Russian prosecutors' probe clears authorities over Beslan school siege

By: HENRY MEYER - Associated Press | Tuesday, December 27, 2005 5:23 PM PST ∞

MOSCOW -- Life has been agonizing for Susanna Dudiyeva since the horrifying day when her son died in the bloodbath that ended last year's school hostage siege in Beslan. A report by federal prosecutors Tuesday only aggravated her pain.

Deputy Prosecutor-General Nikolai Shepel said a probe led by his office found no reason to blame security forces for the deaths of 331 hostages during a police raid to rescue them from a band of terrorists in the southern Russian town.

That view ran counter to a report last month from a regional legislative panel that accused authorities of botching rescue efforts and urged punishment for those responsible.

Many people in Beslan feel the same way, arguing that officials stumbled badly in dealing with the crisis and have since sought to cover up their mistakes.

"We didn't expect anything else -- the prosecutors are sticking to their version of the events," said Dudiyeva, who as head of the Beslan Mothers' Committee has been a leader in pressing for an accounting of what happened and why during the crisis Sept. 1-3, 2004.

Dudiyeva, who lost her 13-year-old son, Zaur, wants to know how Islamic militants managed to mount their attack on the school undetected by security forces, what touched off the final battle and whether police and troops used indiscriminate violence.

Shepel, who is heading the investigation by federal prosecutors, said in a statement released by his office that so far his probe had not discovered any mistakes by authorities.

His statement came a day before the Russian parliament was to release results of its own investigation, which was likely to further heat up anger among Beslan residents, whatever its findings.

Islamic militants seized Beslan's School No. 1 on the first day of school, taking more than 1,100 children, parents and staff hostage and herding them into the gymnasium, which they rigged with explosives.

The hostages suffered in hot, unsanitary conditions and were denied water by their captors during the ordeal, which ended in explosions and gunfire on the third day of the standoff. The dead hostages included 186 children.

The rebels, who were demanding that Russian troops withdraw from the nearby Chechnya region after a decade of separatist warfare there, had crossed heavily policed territory to reach Beslan, and victims' relatives are convinced they got help from corrupt officials.

Families of the hostages have strongly criticized the rescue operation, saying hostages died needlessly because special forces soldiers used flame-throwers, grenade launchers and tanks against the militants.

Dudiyeva called for top officials involved in the raid to be punished.

"You need to punish those who did not carry out their duties properly. Our children are no longer with us," she said.

Shepel defended the security forces and other rescue personnel, saying all acted appropriately.

"According to the conclusions of the investigation, the expert commission did not find ... any violations that could be responsible for the harmful consequences that resulted from the terrorist act in Beslan," he said.

In a Nov. 29 report, a panel from the North Ossetia regional legislature called actions by the Russian Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service during the siege "unsatisfactory."

The panel said authorities failed to coordinate rescue efforts and made serious missteps, such as grossly underestimating the number of hostages in the siege's early going. It also said it found no evidence to support the government's claim that the climactic battle began when a militant accidentally set off explosives inside the gymnasium.

Shepel said that while his office's investigation found no fault with officials' handling of the raid itself, experts had concluded the system for preventing terrorist acts in Russia does not provide sufficient protection for the country's people.

The school raid was the deadliest in a series of terrorist attacks by Chechen rebels and other Islamic militants that have plagued Russia since the Kremlin sent troops into Chechnya in 1994 and have intensified in recent years.

Russia's southern regions increasingly are plagued by violence, some of it stemming from criminal gang feuds, some spilling over from the separatist conflict in Chechnya.

On Tuesday, a shootout erupted between police officers and suspected rebels they were trying to arrest in the southern Russian district of Dagestan, near Chechnya. One policeman and one alleged militant died, the regional Interior Ministry said.

First name only. Comments including last names, contact addresses, e-mail addresses or phone numbers will be deleted. Attempts to misrepresent your identity or impersonate any person will not be approved. All comments are screened before they appear online, so please keep them brief. Comments reflect the views of those commenting and not necessarily those of the North County Times or its staff writers. Click here to view additional comment policies.