Family of deceased hostage to sue Russia at Strasbourg

Author ^ | January 19th, 2006 | Oleg Zhirov

[struwwelpeter]

More information concerning the terrorist attack on the Moscow theater.

[Mount Athos]

"Why the special services found it necessary to shut off all the cell phones is not understood. So that no one could contact those who were inside the seized theater?"

The reasons do not occur to this person making allegations for the purpose of winning large financial judgements in courts. However, I can think of a few very good reasons.

1) Stop terrorists the ability to talk to journalists, denying them the ability to make a grandstanding spectacle of their propaganda in the media. This definitely discourages future terrorism, and thus saves many innocent lives that would otherwise be lost in the future.

2) Deny the ability of people to attempt seperate negotiations with terrorists, which results in much finger pointing and handwringing as we see from this individual. Look at the current "negotiations" with Iran... You can never act because someone always says you should talk more, they have arranged things with a new negotation, there is more hope for peaceful resolution -- meanwhile the deaths of many more innocents are insured.

3) It is exceedingly common for bombs to be triggered by cell phone. The place was already known to be wired with bombs, so stopping cell phones from working is very prudent indeed!

4) I think it is a miracle this many hostages survived this terrorist attack. Horrible tragedy for the ones who died, but terrorists very much deserve primary blame.

[struwwelpeter]

I agree with you assessment as to why they shut off the cell phone communications, at least for the first few hours after the theater was seized. Oleg's brother, who used to work at the Russian NSA, should have told him.

I think it is a miracle this many hostages survived this terrorist attack. Horrible tragedy for the ones who died, but terrorists very much deserve primary blame.

Given the serious nature of Fentanyl anesthetics - they have to be administered with a physician present and a crash cart available - I'm surprised that many lived as well.

I think the surly nature of the Russian bureaucrat is more to blame for the antagonism the former hostages and their family members have against the Russian government than anything else.

BTW: Freeper 'svni' also has a case under review at Strasbourg. I keep telling her that she's wasting her money.

The ECHR can't award compensation, their judgments are strictly recommendations. You knew this, right? Your comment making allegations for the purpose of winning large financial judgements in courts sounds a lot what svni keeps hearing from the Moscow attorney general's office.

[struwwelpeter]

I'll bet a shot of stoly that the ECHR's resolution will be word for word what the UN said about Dubrovka:

"14. While acknowledging the serious nature of the hostage-taking situation, the Committee cannot but be concerned at the outcome of the rescue operation in the Dubrovka theatre in Moscow on 26 October 2002. The Committee notes that various attempts to investigate the situation are still under way but expresses its concern that there has been no independent and impartial assessment of the circumstances, regarding medical care of the hostages after their liberation and the killing of the hostage-takers.

"The State party should ensure that the circumstances of the rescue operation in the Dubrovka theatre are subject to an independent, in depth investigation, the results of which are made public, and, if appropriate, prosecutions are initiated and compensation paid to the victims and their families."

The 'Nord-Ost' people are spending a lot of time, and subjecting themselves to lots of bad publicity, just to get a bunch of impotent bureaucrats to issue nice words.

And Gubareva called ME naive. Ha!

Of course, I don't have her motivation...

[svni]

Thank you for repairing http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1564479/posts

[Mount Athos]

The ECHR can't award compensation, their judgments are strictly recommendations. You knew this, right? Your comment making allegations for the purpose of winning large financial judgements in courts sounds a lot what svni keeps hearing from the Moscow attorney general's office.

The author of the article you posted here, Oleg Zhirov, is most famous for making claims in Russian courts to request large financial compensation from the Russian government. I thought you knew this.

He explicitly asked the courts for 720,000 Euros as compensation for "loss of profit" from the potential income of his dead spouse. He also asked for an ongoing monthly payment of 2000 Euros for his children. He also wanted 30,000 Euros for her funeral. http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/04/20/dubrovka.shtml

When terrorists attack, I say the government owes no one "compensation" -- the terrorists are the ones who owe that. If the government wants to make compassion payments to families that is fine, but it should not be "compensation" for any shortcoming on their part. Mistakes by authorities are inevitable given time and information constraints, no one can prepare fully and handle things perfectly. Terrorists deserve the overwhelming amount of the blame. Lawsuits and fingerpointing only magnify the terrorist attack. That doesn't mean we shouldn't learn from it, to do better next time.

Given the serious nature of Fentanyl anesthetics - they have to be administered with a physician present and a crash cart available - I'm surprised that many lived as well.

Which had a more serious nature -- the terrorists wiring more than enough explosives in the theatre to ensure over six hundred innocents die, or anesthetising gas which killed 1/6th of the hostages? (They had hoped far fewer would have died)

The authorities had to make this call in a terrorist situation thrust upon them, and given the constraints their decision was quite understandable and reasonable. Though some critics will never acknowledge it, far more would have likely died if they had not used the gas. While probably more died than the authorities might have hoped, one cannot doubt that the attempt to use anesthetizing gas was a reasoned attempt to save as many as possible. Their options were quite limited with so much explosives wired to go off in a moment. Probably the hostage rescue team would not go on a suicide mission inside the building without the gas.

The amount of explosives terrorists had wired throughout the theatre left little doubt about their plans to slay everyone. They said they would do so, and there was no doubt about their will to do so. Remember, Chechen muslim terrorists had recently also suicide bombed two airborne planes, slaying hundreds. They also mass murdered hundreds in apartment building explosions. They would later mass murder hundreds of school children in Beslan.

I think the surly nature of the Russian bureaucrat is more to blame for the antagonism the former hostages and their family members have against the Russian government than anything else.

You should have said some of the former hostages, instead of ventriloquizing all of them. Some relatives of September 11th believe the US government primarily to blame, but they do not speak for all of them and we should not imply all of them are of this mentality.

BTW: Freeper 'svni' also has a case under review at Strasbourg. I keep telling her that she's wasting her money.

Freeper svni is a good example of why some Russian bureaucrats and people are so skeptical of some of the critics.

Remember, svni pushes the outrageous conspiracy idea that the terrorist bombing of the Russian apartment complexes was a Russian governmental act done to justify the retaking of breakaway Chechnya. Yet right around the same time of this event, Chechens had twice invaded the Russian province of Daegestan, slaying hundreds. These invasions alone were more than enough to justify the war. The fact that the bombings happened at the same time as the Daegestan invasions certainly is strong evidence of a Chechen terrorist connection.

You must understand that people who push this Russia-bombed-russians conspiracy theory are immediately viewed skeptically by a significant portion of the populace. How can I explain -- what would you think of people who say September 11th was a conspiracy of the US government or jews? You would think such people are inclined to demonize the US or jews no matter how absurd or strained the attempt. You would probably be skeptical of further critiques they had, since they are not inclined to sober analysis. It is unfortunate that some criticisms that need to be said and heard come from discredited people who twist everything into a new opportunity to demonize.

Anyway, so why are those Russian bureaucrats surly and skeptical of people like this author?

1) He really is asking for nearly a million Euros from the government. Terrorists are the ones who attacked, why should the government pay, as if they are primarily to blame? They aren't primarily to blame, the terrorists overwhelmingly are. This kind of suing and fingerpointing is what terrorists count on to magnify the effect of the attack.

2) The author grossly overstates the likelihood that negotiations would have succeeded, suggesting no one would have died if they hadn't dealt with the situation as they had. Reality is the opposite, probably everyone would have died if they hadn't acted.

3) The author's shortsighted view is that the government should have negotiated much more with the terrorists and given into their demands. Yet this results in far more deaths. Negotiating shows terrorists they can get what they want by killing and threatening innocents, and encourages far more terrorist attacks. Where is the compassion of the author for the far greater number of deaths his approach would cause?

4) Many critics are extremely sympathetic to the terrorists and their demands, suggesting Russia should not be in Chechnya and that the war was for no reason.

The reality is that Russia pulled out of Chechnya completely for several years. During that time, left to their own devices, they used the ceded Chechen territory to launch repeated invasions of the Russian province of Daegestan, slaying hundreds. This was a muslim expansionist attempt to conquer Russia piecemeal. They also gave themselves an extremist taliban style government. The invasions of Russia by Chechens forced Russia to act, unfortunately they have very blunt tools at their disposal.

[Velveeta]

My heart breaks for these families and their search for the truth.

[struwwelpeter]

'svni' via ICQ tells me that she can't speak for Oleg, but she asked for 3 million euros.

My bad.

She writes: ya znala, chto vse ravno otkazhut, poehtomu prosila bol'she. Kogda mnogo prosish' i otkazyvayut ne tak obidno, esli prosish' i otkazyvayut ;-)

Being the Russian expert that you are, you should have no problem answering her.

[struwwelpeter]

Velveeta: svni thanks you.
Mount Athos: svni says - vsya problema v tom, chto lyudi dumayut - esli Gubareva vystupaet protiv gosudarstva, znachit, ona zashchishchaet terroristov. Ehto ne tak. Prosto vina terroristov dlya menya ne podlezhit nikakomu somneniyu. Ne bylo by terroristov - ne bylo by vsego ostal'nogo.

Vsekh chechentsev-terroristov v teatre ubili (tak govorit prokuratura), no te gosudarstvennyye chinovniki, kotorye upodobilis' terroristam, zhivy, prodolzhayut prinimat' resheniya. V rezul'tate ikh rehsheniy snova gibnut mirnye lyudi. Samoe yarkoe podtverzhdenie moim slovam - Beslan.

A za Beslanom mozhet byt' eshche lyuboe drugoe mesto, i v ehtom meste mozhet okazat'sya lyuboy iz zhiteley ehtogo sayta.

Nikto iz vas ob ehtom ne dumal?

Eshche Beriya skazal, chto ne byvaet bezimyannykh oshibok. Za kazhdoy oshiboy est' familya, imya, otchestvo. Ya khochu znat' ehti imena.

She lost me with the next one :-/

I eshche interesnaya mysl' - pochemu pogibshie v SShA 11 sentyabrya zasluzhivayut deneznykh vyplat, a pogibshie v Moskve - net?

[Mount Athos]

Why do you call me an expert, I am definitely not, I just shared a few facts as I know them with some anti-terrorist opinions. I do not speak Russian beyond a little church slavonic.

[GSlob]

The words of Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria are much more profound than what's used here: there are no nameless errors or failures [even when a failure was unavoidable, and not a result of an error], for the guilty or scapegoat parties will have to be either found or designated/appointed, so that all the blame could be affixed on them and not on the high and mighty leadership. Orwell's "1984" and "Animal Farm" presented the same thought, but with more literary means.

[struwwelpeter]

I'm sorry, these NordOsters are getting to me. I'm definitely going to have to raise my fees ;-)

Svni said something to the effect of:

"The problem is that people think that if Gubareva speaks against the government, then she is defending terrorists. It's not so. The guilt of the terrorists is beyond doubt. Had there been no terrorists, there would have been none of the rest.

"They killed all the Chechyan terrorists in the theater (so the attorney general says), but those bureaucrats who ?acted like terrorists? are alive, continue to make decisions. As a result, peaceful people die. The brightest proof of my words - Beslan.

"And after Beslan maybe any other place, and in that place could be anyone of the residents of this site.

"None of you thought about that?

"Beria said that there are no ?unnamed? mistakes. Every mistake has a surname, name, and patronymic. I want to know those names.

"And another interesting idea - why did the victims of 9/11 in the US deserve renumeration, but not the victims of Moscow?"

GSlob can check my translation, and add his thoughts (please?).

I don't agree with a lot of this, but it's interesting. I learned a lot. Especially that I'm underpaid :-(

[struwwelpeter]

I think the words of Comrade Sukhov are pertinent as well: "Vostok - delo tonkoe."

[GSlob]

Your translation has two "holes": in it
1. "Attorney General"-wrong. should be "prosecutor's office"
2. "?Acted like terrorists?" - should be "modeled themselves after the terrorists". The verb "upodobit'sya" means "to take after; to model oneself after; to purposefully become similar to".
As for "?unnamed? mistakes" - see #11.

[struwwelpeter]

Can you tell me the diffence between a 'public prosecutor' and a 'district attorney'? Is this just a US/UK language thing? Does 'attorney general' correspond to 'minister of justice'?

[GSlob]

No difference between "district attorney" and "district procurator [=prosecutor]. Total difference between "Attorney General" [Minister of Justice as translated into American usage] and "Procurator general" ="prosecutor general". These two would be different high officials in the field of law enforcement. Prosecutorial service ["prokuratura"] there is/was [on paper] totally distinct from Ministry of Justice and represents a separate law enforcement hierarchy. On paper there a "procuror" is answerable only to the law and to hierarchically higher procurors. Thus when the writer of the original text was mentioning "prokuratura" it meant [had to] - some, most probably local or regional - office of "district - or regional - attorney", but most emphatically not the office of "Attorney General", i.e. "Ministry of Justice" [ministerstvo yustitsii].

[struwwelpeter]

Great, thanks. Good thing I've got lots of white-out ;-)

[Mount Athos]

OK here is my response to svni. "why did the victims of 9/11 in the US deserve renumeration, but not the victims of Moscow?"

I am totally against the monetary payments that were made to the 9/11 families, in exchange for their waiving the right to sue. This set a horrible precedent for future terrorist tragedies, where every victim now expects governmental payment as an entitlement. Only terrorists owe compensation for their acts, the government didn't conspire to intentionally kill their loved ones. Why should the citizenry have to pay terrorist victim families when murder victims of orinary thugs and tragedies get nothing? It makes NO sense. I am for compassion and help for such victim families, but from them the government they only deserve as much help as any other victim of any tragedy should get. If the government wants to help them specially en masse that is fine but it should not be an entitlement or claimed to be some kind of compensation.

Instead, the U.S. government should pass a law giving companies total freedom from liability for terrorist acts. I believe this will reduce the damage, infighting and fingerpointing after terrorist attacks. Such lawsuits magnify the damage of terrorist attacks.

"Beria said that there are no ?unnamed? mistakes. Every mistake has a surname, name, and patronymic. I want to know those names.

Do you really wish to model your thinking after the genocidal communist Beria, who was speaking in terms of governmental propaganda used to terrorize the populace? The blame mentality of Beria works against improving the governmental handling of terrorist acts. The blame mentality of Beria has terrible side-effects, with governmental officials avoiding action and visibility to minimize their exposure to potential blame, instead of simply being motivated by saving lives. Is fear of blame really want you want officials to be motivated most by when handling the next terrorist attack?

Mistakes should be calmly reviewed to improve the handling of future attacks, and not made a fingerpointing spectacle that clogs the courts and wins lawyers summer homes. Wildly demonizing people who were just trying to do the right thing is seriously unhelpful. Dragging the Euro courts into this is just ridiculous, do you really want such organizations second guessing every handling of terrorist acts? They are the last people on earth you can count on for sober handling of the terrorist threat.

"They killed all the Chechyan terrorists in the theater (so the attorney general says), but those bureaucrats who ?acted like terrorists? are alive, continue to make decisions. As a result, peaceful people die.

Who do you blame for September 11th? I blame the participants and planners of the terrorist attack. Were mistakes made by U.S. government officials? Yes, that doesn't mean we should toss around slanderous smear accusations of government bureaucrats being "terrorists" who actively sought to murder people. We should not forget for a second that the overwhelming blame goes to the terrorists.

If we are to be honest and fair in our assessment, we should acknowledge that there were some good decisions and acts from government officials as well as mistakes. As terrible as the loss of 1/6th of the hostages in the theatre was, the truth is 100% would likely have died if they did nothing, so isn't there a possibility some praise is deserved? Ensuring that no terrorists survived also probably saved some future potential victims of terrorism, since terrorists know every attack in Russia will likely end up being a suicide mission. If you must follow Beria and have a name to blame for the Theatre attack and Beslan, how about the atrocity-loving muslim terrorist named Basayev?

"And after Beslan maybe any other place, and in that place could be anyone of the residents of this site.

"None of you thought about that?

Beslan probably motivates my writing on FR more than anything. It is exactly why I feel so strongly about the proper handling of terrorists. I believe much more and worse muslim terrorism is coming.

* Don't negotiate with or appease terrorists, as the author of this article advocates. If you do this, you ensure far more innocents will die, since this encourages and rewards terrorism. Giving into small demands only brings immediately bigger ones.

* Don't magnify the effect of terrorist attacks with public spectacle of blame gaming officials who did not intentionally conspire to murder -- terrorists are absolutely the ones deserving overwhelming blame. Terrorist acts should not clog the courts with opportunistic lawyers winning summer homes in jackpot justice. The author of this article wanted a million Euros from the government, can you imagine paying every terrorist victim a million Euros, that's every citizen being robbed.

* Don't drag in Euro appeasement handwringing orgs to judge the handling of terrorist incidents, they are the last people on earth who will lead us to properly confronting terrorism. They care about the human rights of terrorists far more than the human rights of future terrorist victims. Following them is a victory for terrorists.

[struwwelpeter]

Thanks, that's an interesting reply. Very good points, and well researched.

I especially like your comment about Russia, unfortunately, only having crude (dull?) weapons to work with.

'Nord-Ost' is a pretty emotional subject for those who were there, or lost loved ones. No amount of money can bring a person back, and it - seems to me - only cheapens their memory.

When I was in (an undisclosed location) with a few NordOst-ers, they wanted me to translate a BBC documentary for them. When they heard what the narrator was saying they started yelling at me. Sheeze.

Sveta's convinced her daughter died under a pile of unconscious people. Court documents - from the Moscow District Attorney's investigation - claim that every bus was staffed by a doctor who swears all victims were alive and attended to. They have affidavits from these 3 physicians who managed to ride 5 buses simultaneously.

Whatever. It's in the bureaucrat's nature to cover his behind. Some accountability is in order, though. We had a sheriff voted out because of a bad outcome to a 'hostage ordeal' that he wasn't even present at, and the county losts big $$ thanks to its incompentent deputies.

But Russia will always be Russia. Russians fear nothing more than embarassment.

I agree wholeheartedly that companies should not be paying for terrorism (actually, they're paying lawyers exploiting terrorism). And I agree that the Chechens blew it. Every Soviet satellite was slowly devolving away from Moscow, and they decided to kick the comatose bear so hard that it bit their asses off and handed them back to them.

I don't put all Moslems in the Chechen category. Or even all Chechens, for that matter. My Turk, Kazakh, and Uzbek friends all put Germans to shame in their level-headedness. The problem nowadays lays with the Arab-Wahhabist-Jihadist crap that's taken over a big %age of the useless Arab world.

[svni]

I am grateful Mount Athos for the detailed account of his thoughts. This gives the possibility to explain my position.

First of all I want to say that immediately after tragedy I - in the course of several months daily were studied the documents, facts, films, interviews - everything which was somehow connected with the tragedy. Therefore today I possess somewhat larger information than you.

I will not speak about the explosions of houses now, because this is separate large theme. I want to report now only one fact - from 1999 and up to 2006 in the government of Russia did not locate money to conduct of analysis DNA, and, still now, 12 families cannot bury the remains of their dear and close, killed in the explosion of houses in Moscow. I am personally familiar with a woman who perished daughter, the husband of her daughter, and their son of three. She could bury only one. These families are agree to bury their loved ones in one common grave, but government IS NOT PERMIT them to do this.

In Russia there is a law on the combating of terrorism:

Article 2. Basic principles of combating of terrorism

Combating of terrorism in the Russian Federation is based on the following principles:

1) lawful;
2) it is priority the measures for preventing terrorism;
3) inevitablity of punishment for the conducting of a terrorist action;
4) combination of open and secret methods of combating of terrorism;
5) complex use of lawful preventive, political, social and economic, propagandistic measures;
6) priority protection of the rights of the persons who are undergone danger as a result of terrorist action;
7) minimal concessions to terrorist;
8) undivided authority in the management of the forces and of means with conducting the counter-terrorist operations

Article 14. Negotiating with the terrorists

1) conducting counter-terrorist operation for purposes of survival and health of people, material values, and also study the possibility of the suppression of terrorist action without the application of force is allowed negotiating with the terrorists. To negotiate with the terrorists are allowed only the persons, specially authorized to that by the leader of operational staff on the control of counter-terrorist operation.

Article 17. Compensation of the harm, caused as a result of the terrorist action

1) compensation of the harm, caused as a result of terrorist action is paid from the budget of that territory of the Russian Federation, the territory of where this terrorist action is made, with subsequent penalty of sums of compensation from the cause of the harm to public order, as established by civil-judicial legislation.

3) compensation of the harm, caused to foreign citizens as a result of the terrorist action done in the territory of the Russian Federation, is paid from the funds of federal budget with the subsequent penalty of sums of compensation from cause of harm.

According to articles 20 and 56 of the Russian constitution Sasha, Sendi and 128 additional people had a right to life, and according to article 56 para. 3 NO ONE - either terrorists or state - can limit this right, but those more to deprive it.

Certainly, more logical it would be require the compensation of harm from terrorists. But who must search for them? I or the state, which does have for this possibility, the technology and special services? Or you do propose to me to arrange mob-law similarly to Kesaev, who killed the air-traffic controller through fault of whom did crash the aircraft of his loved ones?

The Russian state voluntarily took upon itself the obligation to compensate damage, and to then exact this damage from the terrorists. Your words about the fact that state must not pay compensation - this only of emotion. There is a law, and in the rule-of-law state laws are created in order to be fulfilled.

They already charged me with the desire to become rich on their grief. But to you does not occur thought about the fact that the action to 3 million dollars is a cry of desperation, the desire to draw to our problem public attention? The Russian state does not carry out its obligations before us. Only so that I can explain the fact that the group, which leads the investigation of the matter for Nordost consists of one only person - Mr. Kal'chuk, chief and executor all in one person. The names of all the killed terrorists are not established in the years past, the people who financed the act of terror are not found, are not found the organizers of the act of terror and even the number of terrorists who took the theater. Not only I, but also other witnesses in their indications spoke about a number of terrorists, but our testimonies were not important for the investigation. The investigation considers that the number of those who take the theater is equal to a number of those killed. Can I consider this investigation honest, comprehensive, qualitative?

You speak, that the loss of one sixth is better than the loss of all hostages from the explosion. It was possible to believe these words when the results of investigation not were known. Today I already accurately know that these words do not correspond to reality. In volume 59 of the case there is the report of examination of explosives, from which it follows that a result of the explosion (I cite) "collapsing walls and ceiling would not occur".

To a question about a quantity of explosive in the theater in this examination there is the answer: "the overall mass of explosive in the TNT equivalent, which is contained in ALL articles taking into account the means of initiation enumerated above is 76,6 kg".

It is profitable to support authorities' myth about the possible complete destruction of the building of theater. They select themselves what to believe - this myth or facts.

Authorities indicate that the application of gas was necessary for averting the explosion. However, in the actions of authorities there was error. First, not all terrorists were in the hall, only part of them constantly was located in Hall. Gas was released only into the hall, therefore, those terrorists, who were located beyond the limits of hall, did not undergo its action. In the second place, gas did not act instantly on all terrorists. Their leader Baraev first searched for electrician in order to open ventilation, he ordered to open doors and to beat windows in Hall, and then he broke into a run to defend. Terrorists fired back at the assault with 13 automatic and 8 pistols for approximately 40 minutes. These are also facts from the case investigation. Do you think if they did actually have an intention to explode hall, they would have time to do this?

If you say to me that the application of gas is a bright solution to the problem, I will not believe you. I have entirely another example - this is the release of hostages, seized in the Japanese embassy in Peru. On 17 December, 1996, in the residence of Japanese ambassador in Lima, capital of Peru, occurred magnificent soire on occasion of the birthday of the emperor of Japan. This was largest hostage seizure during entire history. A number of high ranking hostages from different countries of the world, and a storm of the embassy did not guarantee safety of hostages. Terrorists required that the authorities would free about their 500 supporters together with their leaders, who are located in the prisons. Among their other conditions there was the requirement to forego the economic reforms. On 22 April 1997 at 16.00 local time was finished almost four month old epic. By that time the terrorists reduced the number of their prisoners to level that it would be possible to more easily control them. In the number of hostages still remained the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the chairman of the Supreme Court of Peru, seven ambassadors, also, about 20 important Japanese businessmen. In all after half-hour work of the Special Force 71 hostages were freed, all terrorists were destroyed. Losses of those attacked - two officers. Losses of hostages - one dead person from a heart attack. This operation became classical counter-terrorist operation.

Do you think people, who made the decision to use gas, provided timely rendering to medical aid? Today I already know the results of 83 autopsies. I know that in 52 cases no medical aid was at all provided. Perhaps terrorists of this are guilty? Perhaps terrorists are guilty of the fact that my 13 year old daughter, who did weigh only 35,5 kg, they did place on the bottom of bus, did cover on top with the bodies of adult men and did transport not to the specialized toxicological center, neither into the nearest hospital nor into the children's hospital?

In the decision of procuratorship the assault is justified as to prevent the undermining of the "authority of Russia in the international arena". Who do you agree should pay for the authority of Russia with the life of his child? The life of loved ones?

You assign to me the words, which I never spoke, about satisfaction the demands of terrorists. When I reproach the headquarters staff for refusal of negotiations with the terrorists, I bear in mind such negotiations to lead to the decrease of the number of hostages. Specifically, such negotiations it is mentioned in article 14 of laws about the combating of terrorism. Among many interviews I read interview with "alfa" members. Specifically, one additional person appeared as the negotiator from the headquarters staff. To be more precise, he took this responsibility. And in his interview he indicated that they did not give him permission to conduct the negotiations with the terrorists. Russia ignored one of the conventional rules of conducting similar operations - bringing to the minimum a quantity of victims. Sitting in the hall, I myself heard on the radio about the refusal of the leaders of headquarters staff to the proposal of terrorists to let go foreign citizens. Later, examining newspapers from the time, I read about this refusal also.

I also am for that they would destroy the terrorists. To make this possible differently. If we destroy everyone, prevent ourselves witness information about the organizers, it is hardly possible to reach them and those who finance these acts of terror. You are not astonished by the fact that the journalist could find Basayev and make with him interview, but Russian special services, the "professionals of the high class", already how many years unsuccessfully they do hunt for him?

You do not believe that the war in Chechnya is one of the reasons for terrorism. Journalists learned about life of one of the martyrs, which conducted a act of terror in Moscow. In the time of war in Chechnya were killed 38 (!) or her relatives. Try to honestly answer a question not to me, but to youself - who of you in her place would continue to sit and to await, until they are next killed?