RUSSIA: Court adjourns to consider verdict in trial of only surviving hostage-taker of 2005 Beslan school siege

Record ID: 858174

  • Title: RUSSIA: Court adjourns to consider verdict in trial of only surviving hostage-taker of 2005 Beslan school siege
  • Date: 18th February 2006
  • Summary: WIDE SHOT INTERIOR COURT WITH MOTHERS OF BESLAN VICTIMS SEATED; MOTHERS SEATED 3 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 5th March 2006 12:00
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  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAC62LR4R5K80DOIG2M9XS0SVYI
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  • Story Text: A Russian judge retired to consider his verdict on Thursday (February 16, 2006) on the only person to stand trial for the Beslan school siege that killed 300 people, half of them children.
    Prosecutors have requested the death penalty for Nurpashi Kulayev, who they say is the only surviving hostage-taker of the group that stormed Beslan's school in September 2004 with the intention of killing as many hostages as possible.
    However, some victims' relatives say the authorities are using Kulayev as a scapegoat. They say a heavy-handed rescue operation caused many of the deaths but no officials have so far been brought to trial.
    "I do not consider myself guilty, not for the death of a single child or adult," said Kulayev, his voice trembling, from a glass box in the courtroom when the judge asked him to enter a final plea.
    "As for the people who are guilty, let them confess their guilt when they are caught," he said.
    Kulayev, a Chechen, has told the court he was among the hostage-takers in the school but he has said he did not kill anyone.
    The judge hearing the case in Vladikavkaz, capital of the North Ossetia region in southern Russia, said the court would reconvene to announce its verdict. He gave no date.
    A moratorium on the death penalty is in force in Russia, so the harshest sentence would be life imprisonment.
    A heavily-armed group linked to separatist rebels in Russia's Chechnya region seized the school on September 1, 2004, the first day of the school year.
    The gunmen killed most of the men they took hostage. The women and children were herded into the school sports hall which they rigged with booby-trap bombs.
    On September 3, a gunfight erupted between the hostage-takers and security forces. A total of 331 people -- 186 of them children -- were killed. Many died when the sports hall caught fire and the roof collapsed.
    Five women who lost relatives in the siege were on Thursday on the seventh day of a hunger strike to protest against a trial they say has been a whitewash.
    "We want to attract public attention, attention of the international community towards our problems. We want them to know that some forces want to cover up Beslan, that they don't want to punish the guilty ones, because somebody ordered tanks to shoot and fuel air bombs to be used and these people will remain unpunished," said Ella Kesayeva of the pressure group Voice of Beslan.
    Her group has demanded a retrial. But other relatives' groups have supported a death penalty for Kulayev.
    "We have asked for the death penalty and will push for that although I know that Russia has a moratorium against the death penalty," said Susanna Dudiyeva, head of the Beslan Mothers' Committee.
    An official enquiry into the Beslan massacre concluded that local police and intelligence services had been negligent. It said they might have prevented the attack if they had increased security at schools.
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