North Ossetia commemorates victims of 1999 terror act

Today, people in North Ossetia paid tribute to the victims of the explosion in the Central Marketplace of Vladikavkaz in 1999. Then, as a result of a terror act, 54 persons were lost, more than 80 were wounded.

From the very morning, people began coming to the place of the tragedy, where a small memorial sign was erected, brought red carnations and lit candles. City leaders and public figures of Vladikavkaz came to pay tribute to the victims. Today, even ten years later, people feel pain from loss of their relatives and friends. They recollected that "black day" - March 19, 1999, - and mingled tears, as the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

At 11:30 a.m. Moscow time - the moment of the explosion - a minute of silence was announced. According to the Republic's FSB, the explosion in the marketplace of Vladikavkaz was the biggest, by its scale and cynicism, in the series of subsequent terror acts in the territory of the Republic.

Alyona, Albina Bazaeva's sister, went to her work in the morning on March 19 and never came back. She was 22 years old. "My sister worked here. On that day, she didn't want to go to her work, saying that she felt something bad would happen. She worked near the place of the explosion. That bag with the explosive matter stood close to her," the woman recollects.

According to her story, no security of Vladikavkaz marketplaces will ever help should someone again want to commit a terror act.

We remind you that now the marketplace is equipped with a video monitoring system. Every morning before opening the trade, specially trained dogs examine the area for explosives.

Within a year after that explosion, two more terror acts were accomplished in North Ossetia. Thus, two months later, three apartment houses were blown up in the military settlement "Sputnik", where four persons were lost and 12 wounded. Three months later, an antipersonnel landmine was blown up at the railway station of Vladikavkaz. The criminals, who committed all the three explosions, were detained in 2002.

In December 2003, the Supreme Court of North Ossetia sentenced Adam Tsurov, head of the criminal group, to life imprisonment for committing these terror acts. Abdulrakhim Khutiev and Makhmud Temirbiev were sentenced to 23 years of tight security prison each. Umar Khaniev, a minor as of the date of announcing the verdict, was sentenced to ten years of general custody colony. The verdict to Khaniev was appealed against at the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, and his term was reduced to seven years. He was sent to Omsk, where he died two years later.