20 October 2005, 15:51
'Flame-throwers were safe for hostages,' say prosecutors
At a press conference in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov said that no criminal case would be opened concerning the use of flame-throwers by military men when conducting the operation for destruction of gunmen in Beslan's school No 1 in September 2004. "The actions of the military men were lawful and there are no grounds to open a criminal case," he said.
Mr Kolesnikov explained that shots were made at the roof and a window of the dining hall when releasing the school. "We conducted an experiment which showed that live flame between 3 and 5 seconds is required for taking fire, while the Shmel flame-thrower only provides live flame between 0.35 and 0.4 seconds," the deputy prosecutor general remarked.
Mr Kolesnikov also emphasised that "intensive burning in the gymnasium began by the time all live hostages had been evacuated." To confirm the arguments of the commission, Mr Kolesnikov referred to evidence of civilians who had taken part in rescuing the hostages and to results of forensic tests with flame-throwers that had been conducted twice, including in the presence of representatives of the victims, according to ITAR-TASS.
A month before the school seizure in Beslan, special services knew that gunmen were gathering on the administrative border of Chechnya and North Ossetia, according to the prosecution, NEWSru.com reports.
"On 2 August 2004, the Russian Federal Security Service Department for the Chechen Republic informed the Federal Security Service Department for the Republic of North Ossetia by phone that around one hundred gunmen gathered near the cannery in Sleptsovskaia, Sunzhenskaia district, Chechnya" Mr Kolesnikov said and specified that an examination had not confirmed this information.
On 14 August, according to the deputy prosecutor general, the Federal Security Service Department for North Ossetia received information that a group of rebels was moving along the administrative border. Besides, on 16 August, the Federal Security Service Department for Chechnya gave notice that there was "information needing to be examined that a large-scale operation similar to the Budennovsk scenario is being prepared in North Ossetia," said Mr Kolesnikov.
The Federal Security Service Department received the last information that a terrorist act might be carried out in North Ossetia on 27 August, according to him. Mr Kolesnikov reminded that there had been an order of the republican internal affairs minister concerning higher alert on 1 September. "We all know how that was performed," the deputy prosecutor general concluded.
Mr Kolesnikov emphasised that Ingushetia's Internal Affairs Ministry had received information on 29 August that members of illegal armed formations were going to commit a terrorist act against education institutions on the day of their opening, as well as direct orders to ensure public safety. "All information was provided to the executors, as it were. Why not take measures?" Mr Kolesnikov remarked.
Criminal cases have been opened against Mr Yevloyev, chief of the Malgobek District Division of Internal Affairs in Ingushetia, and his deputy, chief of the public safety police, Mr Kotiyev, according to Mr Kolesnikov. The deputy prosecutor general said they were held accountable for improper service which made it possible for 32 members of the group to gather in the vicinity of Psedakh, Malgobek district, between 26 and 31 August 2004, organise a camp there, drive in a GAZ-66 truck across the district in the morning on 1 September, and cross the administrative border with North Ossetia.
Meanwhile, people in Beslan distrust conclusions and actions of the federal commission. "I only trust the investigation of our, republican commission. I have no reasons to distrust Stanislav Kesayev and no reasons to trust Alexander Torshin," Mrs Ella Kesayev, a member of the Beslan Mothers Committee, told Caucasian Knot's correspondent on 19 October.
