Overwhelming majority of Russians distrust the authorities' version of Beslan terror act

On the eve of the third anniversary of the act of terror in Beslan, 81 percent of Russians distrust the versions of the authorities about the events that happened in School No. 1 in 2004. These are the results of the comparative analysis made by the Levada Centre of the public polls held right after the events and now.

In 2004, 83 percent stuck to this opinion (the difference is less than statistical error), the Gazeta GZT.ru remarks.

State Duma deputy Yuri Saveliev, a member of the parliamentary commission on investigating the act of terror, tried to explain the reasons of this distrust: "I have found out that none of the militants' explosives had blow up, all the destructions under the window were caused by shots from outside. Nobody wants to bear responsibility for these shots which caused explosions and death of hostages."

The Levada Centre polls have brought another unexpected result. The number of respondents who think that the authorities should sacrifice victims, but not concede to the terrorists who move forward their political claims, has gone down (from 30% in 2006 to 18% in 2007). However, we see an increase by 9 percent (with 57% to 66%) of the number of those who find the death of innocent people to be too high a price, and are ready to concede to bandits for the sake of preserving lives of hostages.