Power agents identified Wahhabites by beards, witness says at Nalchik attack trial

The criminal process on the attack on law enforcement bodies of Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), committed on October 13, 2005, is now at the stage of interrogating witnesses. One of them - Kazbek Taashev, an employee of the road sentry service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of the KBR, - said, in answer to an advocate's question on how they differentiated Wahhabites from traditional Moslems, that the difference was in the formers' "shaving off moustaches and wearing beards, shaped unusually for our people."

Besides, in communicating with each other they said "Insha Allah" and other specific expressions. According to the witness, Wahhabites emitted some "lusciously-sweet" smell (it turned out that it was miska - Moslem perfume).

To the questions of the defence about other differences of Wahhabites from traditional Moslems and what sort of religion "Wahhabism" is, the witness answered: "I don't know".

Then, the witness was asked many questions about lists of Wahhabites, prosecution of Moslems and closing mosques. Practically to all the questions the witness answered in the same manner - that he knew nothing about it.