Beslan terrorists 'were drug addicts'

Some of the terrorists who seized more than 1,000 hostages in a school in Beslan last month were drug addicts, a senior prosecutor said today.

Nikolai Shepel, Russia’s deputy prosecutor general, said forensic experts found traces of drugs in the bodies of some of the militants that exceeded normally lethal levels, indicating they were long-term addicts.

Tests also revealed that “some of the terrorists had run out of drugs and were in a state of withdrawal, which usually comes with aggressiveness and inadequate behaviour,” Shepel said in a statement carried by the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies.

“This allows us to assess the situation before the tragic outcome.”

After seizing the school in Beslan on September 1, the militants placed bombs around its gym and held hostages there in sweltering heat for three days without food or water.

The stand-off ended on September 3, when an explosion inside the school sent children fleeing and their captors began shooting them in the back, prompting the security forces gathered outside to return fire. Nearly 340 hostages died.

Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was part of the rebel struggle for independence from Moscow.