Beslan: Still No Answers

From an interview with Yury Savelyev, a member of the Federal Parliamentary Commission and State Duma deputy from the Rodina party, who told Kommersant/Vlast correspondent Viktor Khamraev that parliamentarians have still not been able to find answers to the key questions about the Beslan tragedy:

“Many deputies believe that the purpose of the investigation is to establish a direct connection between the event and the actions of the authorities.”

”We are actually working on that – we're trying to identify a direct connection. We have the testimony of witnesses about an explosion. But we have other evidence, for example, on the use of a flame thrower against the terrorists. Either the explosion or the flame thrower could have caused the school to collapse, either from the blast wave or from a fire. At the same time, the official investigation has established two facts. First, the majority of people died because they were buried under the collapsed roof. Second, most died from burns, not from the blast.

“So was a flame thrower used?”

“The commission is inclined to believe that one was used. Our task now is to answer the question of the appropriateness of using flame throwers. It seems to me that this will be the only answer to questions that Beslan residents never stop asking us at each meeting.”