TALLINN - The widow of Chechnya’s first president and separatist leader has applied for Estonian citizenship, a government official said Friday.
Alla Dudayeva, 59, first asked the Estonian government to grant her citizenship in 2003, but her request was denied because she did not reside in the country. Her late husband, Dzhokhar, who led Chechnya’s separatists from 1991 until his death in 1996, had commanded a Soviet division of strategic bombers based in Estonia in the 1980s.
However, this year the Estonian parliament passed legislative amendments allowing the government to grant citizenship to non-residents “for exceptional merits.”
Dudayeva’s application could be considered by the end of the year, said Aarne Veedla, a political adviser to the Estonian minister of population affairs. Dudayeva and her 23-year-old son are currently living in Lithuania.
Dzhokhar Dudayev became president of the newly declared Chechen Republic in October 1991 and declared independence from the Russian Federation the following month. He was killed on April 21, 1996 by a precision-guided bomb when he was using a satellite phone after his location was detected by a Russian reconnaissance aircraft.
Source : RIAN
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