Suspect in Beslan school raid goes on trial

A court held preliminary hearings today in the trial of the only surviving suspected hostage-taker in last year’s school seizure in southern Russia.

The trial of Nur-Pashi Kulayev will start on May 17 at the Supreme Court of North Ossetia, the Russian province where the raid took place, and it will be open to the public, said Russia’s Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel.

Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev has claimed responsibility for the attack in which a group of gunmen held more than 1,000 hostages in a school for nearly three days in the town of Beslan. The raid ended on September 3 in gunfire and explosions, killing 330 people – more than half of them children.

Shepel, the lead prosecutor in the case, told reporters today that 317 of the victims were hostages and the others were 10 special forces officers, two emergency workers and one Beslan resident.

Officials said that of 32 assailants who took part in the raid, 31 were killed. Shepel said the authorities had identified 20 of them, including two Chechen women who wore explosives belts around their waists.

Kulayev has confessed to taking part in the school raid, but insisted he personally didn’t kill anyone.

He has been charged with terrorism, hostage-taking, murder and attempts on the life of law enforcement officers among other charges.

The charges carry either a life prison sentence or the death penalty. However, Russia has maintained a moratorium on the death penalty since 1996 as condition for joining the Council of Europe, the continent’s leading human rights organisation.