21:07, 5 August 2005

Kulayev thought to have 'mission'

Nurpashi Kulayev, the only terrorist to survive after the school seizure in Beslan, has not survived accidentally, but he had such a task given to him by members of the terrorist group, thinks Federation Council Vice-Speaker Alexander Torshin, Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission for an Investigation into the Act of Terrorism in Beslan.

The topic of terrorists has currently somehow completely disappeared from the courthouse and only special services' "crimes" are being discussed. This is exactly the main purpose for which Kulayev has survived, Torshin believes.

"I think he has a mission. This is my personal opinion, not the commission's. I am sure Kulayev has survived as ordered by the leaders of his gang," says Torshin according to Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper as quoted by Interfax. "Basically, a young guy as he is could have escaped easily, but he gave himself up on purpose. So the Beslan mothers to some extent even pity him," the Beslan investigation commission head notes.

Torshin reminded that commission members had talked to Kulayev. "Kulayev behaves as if he were sure he will be able to get free. But not through court proceedings," the parliamentary commission head said. "He receives parcels from his relatives. As a matter of fact, he has not been abandoned, because Kulayev had a task he has completed," Torshin remarked.

Besides, the commission has information that Beslan residents tore apart another gunman who left the school alive," the commission head said, quoted by NEWSru.com. "After all, we have evidence that someone was still torn apart. This is another unanswered question for the commission," the Federation Council vice speaker said.

Thirty-eight victims had been summoned to yesterday's hearing of Nurpashi Kulayev's case in the Supreme Court of North Ossetia, but only three of them came to Vladikavkaz.

Victim Svetlana Jeriyev told the court she had come to the school together with her seven-year-old son on 1 September. She was surprised to see no traffic police car standing as usual near the railway crossing. Jeriyev said the gunmen in the school shot dead male hostages and degraded women and children: "They were shooting for fun and always made us stand like a 'bunny.'"

Getting out of the school, she heard gunmen say to each other, "Finish the hostages, don't let them go!"

Victim Atikat Koliyev said the terrorists did not shoot in the air, but at people, when driving hostages into the gymnasium: "A child was wounded there and one man. A small boy named Georgii was sitting on my lap, so he kept on asking, 'Does Putin know?' I told him, sure, he did and he would soon come."