescript basement on a street corner in this village of low, rolling plains and neatly gated courtyards a few miles north of the Chechen capital. Or perhaps he didn't.
The truth of exactly how Aslan Maskhadov died may never be known, in part because five days after footage was shown of his body sprawled in a pool of blood, Russian authorities blew up the house and reduced it to broken bricks and splintered lumber. Armed guards now stand sentry to make sure no one gets close enough to inspect the rubble. The owners of the house have been arrested, or have disappeared.
As for the body of the 53-year-old Chechen rebel leader, whom authorities blamed for attacks against military and civilian targets across Russia, no one has seen it, except on the brief video released by police. Authorities have invoked a new law that allows them to refuse to release the bodies of suspected terrorists.
Here in Tolstoy-Yurt, residents are by turns perplexed, disbelieving or fearful -- mostly of the Russian troops who conducted rough house-to-house searches on the day Maskhadov was said have been killed. Police said the separatist leader, who served as Chechnya's president during a period of self-rule in the late 1990s, was found hiding in the basement of a local welder and was killed by a grenade when he refused to surrender.
"The people here generally disbelieve the official version that he was hiding here. The official version of the story is extremely suspicious, and ... it's possible that Maskhadov wasn't even killed here. But how can we say?" said Aslakhan Zakayev, who lives down the street from what had been welder Musa Yusupov's home.
"I have seen a lot of bodies in my life," said Ramzan Bolatiyev, the prayer leader at the local mosque. "The Maskhadov they showed on television was the body of someone who had been dead for several days. They brought him here. It was all staged, and that's why they blew up the house, so nobody could see there was no bunker and no 'special operation.' "
Beyond the usual conspiracy theories, the mystery over Maskhadov's death stems in part from early statements by Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov. He is considered the most powerful figure in Chechnya, and his security service has earned a reputation for kidnapping, torture and executions.
