Beslan massacre probe blames authorities (Reuters)

[Up2Late]

(Is this a different study from the one that NPR was reporting earlier this week? Because that study reportedly said Moscow was blameless, which outraged the parents and families of their dead children.)

Beslan massacre probe blames authorities

Wed Dec 28, 2005 03:38 PM ET

By Oliver Bullough

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Negligence and incompetence by Russian police and officials contributed to the bloodbath at a school in the southern town of Beslan last year, the head of a parliamentary investigation said on Wednesday. Alexander Torshin, who headed the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the September 2004 hostage siege, stressed that terrorists were mainly to blame for the killings of 331 hostages, half of them children.

He declined to blame senior officials, saying that would come later, and relatives of the killed said his criticism did not go far enough and that his probe was a waste of time if it did not lead to prosecutions of those in power. Torshin had harsh words for local police and intelligence services. He said police had ignored orders to enforce security at schools at the start of the school year.

"The Interior Ministry, the FSB (security service) and other government organs basically did not carry out preventive, organisational, operative and other steps to uncover and halt the criminal activities of the terrorist groups," Torshin told deputies in an interim report on his probe.

"Let's not blame everything on international terrorists. Let's start with ourselves, enforce order in our own home, then maybe they will feel less comfortable," he said. The bloodbath in the North Caucasus town occurred during an attempt by Russian security forces to end a tense stand-off with a group of heavily-armed Chechen separatist gunmen and free the hundreds of hostages they were holding at the school.

<http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=10706661&src=rss/worldNews>
(more at link above)

[Up2Late]

1. Here's Moscow's version from Monday: "No mistakes", Beslan report says

(This sort of thing seems to be getting more and more common here too, the two versions of the same incident I mean.)

'No mistakes', Beslan report says

Russian prosecutors investigating last year's Beslan school siege say the authorities made no mistakes during the crisis in North Ossetia.

Monday, 26 December 2005, 23:32 GMT

Relatives of more than 330 people who died in the siege accuse the security services of incompetence. They say the police who stormed the school should shoulder the blame for as many deaths as the hostage-takers.

An earlier report by the local parliamentary commission did find the security services had been incompetent. The BBC's Artyom Liss in Moscow says the prosecutors' report, released on Monday, will probably infuriate relatives of those who died in Beslan - but it does not come as a surprise.

In September 2004, more than 300 people were killed when mines planted by the hostage-takers inside the school began to explode and police and troops stormed the building. Since then people in Beslan have demanded that the authorities be called to account. The prosecutors' view of events is very different to the findings of the local parliamentary commission.

'Poor prevention'

Deputy Prosecutor-General Nikolay Shepel told Interfax news agency the security forces had all acted strictly within the law, and a reconstruction of the events did not uncover any actions that could have provoked the tragedy.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4561052.stm>
(more at link above)

[Up2Late]

2. kick n/t

:kick: