“SENIOR POLICE OFFICERS’ ACTIONS PLAYED INTO THE TERRORISTS’ HANDS”
Izvestia.ru
13:41 10.11.04
Who is to blame for the tragedy of Beslan? Did the bandits really hide their weapons in School No 1 beforehand? Might it have been possible to avoid the mass murder of the children? On Thursday at the State Duma all these questions will be put to the representatives of the inquiry and witnesses of the tragedy by the members of the parliamentary commission that is investigating the terrorist act. The commission has invited the Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia, Nikolai Shepel, who on the day before his meeting with the deputies shared the results of the work of the investigative-operative group with Izvestia’s special correspondent Nikolai Gritchin.
The first explosions in the Beslan school were caused by the terrorists’ drug withdrawal symptoms [“lomka”].
Izvestia: A key question: what provoked the explosions in the gym hall, which were the beginning of the tragic outcome?
Nikolai Shepel: We have long sought an answer to this question. The explosions were not provoked by anyone from outside, they apparently took place spontaneously. The results of the expert forensic analysis of the 30 corpses have suggested an answer. According to the conclusions of the experts, 27 of the bandits were using various narcotic substances. Moreover, in the bodies of 22 of them the concentration of narcotics exceeded the dose that is fatal to an ordinary person. In other words, a proportion of the terrorists were long-term drug addicts, their organisms had adapted to extremely high doses of poison. 21 terrorists were injecting heroin, one – morphine, three were smoking marijuana, two were taking tablets that contained narcotics.
Izvestia: But the bandits’ fondness for narcotics was nothing new to anyone – it was known right from the day of the assault on the school.
Shepel: The new element is something else. The experts did not find pure heroin in any of the corpses; although most of the terrorists were injecting it, it had already broken down into morphine and codeine. We can therefore conclude that at a minimum of several hours before the explosions the bandits’ supply of narcotics had run out. On 3 September the bandits were in a state of withdrawal (“lomka”). It is to this fact that we may ascribe their strange (neadekvatnyi) behaviour and heightened nervousness that day, and these were observed by many of the hostages. It is well known that during withdrawal drug addicts lose their sense of fear. Under the influence of withdrawal, there was nothing to stop a terrorist from pressing the button on the detonator. The policemen who were supposed to be guarding the school were sent off to accompany the president’s motorcade.
Izvestia: Has the inquiry found an answer to the question of who should have stopped the bandits on their way to the school?
Shepel: As you know, during the investigation criminal proceedings were instituted under paragraph 3, article 293 of the Russian Federation’s Criminal Code (“Negligence in the discharge of one’s official duties involving the death of two or more persons”) with regard to the head of the Malgobek Raion office of the Ingushetian Interior Ministry's internal affairs department (ROVD) Mukhozhir Evloyev and his deputy – head of the public security police Akhmed Kotiyev, and also the head of the Pravoberezhny Raion office of the North Ossetian Interior Ministry (ROVD), Miroslav Aidarov, his deputy – head of the public security police Taimuraz Murtazov and Guram Dryaev, head of ROVD headquarters. It has been established that on the eve of September 1 these senior officers received direct orders from the republics’ MVD (Ministries of Internal Affairs) to take appropriate measures with regard to the threat of terrorist acts on the Day of Knowledge (Den’ znaniy). In actual fact, however, these orders and assignments were ignored. In addition, several actions by senior police officers played into the terrorists’ hands. For example, on 1 September, according to an estimate of their powers and resources, Kazbek Dzutsev and Alekandr Gobeyev, officials of the Pravoberezhny OGIBDD (regional traffic police), ought to have been protecting public order at School No.1. But at the last moment they were sent to the “Caucasus” Federal Highway in order to guard the passage of the North Ossetian President’s motorcade. As a result, no one prevented the boyeviks’ car from approaching the school. In the school itself there was only one policeman – a female official belonging to the Department of Minors’ Affairs, who was, moreover, unarmed.
Izvestia: Could a group of traffic police (GIBDD) have put up any resistance to the bandits?
Shepel: Of course. They have sub-machine-guns. If there had been a shoot-out near the school, the boyeviks would have been deprived of their advantage – they would not have taken the children unawares. Their line would probably have been broken.
THE TERRORISTS BROUGHT ALL THEIR WEAPONS WITH THEM
Izvestiya: Do you know the precise route by which the terrorists came to Beslan?
Shepel: We know that the band had been formed in a camp, in the wooded environs of the village of Psedakh of the Malgobek district of Ingushetia, from 26 to 31 August. On the morning of 1 September, it left the village of Inarki in a GAZ-66 truck for the administrative border of North Ossetia, a distance of approximately five kilometers. After crossing the border, the bandits had to drive on a country road to Beslan for about four more kilometers. On this route they were stopped by the district police officer of the village of Nizhniye Batako of the Pravoberezhny district - Sultan Gurazhev, who was driving his personal "Seven" [model of Lada car M.L] then. The tarped GAZ-66 appeared to him suspicious. But the well armed bandits took his service pistol from him and manhandled him into the back seat of the car, and they proceeded further in two vehicles. They did not meet any other obstacles on their way.
Izvestiya: What about the district policeman?
Shepel: When the bandits began to surround the school, Gurazhev jumped out from the vehicle, ran to the ROVD and reported the seizure.
Izvestiya: There is a persistent rumor in Beslan that the bandits had hidden their weapons in the school during repair work. There was even an eyewitness who alleged that he saw submachine guns being taken from under the floor of the school library.
Shepel': This version has been thoroughly checked. It has been established that no storing of weapons and ammunition was made there. On the terrorists' orders, the hostages did indeed take out the school's flooring, but for other purposes. In the gymnasium - to check to see if there was a basement, through which the terrorists could expect an assault. In the adjacent rooms - for use as a toilet. In the library - to form a barricade, using the room’s floorboards.
Izvestiya: The assumption that the weapons were delivered in advance is feeding another rumor - about the presence in the school of an enormous arsenal belonging to the bandits, that couldn't be delivered in one vehicle.
Shepel: In the course of the inspection of the place of the incident, the following weaponry belonging to the terrorists has been retrieved: 20 automatic submachine guns and 5 Kalashnikov machine guns, 2 hand held anti-tank rocket propelled grenade launchers, 5 handheld Shmel flame-throwers, 9 pistols and revolvers, 6 explosive devices, 25 grenades, 29 warheads for the grenade launchers, more than 2,000 cartridges, knives, and cartridge-cases. The whole of this arsenal, together with 32 fighters (boyeviks), could be completely accommodated in the GAZ-66 military truck in which they travelled.
A BANDIT PHONED SAUDI ARABIA FROM THE SCHOOL - TO SAY GOODBYE TO HIS MOTHER
Izvestiya: There is talk that there were far more than 32 terrorists in the school. Many of them might possibly have escaped.
Shepel: That is not true. There were attempts to flee. One of the terrorists tried to break out through the encirclement with a machine gun in his hands. But he was destroyed. Another, being wounded, left in a vehicle for the hospital, disguised as a hostage. But people exposed and lynched him, and he died as a result of beatings. Nurpasha Kulayev, who was has been in the hands of the investigation, also attempted to "squint" ["kosit"] under the [guise] of a hostage. But spetsnaz soldiers immediately "cleaned him up". He confirmed that the band consisted precisely of 32 people, the number of terrorists announced for them before the trip to Beslan by the leader of the band – the "Colonel” (Polkovnik). By the way, the investigation with regard to Kulayev is already being wrapped up. Soon the materials will be sent to the court.
Izvestiya: How many of the terrorists have not yet been identified?
Shepel: Twelve, including two suicide-women [smertnitsas], who stayed in the band together with their husbands. One of them was blown up by the "Colonel", to frighten the hostages and fighters, prior to the assault.
Izvestiya: There were foreign fighters in the band. From what countries were they?
Shepel: So far we have obtained information about the identities of Magomed, who was a Turk by nationality, and Farukh, an Arab by nationality. According to the CIA's data transferred to our SVR on 3 September during the battle, the latter called his mother in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, from the Beslan school building, and said good-bye to her.
Izvestiya: The investigation has revealed that the terrorists had an accomplice outside the school. Who is he and what was his role there?
Shepel: This was a spotter [korrektirovshchik], who was informing the bandits about events around the school, including the deployment of military units. He is now being sought.
Nikolai GRITCHIN, Stavropol
(tr. M.L. and D.M. See also Chechnya-SL)
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