Mothers of Beslan demand that Putin gets prosecuted and interrogated

The Voice of Beslan will file a claim with Russia’s Office of Prosecutor General with the request to interrogate former president of the Russian Federation, current prime minister Vladimir Putin as a witness of the mass murder of children in the school in Beslan in September 2004. Ella Kesayeva, an activist from that organization, told live on the air of Echo of Moscow Radio (Ekho Moskvy) that “a number of pieces of evidence point out at Putin’s personal involvement in the storm of the school”.

 

This decision was the response to Putin’s statement that he made during an interview to French newspaper Le Monde. Particularly, The Voice of Beslan is outraged with Putin’s words that the storm of the school was carried out correctly, and that there were no negotiations conducted with the group that seized the school.

 

Ms. Kesayeva says, “In accordance with the Russian law on defense, president is the one giving order in case army is used not for its primary function. Here tanks and flamethrowers were used against the school packed with children as hostages, which points at Putin’s personal involvement in the storm.”

 

In his interview to Le Monde Putin said among other things, “One could have counted on higher efficiency of our special units. But the fact that we had to prevent the attempts to destabilize the country is quite obvious, and any country in the world suffers great damages, the kind that come up during special operations, as soon as it makes concessions to terrorists.”

 

Ms. Kesayeva believes that from these words “it is clear that former president has been duping people for several years a row, and it is outrageous that this man starts telling special services of other countries how to prevent terrorist acts.”

 

“One can say that the authorities were right only after an investigation, which was never conducted,” Ms. Kesayeva stressed.

 

Ella Kesayeva also said that Putin had de facto admitted that he was the one in charge of the operation on the mass murder of hostages in the School No. 1 of the City of Beslan in September 2004, which means that he had thus claimed responsibility for the bloodshed.

 

“This is why the actions of the “power structures” have still not been evaluated from the legal standpoint; this is why none of those responsible for the deaths of over 300 peaceful civilians have been punished; and this is why no conclusions have been drawn from the tragedy,” Ms. Kesayeva said.

 

The Voice of Beslan is convinced that Putin’s statement “gives him away” and proves that he was personally in charge of the mass murder.

 

“Then he actually gave the command to use tanks and flamethrowers,” Ella Kesayeva mentioned and added that The Voice of Beslan, among other things, is currently compiling the documents for filing with Russia’s Office of Prosecutor General with the demand to launch criminal prosecution against Vladimir Putin.

 

Tatiana Karpova, the head of the organization of victims who suffered from the acts of Russian special services during the Nord-Ost hostage-taking crisis on Dubrovka, Moscow in 2002, shows her solidarity with representatives of The Voice of Beslan.

 

“Beslan was a complete repetition of the Nord-Ost,” she mentioned. -  “Except on Dubrovka the number of dead as a result of the “special operations’ turned out to be three times more than the ones who seized the theater, and in Beslan the number of peaceful civilians who died was six times higher…”

 

According to Ms. Karpova, it is a “natural crime”.

 

“How can be Putin shameful enough to be making such statements and making plans to return to his seat on the top of all that – I don’t get it,” Tatiana Karpova said.

 

Kavkaz Center