Chechen guerrilla leader. Salman was a Chechen freedom fighter noted chiefly for a spectacular operation in 1996 that propelled him on to television screen and the front pages of newspapers across the world when he led a band of 300 of his 'Lone Wolf' guerrilla fighters in the seizure of a hospital in Kizlyar in Dagestan, taking more than 1,000 hostages. The aim was to force the Russians to sue for peace in their war against Chechen separatists. In March 2000 he was arrested at his home in Novogroznensky by the Russians and put on trial on 18 different charges including murder and terrorism. He was found guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Salman Raduyev was born in Novogroznensky, near Gudermes, in eastern Chechnya, and died in captivity in a Russian Penal Colony at Solikamsk, near Perm. Salman who stood out among the Chechens for his red hair and reddish beard, after attending school, served in the Red Army, Soviet Union, as a construction engineer.