Misha Japaridze / AP Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov answering questions from deputies in the State Duma on Friday. Patrushev is to the left.

Ustinov was speaking to the State Duma, which summoned senior law enforcement officials to report on the investigation into the Sept. 1-3 Beslan school hostage-taking and their efforts to prevent future terrorist attacks.

Ustinov said the current law makes it hard to combat terrorism effectively and proposed a bill that would allow authorities to detain terrorists' relatives forcefully during a hostage crisis and use them as a negotiating tool.

"Detaining relatives and showing terrorists what may happen to their relatives could help save people's lives, so let's not close our eyes or put a diplomatic face on it," he said. "When you live by the sword, you die by the sword."

Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov welcomed the proposed bill, noting that the law now allows relatives to be used as a negotiating tool but their participation is only voluntary.

Although Ustinov's speech was met with applause, several senior Duma deputies fiercely criticized his remarks afterward as inappropriate and unconstitutional.

"It is not appropriate for the prosecutor general to propose such a thing. This raises the question of whether Mr. Ustinov is the right person for the job," said First Deputy Speaker Lyubov Sliska, whose pro-Kremlin United Russia party controls the Duma.

"His main task is to ensure that the law is observed, and he proposes that we violate the law," she said.

"I believe that Ustinov's statement was an emotional one -- otherwise I cannot find words to describe it," senior Communist Deputy Sergei Reshulsky said. "This is a proposal for extrajudicial prosecution."

"Ustinov's proposal not only goes against the Russian Constitution but international law. How can someone propose that parliament approve punishing a person for a crime committed by other people?" said independent liberal Deputy Viktor Pokhmelkin.

Yabloko leader and former Deputy Grigory Yavlinsky warned in a statement that the proposal is an attempt to restore the Soviet prosecution system of the 1930s that effectively became the legal machine for Stalin's purges.

Authorities detained dozens of relatives of Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov during the Beslan crisis and later released them. Investigators had accused Maskhadov and warlord Shamil Basayev of masterminding the hostage-taking. Basayev has claimed responsibility for the attack, while Maskhadov has denied any involvement.

Ustinov also told the Duma that he will submit a bill permitting authorities to seize all property and money directly or indirectly connected to terrorists. "If suicide terrorists know that their relatives will not get any reward for terrorist attacks, this might stop some," he said.

Federal Security Service director Nikolai Patrushev told the Duma that 80 suicide bombers have been trained abroad to carry out attacks in Russia. He did not say how the FSB gathered the information about the possible attackers but said that "some of them have been neutralized."

Patrushev accused governments in Middle Eastern countries of directly supporting suicide bombers. He also said that about 10 al-Qaida members are active in the North Caucasus and called for a new system to fight terror.

Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told the Duma that his ministry is seeking legislation for stricter controls on registration and to boost security at nuclear facilities and munitions depots. "Cases in which hundreds of people are registered in one apartment must become a thing of the past," he said.

Authorities have acknowledged that some terrorists obtained registration documents by bribing police officers before their attacks, and Nurgaliyev said his ministry's internal affairs department is actively trying to root out corrupt officers. He said 75 corrupt officers in the police's passport and visa services department have been nabbed so far this year. In all, about 2,000 corrupt police officers have been caught in 2004, he said.

Regarding Beslan, Ustinov said the identities of all but five of the dead hostages have been established -- two boys, two girls and an adult. At least 330 hostages died. Fourteen of the 32 hostage-takers have also been identified, including two Arab mercenaries, Magomad and Farukh, he said.

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Human Rights

The Moscow Times, November 1, 2004