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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Beslan terrorists 'were high on drugs' |
| 2004-10-18 |
| All the hostage-takers who seized Beslan's School No 1 on September 1 were drug addicts and under the influence of narcotics throughout the 52-hour siege, Russia's deputy Prosecutor General said on Sunday. In a statement to the Interfax news agency, Nikolay Shepel said that forensic tests on the extremists' corpses had shown that 22 of the 32 hostage-takers had been on hard drugs and had regularly injected substances such as heroin and morphine, while the other 10 had been using softer drugs. His statement will satisfy many of the bereaved, who have long since claimed that the extremists were "narkomany", or junkies. Traces of narcotics left in the militants' lifeless bodies exceeded normally lethal levels, Shepel added, indicating that they had been long-term addicts and had been high while preparing the terrorist act which ultimately claimed the lives of 344 people, more than half of whom were children. Their extreme brutality could also have been spurred on by the fact that some of them had run out of drugs. Shepel said: "Some of the criminals had run out of drugs and were suffering from withdrawal symptoms which are usually accompanied by aggressiveness and uncontrollable behaviour. These conclusions allow us to look at the situation from a new angle." |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |
| #4 I don't care where the word came from - I'd just bet that if 60 of the parents or teachers at that school had been armed themselves that day, the number of killed would have been below 100, and 90% of those would have been the perps. I think that if every American that had a clean record was armed to the teeth every day, there would be no Belsan-type attacks in the United States - EVER. The government wants to take away guns from their citizens for one reason only - self-preservation of a more and more unrepresentative government hostile to personal freedom, at every level. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-10-18 2:37:18 PM |
| #3 I sort of felt the same way. This is not something I would trust the Ruskies about as it is probably internal propaganda. But I did go to the dictionary: as·sas·sin   ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (-ssn) n. One who murders by surprise attack, especially one who carries out a plot to kill a prominent person. Assassin A member of a secret order of Muslims who terrorized and killed Christian Crusaders and others. [French, from Medieval Latin assassnus, from Arabic an, pl. of a, hashish user, from a, hashish. See hashish.] Word History: At first glance, one would be hard-pressed to find a link between pleasure and the acts of assassins. Such was not the case, however, with those who gave us the word assassin. They were members of a secret Islamic order originating in the 11th century who believed it was a religious duty to harass and murder their enemies. The most important members of the order were those who actually did the killing. Having been promised paradise in return for dying in action, the killers, it is said, were made to yearn for paradise by being given a life of pleasure that included the use of hashish. From this came the name for the secret order as a whole, an, âhashish users.â After passing through French or Italian, the word came into English and is recorded in 1603 with reference to the Muslim Assassins. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-10-18 10:03:43 AM |
| #2 I think the only 'drug' involved was Islam.... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-10-18 9:48:59 AM |
| #1 I don't buy into that. About the most hardcore druggies can plan and do is hit the local stop and rob for fifty bucks, two cartons of cigs and a six pack. |
| Posted by: Old Fogey 2004-10-18 9:45:58 AM |