Prosecutor's Office of South Ossetia holds a check on the fact of burning books in Tskhinvali

The State Office of Public Prosecutor of South Ossetia has opened an investigation on the fact of burning books from the library of the South-Ossetian State University (SOSU) in Tskhinvali.

The information on burning down of hundreds books in South Ossetia at the building of university hostel appeared and began to spread several days ago. According to eyewitnesses, workers of the university stacked the books near the "Alan" Hotel and put them on fire. Among the burnt books there were old textbooks on the History of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union), "Medieval Religious Poetry of the 10th Century", and Goethe's works.

The "Kommersant" newspaper writes that according to some sources, the order to burn down literature was given by the rector of the university Taimuraz Kokoev, while Anatoly Kusraev, Minister of Education and Sciences of South Ossetia, also knew about this barbarous action.

Maria Kabisova, pro-rector of the university, in her turn, said to the same newspaper that nobody burnt the books down, but old written-off "textbooks on Marxism-Leninism" were just thrown to the dump. Rector Taimuraz Kokoev also said that "there was no book-burning," and Minister Kusraev said that he "doesn't know about any fact of this sort."

Taimuraz Khugaev, Public Prosecutor of South Ossetia, said that his office had started a "pre-inquiry check" of the incident. "A civilized person should feel 'stick in throat' about the very idea to burn sown books," the "Interfax" quotes the Public Prosecutor.

Mr Khugaev could not exclude initiation of a criminal case against the top managers of the university on the outcomes of the check.