Operational headquarters 'had no information about terrorists' demands'

The operational headquarters to release hostages did not know demands of the terrorists who captured children in Beslan, Ruslan Badalov, head of the Regional Public Movement "Chechen National Rescue Committee", said to the Caucasian Knot correspondent.

"At the request of deputy chairman of the parliament of the Republic of North Osetia Stanislav Kesaev, I was enlisted in the headquarters to release hostages as a possible mediator in negotiations. But even on the second day of the capture nobody knew what the terrorists were seeking after," Ruslan Badalov said. "For all that time the media made different suppositions concerning demands made by the rebels, but the headquarters did not confirm them. At least, neither Kesaev nor his adviser Izrail Totoonti, with whom I got in touch many times, had such information. I assume they simply weren't informed about it."

"At the same time, there were certain talks that the rebels handed a video cassette and an envelope with a letter over to the headquarters. They allegedly stated their demands to authorities in them. But as it turned out later, the cassette "proved to be empty" for some reason and there were no letter at all," Mr Badalov said. In his opinion, the fact that the video record with the rebels' demands appeared in Turkey, Georgia and other countries a few days later remains to be a puzzle.