Beslan police accused of negligence

A Russian court today opened the trial of three police officers accused of negligence facilitating the school hostage taking in the southern city of Beslan that left 331 people dead.

The officers, who held senior positions in the regional police force, went on trial in Beslan’s district court. They are charged with “criminal negligence” that let a truckload of heavily armed attackers drive unimpeded across the southern province with many police checkpoints, and seize Beslan’s School No.1 on September 1, 2004.

If convicted, the officers face up to seven years in prison, the regional Supreme Court said in a statement.

A parliamentary panel that investigated the raid has blamed regional police officials for failing to step up security in schools in North Ossetia, the province where Beslan is located, despite orders from the Russian interior minister.

Only a single policewoman was posted outside the Beslan school, and she was taken hostage by raiders demanding that Russian troops withdraw from the nearby republic of Chechnya.

The militants herded 1,128 hostages into a gymnasium rigged with explosives, where they suffered in hot, unsanitary conditions and were denied water during the three-day ordeal that ended in explosions and gunfire; 186 children were among the dead.

Many relatives of the victims and Kremlin critics accused the government of singling out local police officials as scapegoats while covering up mistakes and negligence by federal authorities.