Salman Raduyev Brought To Dagestani Supreme Court

A competent source at the Dagestani Interior Ministry told RIA Novosti on Thursday that Salman Raduyev had been brought to the Supreme Court of Dagestan (a North Caucasus republic bordering on Chechnya). Raduyev and his accomplices in a raid on the Dagestani town of Kizlyar in January 1996 will stay in a special waiting room till the court trial starts. According to the source, maximum security measures have been taken. At the same time Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov who arrived in Makhachkala on Wednesday to support state accusations at the trial said that the Prosecutor's Office would ask for the process to be maximally open as "Russian citizens and the whole world should know that we are fighting against terrorism by means of both weapons and law." Magomedali Magomedov, State Council Chairman, stressed the need for trying the Chechen terrorist in Dagestan where Raduyev and his accomplice committed gravest crimes. Salman Raduyev will face over 10 Criminal Code points of indictment, including terrorism, a most brutal murder, organising illegal armed formations, kidnapping, taking hostage and banditry. He is accused of organising an explosion at the Pyatigorsk railway station (the Stavropol territory - a Russian region bordering on Chechnya) in April 1997 and kidnapping special police officers in December 1996. Raduyev was arrested in March 2000 by officers of the Federal Security Service in Chechnya. Until recently he has been kept in the Lefortovo detention centre in Moscow. Turpal-Ali Atgeriyev, former vice-premier of Ichkeria (Chechnya), Aslanbek Alkhazurov and Khusein Gaisumov will be tried with Raduyev. All are accused of terrorism, organising and participating in illegal armed formations, kidnapping, banditry, illegal acquisition and storage of arms and ammunition. On January 9, 1996, on personal order of the then Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev, Raduyev-led Chechen militants attacked Kizlyar. The militants' plan was to seize a Kizlyar hospital taking hostage as many people as possible, to attack a helicopter unit seizing materiel and aircraft and to attack and destroy the Interior Ministry unit in Kizlyar. The Raduyev unit seized the hospital driving some 3,000 hostages in there. The Atgeriyev unit delivered to Kizlyar arms and ammunition and seized a maternity hospital. Raduyev's bandit attack on Kizlyar and Pervomaiskoye left 78 servicemen, Interior Ministry officers and Dagestani civilians killed and a few hundred people wounded. The number of victims exceeded 3,000 people.