Beslan’s year of agony

Harangues, angry rebukes punctuate trial
Another focus for criticism is the behavior of the now resigned Dzasokhov and his Ingushetian counterpart, Murat Zyazikov. The hostage-takers wanted them to come to the school to receive their demands, but they refused.

Before the refusal, hostages say, the attackers had promised to release smaller children.

In the tiny courtroom where Kulayev is being tried, the atmosphere is rowdy at times. The audience, packed onto wooden benches, is mainly women who occasionally stand up to harangue the court, provoking angry rebukes from the judge.

When the trial began in May, mothers who lost children said they wanted to tear him apart. Now they see him as their main hope for information and have offered to petition for a lighter sentence if he reveals all he knows.

His court-appointed lawyer, Albert Pliyev, says Kulayev has confirmed that weapons were stored at the school ahead of the raid — something the authorities deny — but otherwise can’t shed much light. Kulayev, the attorney says, maintains he ended up at the school by chance with his rebel brother.

“He has said all he knows. He just didn’t know much,” the lawyer said.

Scene at school unchanged
At the school, closed since the attack, the blood has been washed away but the scene is otherwise unchanged: charred timbers in the gymnasium, bullet and shell holes on the walls, schoolbooks scattered in classrooms.

Water bottles and children’s toys, left as tributes to the dead, litter the ground.

The mothers’ committee has warned President Vladimir Putin to stay away during the anniversary.

“People here are very emotional. His visit could provoke huge protests,” said an organizer, Julietta Basiyeva.

Ruslan Aushev, a respected former regional president of Ingushetia who went to the school and secured the release of 26 women and children, says Putin has to share the blame.

“If a terrorist act happened, then obviously all the government bodies and law enforcement agencies are responsible for the fact that an armed group gets into a peaceful town,” he said.

“They are all guilty, from the top to the bottom.”

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