Kasparov summoned for "extremism"

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MOSCOW, Apr 17 (Reuters) Russia's intelligence services today summoned former chess champion Garry Kasparov for questioning over ''extremism'', but the Kremlin admitted police over-reacted at weekend opposition rallies he helped lead.

Kasparov has been served with the summons from the FSB, the successor of the KGB, after he was arrested and fined for public order offences at the protests against President Vladimir Putin.

A statement on Kasparov's Web site, www.kasparov.ru, said the FSB was investigating whether, in a radio interview he gave before the protest and in a newspaper published by the opposition movement, he made calls for extremist action.

The investigation into the former chess grandmaster came as a Kremlin spokesman conceded that Russian police who broke up opposition protests with batons at the weekend had over-reacted.

But the spokesman also said the scale of the clashes in Moscow and Russia's second city St Petersburg had been blown out of proportion by foreign media.

Riot police detained hundreds of protesters, including Kasparov, when they tried to hold a banned march in Moscow on Saturday. Police beat and kicked anti-Kremlin protesters in St Petersburg the next day.

One activist with the opposition Yabloko party showed her black eyes and broken nose after being beaten with a police truncheon.

''I was standing on the curb, when an old woman fell and I went to help her up. At that moment, I was hit with a truncheon in my face,'' Olga Tsydilova said today outside the St Petersburg hospital where she was being treated.

A bystander who was not part of the protest said he was set upon by police as he walked towards a metro entrance. He is now being treated for broken ribs and a punctured lung in hospital.

''I was hit on the head and fell, nearly losing consciousness. The policeman was about to stand on my head with his heavy boot when my wife screamed at him to leave me alone and he ran away,'' said Alex Kavaizo.

Germany, holder of the rotating European Union presidency, called the police action unacceptable and the United States expressed concern over what it called heavy-handed policing.

''OVER-REACTION'' Asked about the police conduct, deputy Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Russia Today television channel: ''I think some over-reaction really took place, really took place, but their main role was to ensure law and order on the streets.

''Everybody accepts these actions were quite limited ... (in terms of) the number of participants. But of course, the very fact of these actions (taking place) draws extreme attention from foreign media. And in the foreign media, a certain exaggeration took place, really,'' he said.

The protest organisers said police used excessive force against people who were no threat to public order. The police said the protest did not have official permission and that they were upholding law and order.

The turnout at the demonstrations, organised by the Other Russia movement, was relatively small. The protesters have marginal influence in Russia, where the majority of voters back President Vladimir Putin.

Journalists, photographers and cameramen from numerous media were among those briefly detained.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said the protests were orchestrated and encouraged from outside Russia.

''Someone wants to complicate the situation and unbalance the country,'' he was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti news agency.

''We must tell those people who encourage this fear that what they're doing is unacceptable.''