Terrorist's wife begged husband to have mercy on children

Special services believe the terrorists had an accomplice in Beslan 

“You have kids too, talk to your friends, have mercy on children!” Rakiat Kodzoyev said in an address to her husband, who was a terrorist in the group, which seized the school in Beslan, southern Russia. The tape with the address was handed over to the terrorists. Iznaur Kodzoyev, Rakiat's husband, was killed in several hours after the militants saw the tape. The idea with a video tape appeared at a moment, when special services believed negotiations with the militants had reached a deadlock.

The Russian special services managed to identify one of the terrorists during the crisis. Police officers visited the Kodzoyevs and taped the address of his wife. Rakiat Kodzoyev asked her husband to think about five children of his own before harming others. The tape showed the footage of Kodzoyev's five children asleep.

The tape was broadcast yesterday on the German TV channel RTL within the scope of the program Spiegel TV, prepared by Spiegel magazine. “The tape was made in an attempt to start negotiations to free hostages without any victims,” a spokesman for the program said.

According to Spiegel TV, Russian law-enforcement agencies nabbed three other terrorists, who stayed alive. Vladimir Khodov, known as Abdullah, is among them. This terrorist has been on wanted list for other terrorist acts he committed in the past. Other reports say that Khodov was not in the terrorist group that attacked the school in Beslan, but was attracted for negotiations along with Shamil Basayev's man, Magomet Yevloyev (a national of Ingushetia) and one of Basayev's bodyguards of the Russian origin (the name of the latter is not known yet).

The fact of the video proves the intention of special services to negotiate with the terrorists. However, the Russian special services knew that Rakiat Kodzoyev was the wife of one of the terrorists, who had seized the school. Furthermore, other terrorists' relatives have been supposedly found too. It is another confirmation to the version about an accomplice of the terrorists in the town and about the links the local government had with the militants.

Igor Bukker

Spiegel Online photos