MOSCOW, April 1 (Xinhuanet) -- Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov was shot dead by his accomplices at his own request to avoid capture, Russian Deputy Prosecutor-General Nikolai Shepel said in the North Ossetia capital Vladikavkaz on Friday.

    "Maskhadov had an agreement with his accomplices that if a possibility existed that he would be captured, they would shoot him down," Shepel was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

    "His (Maskhadov's) dead body has been identified. He died of bullet wounds received when staying in the bunker," the prosescutor-general said.

    Maskhadov, a former leader of Chechen militants with a government-offered price tag of 10 million US dollars on his head after the Beslan school siege, was killed on March 8 in the Chechen village of Tolstoy-Yurt during a special operation by Federal Security Service (FSB) troops.

    "Maskhadov died of multiple bullet wounds inflicted by people hiding in the same bunker at his request," the Interfax news agency quoted Shepel as saying.

    "He had a 'shahid belt' (suicide belt) on him at that moment but did not want to set it off because the explosion could kill his accomplices. So he asked them to shoot him," Itar-Tass quoted Shepel as saying.

    Itar-Tass reported Shepel as saying that four of Maskhadov's accomplices, including Musa Yusupov, the owner of the house, were arrested during a special operation in the village of Tolstoy-Yurtin which Maskhadov was cornered in a reinforced underground cellar.

    Identification of Maskhadov's body has been completed by Russian investigators, the report said. Enditem