19 August 2005, 20:13
Bodies glowing
The case of Nurpashi Kulayev charged with involvement in the attack on the school in Beslan continued to be heard in North Ossetia's Supreme Court yesterday. Witnesses told the court not only dead bodies, but also living people were burning after tank and flamethrower fire during the onslaught on the school.
Some victims saw dead bodies glowing. "A woman in front of me said she felt her arm burning. My opinion is positive: napalm (an incendiary adhesive mixture of a liquid fuel and a special jellying agent; generates temperatures of up to 1,600 degrees Celsius; the use of napalm and other incendiaries against civilian populations was banned by a United Nations convention in 1980 - ed.) was used during the onslaught," eyewitness Elbrus Tetov ventured an assumption of the causes of fire in the gymnasium. "If flamethrowers did not set fire to the gymnasium, then incendiary bombs did," he claimed.
"I have searched every brick in the school, but I have found no trace of such a bomb. Round about noontime I heard tanks fire. There were three of them, two T-72 tanks and one T-90 tank. They shot blanks, because no blast followed the clap of the shot. And closer to the evening, the tanks fired explosive shells," said Tetov. He emphasised he had served in the army and had a good understanding of weapons, so he could not be mistaken. He added he had counted a total of 11 tank shots, eight of them fired in the afternoon.
"Can you as a military man say what set fire to the gymnasium?" Tetov was asked the question that bothered every victim. "Grenade launchers and flamethrowers. My son died of a 100% burn of his body. And how did our firemen work? I saw one fireman sitting and trying to patch up the fire hose with sticky tape. Apparently, the hose was pierced by a bullet. What alertness can be discussed?"
"The gunmen were shouting that they were ready to die and that no one would escape from here. They demanded that forces should be removed from Chechnya and, unless my memory fails me, from Georgia," Ms Dzaparov said.
Having driven the hostages into the gymnasium, the gunmen made most men go out," Kommersant newspaper quotes Oksana Dzaparov, the mother of two who was also pregnant during the hostage-taking, as saying. They took out her husband Aslan Archegov, too. "When a small part of them came back in, Aslan was not among them. I hoped that he would be fine all the same. But after the release I learnt that they had shot him dead at once," the woman said suppressing tears.
After the terrorist act, Oksana Dzaparov learnt that her husband together with other men had been throwing dead bodies out the windows. When one man suggested him that they should jump out, Ms Dzaparov's husband refused to do so saying his entire family was in the school.
"When the guy with whom my husband was throwing the dead out still jumped out following another body, they shot my husband dead for that too. Kulayev, did you see this man in the school?" asked Oksana Dzaparov showing Mr Kulayev a portrait of her husband. "Why did you kill him?"
"I don't know, I didn't see, but Colonel said he would kill 20 hostages for one killed gunman," said Mr Kulayev.
Victim Julia Sidakov expressed her resentment of what journalists wrote about the proceedings. "You only say what they need: that Kulayev is the 'only surviving terrorist.' How can he be the only one when a whole lot has escaped?" It turned out that victims had information that another three participants in the hostage-taking had been detained together with Nurpashi Kulayev.
Only one of the victims interrogated yesterday saw Nurpashi Kulayev in the school. Svetlana Bigayev maintained it was him who had ordered children to stand up in the windows as a human shield. She said the defendant had worn a light-coloured T-shirt and he had had no arms. "He had indeed no arms, but he spoke his language in talking to the gunmen and gesticulated," she added.
"Kulayev did you hear the evidence of the victim?" Justice Tamerlan Aguzarov asked the defendant. "Yes, I did. I remember her sitting there. But I did not talk to the gunmen, I did not spoke. If I had talked to them, they would have killed me at once. I was talking to Alfa (an elite special force in Russia - ed.) unit officers."
Victims have more than once expressed their distrust in the prosecutors and Nikolai Shepel in particular. In their view, the prosecutors avoid speaking about and hush up many important details of the terrorist act.
"Comrade Shepel, when will you tell us the truth?" Julia Sidakov asked the Deputy Prosecutor General.
"We will tell the truth. The investigation into the main case is under way. Meanwhile, we are hearing the case with regard to Kulayev," he answered.
