Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, left, listens to Chechen regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov (Picture: AP)

Police in Chechnya, southern Russia, have rounded up more than 100 men suspected of being gay and at least three of them have been killed, according to a Russian newspaper.

Novaya Gazeta claimed it had confirmed the information with sources in the Chechen police and government.

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But the newspaper didn’t give any further details.

The claims were denied by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s spokesman, Ali Karimov, who suggested there were no homosexuals in the Muslim-majority region.

‘It’s impossible to persecute those who are not in the republic,’ he said, according to the state news agency RIA Novosti.

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He added: ‘If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them, as their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return.’

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Kadyrov, who is backed by the Russian government, has been accused of violating human rights in Chechnya.

He has heavily promoted Islam in the region and has built Europe’s ‘biggest mosque’ in Russian republic.

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