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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Hearing held for surviving Beslan killer |
| 2005-04-20 |
| A court held preliminary hearings Tuesday for the only surviving suspected hostage-taker in last year's deadly school seizure in southern Russia, and his trial will begin May 17. The trial of Nur-Pashi Kulayev will take place in the Supreme Court of North Ossetia, the Russian province where the raid took place, and it will be open to the public, said Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel. Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev has claimed responsibility for the attack in which a group of gunmen held more than 1,000 hostages in a school for nearly three days in the town of Beslan. The raid ended Sept. 3 in gunfire and explosions, killing 330 people — more than half of them children. Shepel, the lead prosecutor in the case, said 317 of the victims were hostages and the others were 10 special forces officers, two emergency workers and one Beslan resident. Officials said that of 32 assailants who took part in the raid, 31 were killed. Shepel said the authorities had identified 20 of them, including two Chechen women who wore explosives belts around their waists. Kulayev has confessed to participating in the school raid, but insisted he didn't kill anyone. He has been charged with terrorism, hostage-taking, murder and attempts on the life of law enforcement officers among other charges. The charges carry either a life prison sentence or the death penalty. However, Russia has maintained a moratorium on the death penalty since 1996 as condition for joining the Council of Europe, the continent's leading human rights organization. The school hostage crisis was the deadliest in a string of terror attacks staged by militants outside Chechnya, where Russian forces are battling separatist rebels. President Vladimir Putin has ordered security forces to deal "more severely" with suspected Islamic militants in the south, and law enforcement agencies recently have launched a series of sweeps to target suspected extremists outside Chechnya. Shepel said violence in southern Russia was fomented by international terrorists striving to carve out an Islamic state in the Caucasus Mountains region, echoing a claim by Putin and other officials. Shepel's aide, Sergei Prokopov, said investigators uncovered evidence of international terrorist activity in the region while investigating the Beslan attack and a raid in December on a drug control agency office in the southern province of Kabardino-Balkariya. He did not elaborate. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #4 court held preliminary hearings Tuesday for the only surviving suspected hostage-taker I see the MSM is still giving their allies the terrorists cover.... Hostage taker my ass. He is a terrorist, murderer, baby-killer, and rapist. Oh and a Islamic (but I repeat myself...). |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-04-20 11:55:00 AM |
| #3 Let me get this straight. He participated but insists he did not kill anyone. Is that the best he can do???!!! ... Why not say "the badman Basayev kidnapped me and drugged me and tortured me and then threatened to kill my family etc so I did it to save them" ... They should whack him for stupidity alone once they've sucked all info and leverage they can out of his carcass. |
| Posted by: Tkat 2005-04-20 11:40:58 AM |
| #2 Club Lubyanka. LOL! |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2005-04-20 11:14:30 AM |
| #1 I'm sure some good lawyer will get him off with a short life sentence at club Lubyanka. |
| Posted by: Comrade 2005-04-20 1:25:51 AM |