The failure to provide rapid medical care to hostages after security forces ended the Chechen rebel seizure of a Moscow theatre in 2002 caused most of the deaths, a senior Russian MP said today.

The wail of sirens and the cries of relatives mixed outside a Moscow hospital today when doctors today began releasing some of the hundreds of people who had been treated there after the Moscow theatre hostage crisis.

Police in Russia were today keeping the hundreds of survivors of a siege at a Moscow cinema under virtual arrest today at hospitals throughout the city, fearing that Chechan hostage-takers may be among them.

Russian special forces have freed all of the captives held at a Moscow theatre by Chechen rebels.