MOSCOW, March 9: Relatives of Aslan Maskhadov, slain Chechen freedom fighter rebel leader, will not be allowed to bury him because he is considered a major "terrorist," the Moscow state attorney's department said on Wednesday.

"The law in force does not permit bodies of killed terrorists to be returned to their relatives for burial," Interfax news agency quoted Russian Deputy Attorney-General Nikolai Shepel as saying.

Maskhadov was killed Tuesday in a bunker under a building in a Chechen village during an operation led by elite Russian government forces fighting freedom fighters.

The deputy attorney general said procedures for identifying the body, being kept at Russian army headquarters at Khankala near the Chechen capital Grozny, would take at least two weeks. -AFP