New evidence given for Beslan

Witnesses of the Beslan school seizure have told the court about a new detail: electricity which may have powered explosive devices was cut off in the school before the first blast, Gazeta.ru says.

Another hearing of the case of Nurpashi Kulayev, the only detained participant in the Beslan school seizure, occurred in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, earlier today.

Alexander Dzasokhov, Ruslan Aushev, Mikhail Gutseriyev, and Alina Levitskii (former education minister of North Ossetia) were to come to the trial to give evidence as witnesses. None of the VIPs did though, so the court confined itself to interrogating one victim.

Ms Fatima Alikov, a journalist with the Beslan-based newspaper Zhizn Pravoberezhia ("Life on the Right Bank"), was called for interrogation.

On 1 September, 2004, Ms Alikov went to make a picture report of the 1 September ceremony at school No 1, which was how she came to be a hostage.

"I had just picked out my camera to take several pictures when I saw a man in a camouflage uniform shooting his submachine gun into the air," Ms Alikov began her story. During the seizure, Fatima ran upstairs to the first floor of the school and dropped her camera and mobile phone there: "I thought they would kill me if they learned I was a journalist."

Fatima who has never returned to her work since then told about gunmen's attitude towards hostages: "On the first day, they still treated us relatively good, but on the second day in the gymnasium they watched news which said we were 354 and their attitude became much worse after that. They no longer gave us water and they kept on saying all the time that no one needed us if they reported so. They told us that the water was poisoned. Then they broke out the doors to the checkroom and slept there in turns, and they had water and food in packets."

Ms Alikov also remembered one gunman whom she later could not identify among those killed. A big scar across his throat was his distinguishing feature.

There was absolute silence before the blast on 3 September, according to Fatima. Gunmen began to rearrange the chain of explosive devices and some bombs were moved from the floor to window-sills. Feeling bad, Fatima got closer to a window and climbed the window-sill: "When the blast occurred, I fell out the window and ran. I hid between the garages and I was sitting there all the time the battle continued. I was afraid to go out of there. The adjacent wing was also on fire and I thought that gunmen were everywhere and that war began."

A fundamentally new thing in Ms Alikov's evidence was that power had been cut off in the gymnasium shortly before the first blasts. "I was watching Khodov (a gunman) trying to fix the power. The lights went on for a glimpse, and out again. He never managed to fix anything."

When Ms Alikov's interrogation was over, her evidence was supplemented by another victim, Ms Elvira Tuayev. She had already given her evidence, but Ms Alikov's story caused new memories to occur to her. "The matter is that all explosive devices were connected to the ventilation system and the lights really went out shortly before the explosion, which caused panic among the gunmen," Ms Tuayev told the court.

Three hundred and thirty-one people, including 180 children, were killed as a result of the hostage-taking in the school and the onslaught on the building between 1 and 3 September 2004.

• Beslan victim, N Ossetia's emergencies chief give contradictory evidence