Beslan rebel 'committed terrorist act'

MOSCOW - A Russian judge declared yesterday that the only surviving member of a group responsible for the Beslan school raid that killed 331 people had committed an act of terrorism.

Judge Tamerlan Aguzarov will take several days to read his summary of the trial before he formally convicts or acquits Nurpashi Kulayev, although his comments already suggested a guilty verdict was likely.

"The court has established the participation of the defendant in murder and attempted murder, in conducting a terrorist act, in taking part in a bandit group, in taking hostages, in illegally storing and transporting weapons," Russian news agencies quoted the judge as saying.

Prosecutors have demanded the death penalty for the young Chechen, born in 1980, for his part in seizing 1,300 hostages - a raid that killed 331 people, more than half of them children - with the aim of pressuring Russian troops to leave Chechnya.

Kulayev insists his innocence, saying he was forced to join the raid. An official moratorium on capital punishment means a death sentence should be commuted to one of life in jail.

Many survivors of the 2004 siege say Kulayev has been made a scapegoat for officials who failed to prevent the rebel group entering Beslan on September 1 - first day of the new school year and a day of celebration for children and their families - and bungled an attempt to free the hostages.

They have followed the case closely. The small courtroom in the southern Russian town of Vladikavkaz was packed with women in black clothes and headscarves, some holding pictures of their murdered children.

"Formally, Russia has the death penalty, the judge has the right to impose it. He could use this option, if he wants to show how tough our laws are," said Sergei Nikitin, director of rights group Amnesty International's Moscow office.

"But we have a moratorium, so it will not actually be conducted by the court. Then again, we all know the stories about what happens to imprisoned Chechen fighters who suddenly "get ill" and die in prison."

Witnesses to the security forces' storming of the school spoke of a failure of organisation preventing hostages receiving medical care. Emergency services ferrying the wounded were trapped in traffic jams. Firemen lacked water. Heavy arms were used on the building before all hostages were accounted for.

An official probe said negligence and incompetence had contributed to the calamitous assault, which was sparked by two unexplained explosions in the school.

Relatives have followed Kulayev's trial closely, hoping it will provide details they say were missing from the probes into the unfolding of the tragedy.

"There is hope that he will still tell the truth, and therefore we need him to live," said Ella Kesayeva, head of survivors' pressure group the Voice of Beslan, when asked whether she supported the death penalty for Kulayev.

"The prosecutor has not dug down to the truth, because they have only one motive - to hide the facts of the security services' crimes ... It is not only the terrorists who are to blame in the Beslan tragedy, but also the Federal Security Service," she told Ekho Moskvy radio.

- REUTERS