Crime and Evidence
// Crime and Evidence
The ongoing trial for Nurpasha Kulaev, the only survivor among terrorists captured the Beslan school, is gradually growing into a sensation. Kulaev has practically retracted his testimony, and is now shattering the theory of the Beslan tragedy imposed by the Prosecutor’s Office.
He Will Say What He’s been Told to
When Russian deputy prosecutor general Nikolay Shepel announced the date of the first court hearing, i.e. May 17, no one hold any illusions that the investigation’s official version may be impugned: Nurpasha Kulaev was such a sorry sight when he was on TV news. Women of Beslan kept on saying that they would not get the truth from Kulaev as “he will say what he was told to say”.
“When we saw him on TV, one could see that he had been repeatedly beaten up,” Zara Kasaeva, one of Beslan mothers, says. “They do so for him not to blurt out anything at the trial.”
The investigation theory was strictly limited. 32 terrorist arrived in Beslan on Gaz-66 truck and seized the school. They did not make any demands. But later they demanded that the Northern Ossetian president Alexander Dzasokhov, Ingush president Murat Zyazikov, doctor Leonid Roshal and presidential advisor Aslanbek Aslakhanov come to the school. The terrirorts wanted to meet all of them at the same time. Evidence of hostages testifying to the fact that terrorists demanded something else more was ignored. There were many Arabs and a Negro among the militants, Shepel claimed in October.
The case files have it that the military men did not initiate the attack and did not fire at the school, but something exploded inside the building. The insulation tape that fixed an explosive device under the sport hall’s ceiling came off because of the heat, the bomb falling down to explode. The blast wave threw off the militant who held his foot on another homemade explosive device, and the bomb set off too. Self-made mines exploded because of the denotation. The panic of the terrorist resulted in all ensuing events: they started firing and setting off bombs.
One could judge by Shepel’s categorical statement made in January that the investigators were not going to give away any of their conclusions. The prosecutor claimed that there were 32 militants. The statement enraged the entire Beslan, and the head of the parliamentary commission on the investigation into the terrorist attack Alexander Torshin even recommended Shepel not to make final statements. The figure of 32 came to stay, though.
Residents of Beslan often recollect how investigators questioned them. They say many things they recalled were not included into the indictment.
“When Karnaukhov [head of the investigation team] came from Moscow, I visited him,” Ella Kesaeva, one of the victims, recalls. “I told him: ‘They fired at our children from flame throwers, that’s why they got burnt.’ Flame throwers were found near the school and on the roof, we don’t need to look fro anything to prove it. I told him we have a video tape showing the way the sports hall looked like after the assault. You could see it all there. Children who were burnt were sitting there: they died as they sat there. Shmel flame throwers burnt the children. There was a storming too – everyone knows it. Karnaukhov shouted at me: ‘Why are you lying?’ That’s the way they questioned all witnesses.”
Tell the Truth and We’ll Demand You Be Pardonned
It seemed that the Kulaev trial would be a mere technicality. The prosecutors charged him with terrorism, murder, participation in illegal armed group, purchase, storage, carrying and application of weapon. No one but one victim recalled they had seen Kulaev among the militants. All the more, no one could say if he had fired at all. Even state prosecutors would not declare that Kulaev performed any function in the gang. The most important thing he is charged with is his presence at the school with the militants. Basically, he found himself on the dock only because there is no one else to try. The victims realized it, and were least satisfied with it. “We need real culprits, not this Kulaev who is like a scapegoat,” Emma Betrozova said.
The first hearing when victims rushed to the terrorist’s cage screaming “I will snuff him out!” promised no surprises. But as the interrogation of the accused proceeded, the case got dashed to pieces. It happened after judge Tamerlan Aguzarov permitted the victims to ask the defendant questions. Obviously, the investigation was not ready for it. One of the questions was: is it true that the militants demanded all the negotiators coming together, and could they let go several children for the presence of Dzasokhov? They already knew the answer from the hostages. But Kulaev’s reply was unexpected. “I heard the Colonel [the leader of the terrorists] talking to somebody on phone saying he has an order: if Dzasokhov and Zyazikov come, he could let go 150 people for each of them.”
These words opened the “voluntary confession” of Kulaev that representatives of the prosecution had to interrupt several times trying to convince the victims that this was Kulaev’s “defending line”. But few listened to them. The victims’ attitude towards Kulaev changed before our very eyes. “Tell the truth and we will strive for your pardoning,” the women pleaded the accused. At the fourth hearing, Susanna Dudieva, one of the victims and the chairperson of Beslan’s Mothers committee, loudly declared she did not believe the investigation team and would rather cooperate with “Kulaeva than with those who are cheating” her.
It all ended up with the women starting calling Kulaev victim for the truth. Last week, Dudieva asked the prosecution for guarantees that Kulaev would not be beaten up between the hearings and would not “suddenly die of heart failure or accidentally fall down the stairs”. The prosecution would not give any guarantees.
But Kulaeva kept on making one ringing declaration after another. He recounted that a policeman, who the investigators deemed a hostage, helped them to go through police posts. He said when the Gaz-66 with the policeman on drove up to the school, “there already was firing on the second floor”. This contradicted the official theory, under which all 32 militants arrived together. “We were sure from the very beginning that there were much more militants,” the victims said. “They drove in several cars, and not all of them were eliminated. Some 20 terrorists escaped.”
Kulaev also said that of all the participants of the seizure “only four were Chechens, all the rest were Ingush”. The hostages claimed as early as last September there had been no Negroes or Arabs. Kulaev’s testimony is at variance with the investigation theory concerning the time of the assault as well. Kulaev recounted that after the first explosion that had prompted the attack the Colonel had screamed somebody on phone: “What have you done? Do you want to storm the school? Don’t you know how many women and children are here?” Finally, Kulaev said “a sniper had shot the man who was standing “on the button”. Generally, his testimony boils down to the assumption that it was military men who launched the attack on the building. This is what the women of Beslan have been trying to prove for nine months already.
Kulaev’s declarations seem to have come a surprise for his counsel Albert Pliev. The lawyer got the case by chance, faced unrelenting pressure of friends and relatives and now declines to discuss the details of the trial. Representatives of the Federal Security Service [no other has the access to Kulaev] decline answering the question whether Kulaev is being beaten up between the hearings. Answering the question why the testimony of the accused differs from the information of the investigation the lawyer says “Kulaev’s testimonies at the inquest and at the trial are the same, except for some insignificant details.”
No One Was Going To Let Terrorists Go
These “insignificant” variations may alter not only Kulaev’s fate but also those of the entire Beslan. The protest atmosphere is now so strong in the town that the authorities prefer to keep away from contacts with the residents.
But Beslan’s people will not put up with the presentation of the tragedy imposed on them, and are carrying out their own investigation. They have video tapes showing the assault, testimony of witnesses and some officials who contacted the staff. This information is sometimes shocking. For instance, they say the FSB director Nikolay Patrushev and interior minister Rashid Nurgaliev in fact arrived in Beslan by Putin’s order and were only at the airport blocked by OMON special forces. It is from where, Beslan residents claim, that they commanded the operation, therefore no one was in charge of anything in the centre of Beslan. Why generals were not there? Why the head of the North Ossetian FSB Valery Andreev headed the operation, while there were senior experts reputed for the hostage releases? Why all these generals have still kept silence? All these questions are repeatedly asked in Beslan.
“If Kulaev tells the truth, you’ll understand that both he and we are speaking about the things the authorities want to hide,” Ella Kesaeva says. “No one was going to let the terrorists go, they decided to eliminate them together with the children.”
“Five tanks fired at the one side of the school alone,” Emma Betrozova continues. “Who could have had a chance to leave the school?! I can’t understand how anyone managed to survive there. How could this have been allowed? Everyone was promoted for Beslan. Everyone who lied us. But we never learnt who had given an order to fire at our children. We have been trying to prove that the storm occurred for nine months: here are Shmels [fire throwers], here are the witnesses. But the witnesses were either intimidated or something else. Anyway, the case files do not include their testimony. We are blatantly ignored.”
Zaur Farniev, Olga Allenova
All the Article in Russian as of June 20, 2005
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