A Russian official says Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov was killed by his own men at his request rather than be taken alive by Russian security forces."You'll never take me alive, coppers!"
Interfax news agency quotes the Russian deputy prosecutor general Nikolai Shepel as saying: "Maskhadov had an agreement with his accomplices that if he was threatened with capture they would shoot him." Mr Maskhadov, elected president of Chechnya during a three-year period in the late 1990s when it enjoyed de facto independence, was killed on March 8 in a special security operation in a village north of the regional capital Grozny. "He had a 'suicide belt' on him at the time but he did not want to explode it because he wanted his accomplices to live, so he asked them to shoot him," Mr Shepel said.
If that ain't professional courtesy, I don't know what is!