Twelve bodies of the hostage-takers who held hundreds
of people captive in a southern Russian school last week have been identified, a
senior Russian prosecutor said Wednesday.
"The 12 bandits who took part in attacking school No.
1 in Beslan have been identified," Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky
was cited by Interfax news agency as saying.
He said some of those identified were believed to
have taken part in the overnight attacks against North Ossetian and Ingushetian
facilities on June 21 that killed dozens people, mainly Russian law enforcement
staff.
Fridinsky said current investigation results show
there is a connection between the June raid and the hostage-taking event in
Beslan, but the theory needs further confirmation.
Russia's Federal Security Services (FSB) on Wednesday
offered are ward of up to 300 million rubles (over 10 million US dollars) for
information that will help it hunt down Chechen rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and
Aslan Maskhadov, who were accused of being behind the school siege.
