RUSSIA GIVES ABC NEWS THE HOOK AFTER INTERVIEW WITH TERRORIST

The Russian Foreign Ministry announced today that accreditiations for ABC News reporters and workers would not be renewed and banned from talking with Russian officials after it aired an interview last week with the country's most wanted man who mastermined some of the bloodiest attacks of the decade-long Chechen war.

In the interview, conducted by Radio Liberty journalist Andrei Babitsky, Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev admitted being "a bad guy, a bandit, a terrorist". Basayev has a $10 million bounty on his head after the Beslyn hostage siege in which 330 people were killed, half of them children.

The Foreign Ministry also said it would review the legal status of Babitsky, who was reportedly in Chechnya without government accreditation. This is not the first time the journalist has been in the crosshairs of Russian authorities. He was arrested in 1999 after officials complained about his reports on the Chechen war, and was convicted the following year on what were considered "trumped up" charges of using a fake passport. It should be said here that Babitsky's employer, Radio Liberty, is a private international communications service funded by the U.S. government.

While the government of President Vladmir Putin has been criticized for restricting the Russian press, this would be the first time that a Western media organization has had this type of action taken against it.