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Putin fires North Ossetia senior officials
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-09-12 11:29
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday fired the interior minister of
North Ossetia and head of the local security service, a week after the bloody
school hostage-taking in the Caucasus republic, the Kremlin press service said.
Putin dismissed Interior Minister Kazbeck Dzantiev and the chief of the
regional branch of the Federal Security Service (FSB)Valery Andreyev, Itar-Tass
news agency reported.
Russian President
Vladimir Putin (L) shakes hands with North Ossetian leader Alexander
Dzasokhov (R) as Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev looks on
during a Security Council meeting in Moscow, September 11, 2004. The
Council met to discuss the development of the investigation of the Beslan
siege and the measures to reinforce the security in Northern Caucasus,
Itar-Tass agency said. [Reuters] |
Dzantiyev
offered his resignation early this month but it was later rejected by the
Russian Interior Ministry.
North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov dismissed his government on
Thursday amid public accusations against the poor handling over the school siege
that left nearly 340 dead, half of them children, and over 700 others injured.
A group of armed militants seized a secondary school on September 1, holding
some 1,200 people as hostages.
The crisis ended on the third day as Russian troops launched an unplanned
raid on the building after the raiders began to shoot fleeing hostages.
Thirty-one hostage-takers, including the ring leader, were killed during
exchanges of fire. One raider, who was captured alive by Russian security
forces, is being interrogated.
Putin has ordered an internal investigation of the affair, which authorities
blamed on Chechen separatists.
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