Chechen Terrorist Trial To Be Resumed Friday

The trial of Chechen terrorist Salman Raduyev and his accomplices in the Supreme Court of Dagestan (a North Caucasian republic bordering on Chechnya) will be resumed on Friday, November 16. According to a RIA Novosti correspondent, court officials did not manage to finish reading the 500-page indictment on Thursday. According to the indictment, Salman Raduyev confessed that he led a raid on the Dagestani town of Kizlyar and Pervomaiskoye in 1996 on the orders of the then-leader of Chechnya Dzhokhar Dudayev. The terrorist said that it had been a political act aimed at attracting global attention to the events in Chechnya. Raduyev said he had used satellite communication means to speak with Dudayev and foreign news agencies' correspondents during the raid. The terrorists took hostage about 3,000 inhabitants of Kizlyar, who were kept in the town hospital for several days. The terrorists' inroad left 78 people dead, and several hundreds injured. The atmosphere is calm in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, where the trial is proceeding. Law-enforcers have taken extraordinary security measures for the duration of the trial.