Russian prosecutor: 14 Beslan school attackers identified
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-16 14:09

Investigators have identified 14 terrorists from the gang that attacked the misfortunate school No 1 in Beslan, North Caucasus, in the first days of September, Russia’s Prosecutor General, Vladimir Ustinov, says in an interview coming out in the Thursday issue of the Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily.

“We’ve identified 14 terrorists, including their ringleader, who had the nickname of “Colonel”,” says Ustinov. “But we must get investigative confirmations, and work with the relatives of those terrorists is now underway”.

“That’s why we are still saying that their identification is in progress,” he says.

According to Ustinov, the evidence given by the only militant who was caught alive and by the victims of the school’s seizure, the grouping had 32 bandits.

“The figure seems to be correct – the investigators have the bodies of 30 terrorists; besides, one of them was caught alive and one more was blown to pieces,” Ustinov says.

“As for the possibility that one of the terrorists managed to escape, I don’t think it could be so,” he goes on. “He could have escaped from the Spetsnaz or Omon crack units, but he wouldn’t have escaped from the rancorous people of Beslan”.

Investigators are now restoring the full picture of the crime – “who those criminals were, where they had come from, how they managed to get to Beslan unnoticed, whether or not they had accomplices, and whose negligence helped them to effectuate their heinous designs”.

“In the light of it, we’re working through many things – examining the spot of the grouping’s concentration in the forest, reviewing the causes for the absence of block posts on the roads, and assessing the legitimacy of actions of certain officials,” Ustinov says.

He reiterates that the number of hostages trapped inside the Beslan school was more than 1,156.

Ustinov explains the phrase “more than” by saying that, apart from 242 identified bodies and another 84 bodies still in the process of identification, the investigators had to deal with 88 fragments of bodies.

Also, search continues for the children who have not been found either in medical institutions or among the casualties, Ustinov says.

“The militants themselves mentioned 920 hostages, and after they executed ten strongest grownup men – most probably, they did it out of fear – they said the number of hostages was 910,” he says.

Ustinov also quotes the evidence given by the detained militant Kulayev, suggesting that he and his brother had been offered the sums amounting to US$200 to US$300 for doing their job.

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