School hostage-takers released from prison

Category Society
Source RosBusinessConsulting

Sensational materials have been published by the Vremya Novostey newspaper today. According to its investigation, a number of the killed terrorists involved in the Beslan school siege had been arrested several years before and would have been in prison now.

One of the rebels, Khanpashi Kulayev, was involved in an armed attack against the Vedeno commandant’s office. He was wounded and arrested. However, for some unknown reason he was released a year later. Another, even a more mysterious thing happened with Mayrbek Shaybekhanov. Last fall he got arrested by Ingush special services along with another rebel Rustam Ganuyev. The latter is now on trial for organizing a series of terrorist acts with suicide bombers involved, but the former appeared to have been eventually set free.

Meanwhile, all special services of Chechnya were confident that Kulayev and Shaybekhanov were in prison. “We have no idea why these people are freed,” a source in a federal law-enforcement department told the newspaper. “They were arrested, and were supposed to be in prison. It seems that either a court or a prosecutor’s office let them go.”

Deputy Commander of the OMON forces of Chechnya Buvadi Dakhaev is puzzled too. “We all were sure that Kulayev and Shaybekhanov were in prison, after they had been captured.”

The inhabitants of Engenoy, the birth place of Kulayev and Shaybekhanov, were quite surprised too. “How could they find themselves in Beslan? Aren’t they in prison?” they wondered.