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Nurpashi Kulayev, the only surviving member of the group that seized a school and 1,300 hostages in the town of Beslan, stands in the court room in Vladikavkaz May 18, 2006. A Russian court on Friday sentenced Kulayev to life imprisonment for his part in the bloody 2004 school siege that killed 331 people.
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A Russian judge sentenced the only surviving Beslan hostage-taker to life in jail on Friday, saying only an official ban had saved the young Chechen from execution for his part in the 2004 school siege.
Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Nurpashi Kulayev, a carpenter aged 25 or 26, was arrested after efforts to break the siege in the southern town ended in the death of 331 people, more than half of them children.

The judge rejected Kulayev's protestations of innocence, and convicted him of crimes from terrorism to murder as one of around 30 guerrillas who sought to force Russian troops to leave Chechnya by threatening to kill some 1,300 hostages.

"(Kulayev) deserves the death sentence but because the Russian government has introduced a moratorium on carrying out death sentences, I sentence him to life imprisonment," Judge Tamurlan Aguzarov told the court.

Relatives of those who died in the siege attempted to attack the young man, but were stopped by a line of court guards.

Victims' groups welcomed the sentence, but said it should be just a start. Officials should be charged for failing to prevent the disaster and allowing the siege to dissolve into chaos, they said.

Kulayev, whose head had been freshly shaved, continued to maintain his innocence.

"This is all invented tales," he was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying in words practically inaudible over the shouts of women in the court-room.

Itar-Tass agency quoted his lawyer as saying he would appeal the verdict. "During the course of the court hearing, no evidence of Kulayev's participation in the crimes he was accused of was presented," Albert Pliyev was quoted as saying.

RELATIVES UNHAPPY

Pro-Chechen gunmen seized the Beslan school on the morning of September 1, 2004, first day of the Russian school year that is traditionally celebrated by children and their families.

Two days later, after negotiations failed to win the release of most of the hostages, two unexplained explosions sparked a shoot-out that led to a chaotic end to the siege as the school hall where the hostages were held collapsed in flames.

Russian officials say all the hostage-takers except Kulayev were killed.

The court case is unlikely to appease relatives of the dead. Many Beslan residents say Kulayev is being made to bear sole responsibility and that officials involved were just as guilty.

"He received the punishment he deserved," Taimuraz Chedzhemov, a lawyer for victims' group Voice of Beslan, said.

"But the sentence ... has not answered all the questions around the terrorist act -- the reasons for the capture of the school, the killing of so many people or ... who is to blame for the tragedy that happened," he told reporters.

Judge Aguzarov rejected Kulayev's claim that he had been forced to take part by other Chechens, and said prosecutors had disproved his insistence that he had not harmed any hostages.

Many of the victims were almost impossible to identify, their bodies severely burned in the final inferno.

Russia has had a moratorium in place on the death penalty, traditionally imposed by a single shot to the back of the head, since 1996, although it remains on the statute books.

By Kazbek Basayev
May 26, 2006