It has been one and a half year since the publication date of the report by Yuri Savelyev titled “Beslan. The Truth By The Hostages”.  The first part of the report presents a scrupulous analysis of the testimony by the hostages; also the picture of the first explosions – that provoked the assault made - is simulated on the basis of mathematical and physical calculation. The conclusion in that report contradicted official hypothesis and stated that the first explosions were a result of shooting at the school building made with grenade launchers and flame throwers. Responding to Mr. Savelyev’s report, the investigation requested for the Complex Expertise of mathematical simulation. The expertise was performed by the employees from the research institute after Karbyshev belonging to defense ministry and by the employees from scientific-industrial enterprise “Basalt” which develops fire grenade systems. 11 months and 600,000 rubles have been spent on the expertise. The conclusions by experts are rather equivocal. Specialists did not find errors in the calculation made by Yuri Savelyev, and in some cases they admitted the testimony by hostages to have been correct, where it was obvious. But mainly the experts have had to gerrymander the facts and calculations so that to prove the hypothesis by investigation that it were IED’s (improvised explosive devices) made by terrorists to have exploded in the gym of the School #1.    

Novaya Gazeta and the website PravdaBeslana.Ru got all the 405 pages of the new expertise report with charts, formulas and schemes. We have asked Yuri Savelyev to make comments on the decision of the commission of experts. Mr. Savelyev is a specialist in the field of physics of burning and physics of explosion. 

A: So far there have been three expertise conclusions among the materials of the criminal case #20/849 (on the count of terrorist seizure of School #1 in the city of Beslan). Each expertise locates differently the first explosions that happened within the interval of 27 seconds at 13:03 on 3 September 2004 in the gym where 1,128 hostages were held.  

According to technical-explosion forensic expertise by the FSB research institute of criminalistics, no less than three explosions of IED’s, installed by terrorists, took place in the gym at 13:03. The first explosion was located to the backboard on the western wall of the gym, the second to the right side jamb at the same wall, and the third to the window-sill at the north wall (See the scheme 1 – E.M.). Importantly, in expert’s opinion it was a plastic bottle to explode on the window-sill which was stuffed with explosive equal to 1.2 kg of TNT equivalent.

The second expertise, carried out by the employees from Forensic Center, only tells about two exploded IED’s. The first one allegedly detonated under the basketball basket near the western wall, and the second by the north wall under the window aperture (See the Scheme 2 – E.M.). Conclusions by Forensic Center specialists are at variance with those by FSB institute of criminalistics. In FC experts’ opinion, the explosive device was not on the window-sill, but it was placed under a chair at a distance 0.5 m from the wall, and its power is affirmed to be 5.2 kg of TNT equivalent.

As for the third official expertise of mathematical simulation made in September 2007, its conclusions differ greatly from the first two. According to it, the first explosion happened at the north-east (opposite) side of the gym. 

According to those expert accounts, it was an IED equal to 3-6 kg of TNT to detonate being installed by the terrorists on a chair at a distance of 1.1 m from the northern wall and 5.1 m from the eastern wall (See the Scheme 3). 

The second explosion took place 20 sec later in the opposite (north-west) corner of the gym and it actually was a simultaneous detonation of several IED’s (5-10 pieces). In experts’ sight, one of those “smaller” explosions caused the breach under a northern window near the western wall and caused minor damage to the frame of that window (See Photo 2). 

Generally, it’s only one thing that is common about all the three hypotheses: it was exactly IED’s installed by the terrorists to have detonated. As for power, location and number of the devices – the experts split on that point.    

Actually, the last expertise of the mathematic simulation was done because of the pressure by public organizations of Beslan, requiring checking the conclusions formulated in part 1 of my report that practically coincided with main conclusions by Independent Parliamentary Panel of the republic of Northern Ossetia-Alania:    

1. During next 27 seconds after the first explosions no IDE detonated in the gym. Part of them detonated much later, which was caused with the fire in the gym.   

2. Over 40 hostages testified in court under oath and during examinations that the first explosion took place (on above) in the attic-floor room of the gym between entrance from the school yard and the backboard (See Scheme 4). The nature and the consequences of that explosion make one conclude it was a thermobaric grenade, launched from the roof of the neighboring 5-storey building #37 situated on Shkolny Lane. That explosion formed a round hole in the gym’s ceiling through which explosion products penetrated the gym’s space in a shape of a fire ball (it was caused with after-burning of magnesium in the thermobaric mixture of the grenade).        

3. Having studied the consequences of the explosion near the northern window (the size of the breach under the window, and along with that the fact that the frame remained sound (!) (See Photo 2) I concluded that those damages could not have been caused with IED explosion either on the window-sill or near the window. But such an effect could have been caused with a device equal to about 6 kg of TNT delivered to the outside wall under the window-sill. It could very probably have been a grenade (most likely RShG-1) launched from the roof of the building 41 situated on Shkolny Lane (See Photo 1).     

I believe that testimony by tens of hostages saying about the hole in the ceiling in the north-east part of the gym became very inconvenient for the investigation. As material evidence that hole disappeared after the gym burnt down and the roof fell – and the fire brigades were not allowed to the scene during 2 hours and a half. Nonetheless, the investigation had to explain forming of that hole in the ceiling that appeared exactly as a result of the first explosion. It was also necessary to give an explanation about other consequences of the attic explosion: the steel corbel of the abat-jour, curved for 15 cm; the stripped from it iron deck; the massive entrance double-wing doors knocked out and so on.        

All those damages (in the eastern part of the gym) did not fit the initial hypothesis placing the first explosions in the western part of the gym. This is why investigation had to request for another expertise after which the first explosion epicenter was “moved” for 20 m towards the eastern wall.

Q: And experts say it was not a thermobaric grenade on the gym’s roof, but it was terrorists’ IED installed near that place. How do experts come to this conclusion? 

A: Very simple. Two years later they examined the gym and found a deformation in the spot on the floor where hostages pointed the major damages to have appeared after the first explosion. The matter is that somewhere near that place the terrorists really installed an IED which seemed to be rather powerful. But it detonated much later after first explosions and the detonation was caused with an open flame when the gym caught up fire. Even the sappers from the 58th Army, who were there, testified about that, let alone many of the hostages. For example, Angela Digurova got her head injured when she was sitting near the entrance to the gym, due to the explosion from above. She managed to raise her daughter and push her out of the window (near which investigation says the first explosion happened). Mrs. Digurova herself stayed under window. When the fire began on the floor, caused with dropping from above burning fragments of ceiling and warmth-keeping jacket, Angela began to crawl away from that place. She said during the court proceedings “after we crawled away, there was another big explosion to sound behind us”.          

Nonetheless, the experts ignored the description by the hostages and “associated” the hole in the ceiling with the floor-based IED mentioned above. They made a rather true-like calculation of the consequences of that IED detonation.  

Q: How convincing is their hypothesis?

A: The experts failed to explain the damage of the steel corbel of the abat-jour over the entrance to the gym from the yard. According to my calculation it could only have been damaged with a shock wave of the explosion on the gym’s roof. As for experts, they proposed several versions about the corbel. It could have been curved: 1) by a boy who probably jumped on it from a height of 1.2 m long before the events in question; 2) by a man weighing over 87 kg who could jump from the ground and hanged by it for a while.  

Another hypothesis proposed was that the IED detonation broke the ceiling in the north-east corner of the gym, tossed up the boards of the ceiling, and the boards hit the roofing slate tossing it up to 6 m high. Then the slate just fell on the corbel and curved it. The experts even tried to prove this hypothesis with calculation. But I’d like to remind here that any mathematic simulation must be proved with an experiment.    

And again the experts ignored the testifying by hostages when they said “There are no witnesses of that explosion (IED detonation on a chair near the eastern wall – E.M.) as the hostages and the terrorist, who stayed near that place, got killed”.   

In my letter to Vladimir Putin I called that statement to be another lies and adduced an example of testimony by a hostage Mrs. Bichenova, who had stayed handbreadth to the chair with the IED that detonated according to the experts. But Mrs. Bichenova as well as her son survived and her son managed to run out of the gym through the broken with explosion door.   

Much evidence also has been given by other hostages who must have been killed, according to the expert calculation, as they were in the lethal zone of the IED detonation – that’s about 2 m for an IED with the charge equal to 3 kg of TNT, and over 2.5 m for an explosion of 6 kg of TNT. Exactly such a power of explosion was calculated by the experts.  

In the first part of my report I quoted the testimony by the hostages who had been sitting near that IED just 1-3 m away! All of them managed to get out from the gym after the first explosion and they didn’t even have their ear-drums injured! The testimony by all those hostages proves that that IED did not explode at 13:03 on 3 September 2004.

Nevertheless, I consider investigation to have done an important step towards the truth. It has already “moved” the epicenter of the first explosion for 20 m. It only remains to do the next step: to locate the epicenter of the explosion upwards to the attic and explain what exactly exploded there.

Q: Yuri Petrovich, actually the complex expertise was ordered to be performed so that to check your calculations about first explosions provoked with the shooting from grenade launchers and fire throwers. What is said about that in the expertise report?

A: The experts confirmed that possible explosion of a thermobaric grenade could have been an explanation for all the damages mentioned by hostages and those found by myself. The experts were able to forward only two counter-evidence: 1) The possible attic explosion could not have thrown about the piles of things with which the terrorists had barricaded the entrance to the gym – that’s chairs, tables, bags etc. 2) such an explosion wouldn’t have destroyed the window on the opposite side of the gym.   

Well, let my colleagues have the first counter-evidence on their conscience. I suggest that the readers put a handful of sunflower seeds on the table and then blow on it from above, imitating a shock wave from the ceiling. Let them see the seeds go to all directions. And the experts say that the shock wave must have swept all the things from the entrance doors only to one direction towards the eastern wall separating the gym from the weight room. This is in contradiction with the testimony by hostages.  

As for the second counter-evidence, it’s just made up. I never affirmed what they alleged to me.

Q: What does the expertise say about the second explosion after which a breach appeared in the brick wall under the window, while the window frame stayed sound?  

A: The experts made a large volume of calculation for justification the hypothesis of an IED exploded by terrorists near the window. The hypothesis says the chair charged with 3-6 kg of TNT equivalent had been standing at a distance of 0.5 m from the wall under the window. To justify this version, another “hole” was found on the gym’s floor. I was accused of distorting the facts and affirming that there was no hole on the floor in that place. 

Strangely, but during carrying out the expertise to check my own report, including the checking done by the parliamentary panel, no one applied to me personally! If someone had asked me about that “hole”, I would have shown to the experts the following evidence: 1) scene inspection protocol drawn up by investigators from Prosecutor General’s office on 4 September 2004; 2) the pictures by a well-known photo journalist Yuri Tutov taken at 15:25 on 3 September 2004; 3) my own photos of the floor under the window with the breach.    

The experts pass a burnt area on the floor for that “hole”!  The photos by Yuri Tutov, attached to my report, clearly show all the phases of burning of the five huge wooden ceiling shields – the moment they caught fire, then burning of all the surface of the shields, then their dropping exactly at the place where the “hole” was found. As for the scene inspection report, this official document established two breaches of the floor near that northern window, the centers of breaches being 0.75 m and 1.3 m respectively from the wall under the window, and it established the burnout in that place. No breach of the wooden floor was found at a distance of 0.5 m from the wall.   

The experts did not complete the calculation for justification of the consequences of the second explosion (the breach under the window, but also the window frame undamaged with the shock wave). The matter is that a charge of 5.2-6.2 kg of TNT equivalent, attached to the wall from outside or delivered there with a grenade launching, can really make a breach in the wall with a diameter of 1.5-1.6 m.  

But when same quantity of the charge is placed at a distance of 0.5 m from the wall, then there cannot have been any breach, let alone the one with above mentioned diameter. Making such a breach would take a charge of 12-14 kg of the TNT equivalent. To be on the safe side, the experts say about the figure of 13.8 kg of TNT equivalent. However, no explosive device of such a power was found in the gym.  But let us assume that an explosion of the above alleged power really took place. Then the hole on the floor must have been no less than 1.5 m in diameter and there must have been a significantly large crater on the ground. Besides, such an explosion must have destroyed not only this window frame but also those neighboring to it. Nothing of that happened in reality. And none of the three expertises has been able to explain that fact.         

Q: Yuri Petrovich, what else is possible to be done by the investigation to disprove your research results?

A: I don’t think it’s necessary to carry out new expertises. This is very expensive and it has no sense as the best qualified experts – who are trapped by this situation – have already given their opinion. To prove the truth by the hostages we just need to force FSB to declassify and submit to investigation and to the public the video materials made by FSB employees during all the three days of the tragedy, and especially for the period from 13 p.m. to 15 p.m. of 3 September 2004. It’s been several years that the victims and their relatives press for that to be done. But FSB refused it to Beslan residents, Prosecutor General’s office, both parliamentary panels, the court, and even President of Russia. As for me personally, such an attitude tells me much.     

Besides, it’s just inaccessible to reduce the Beslan tragedy only to the topic of the nature of the first explosions, which is what only first part of my report deals with. I would also want to draw attention to a number of other serious aspects only partly dealt with in my report: 

— Death of more than 100 hostages outside the gym, in the main ruined southern wing and in the canteen. Those people had survived in the exploded gym but met their death in another hell that was maybe even worse;

— Disappearing from the school over 30 terrorists in the morning of 3 September;

— Unimpeded coming to Beslan – just one hour before that all the police traffic blocks had been removed – of the numerous motorized terrorist group where present were gunmen who had been detained, arrested and even prosecuted long before the Beslan terrorist act.

The full version of the complex expertise is published in Russian at: http://pravdabeslana.ru/