Human rights defenders: "MK" accuses a guiltless man of Beslan school seizure

On December 25, 2006, the "Moskovskiy Komsomolets" ("MK") newspaper published an article "33rd Beslan Militant" signed by journalist Vadim Rechkalov.

The statement of the Chechen Committee for National Salvage (CCNS) runs that the information presented in the article has nothing to do with reality and threatens not only the life of a particular person, but also lives of his relatives.

Mr. Rechkalov writes about Yunus Matsiev from Starye Atagi, whose name was referenced on December 22, 2006, by Alexander Torshin, head of the parliamentary commission for investigation of Beslan events, in connection with Beslan terror act.

However, the statement states, once having picked up the trail of Yunus Matsiev, the "MK" observer should not have placed in his paper and circle round a photo with an image of quite a different person from the Starye Atagi, referencing to opinion of some Chechen that the photo, most probably, depicted Matsiev himself.

But, as the CCNS reports, the newspaper article placed a school photo of an absolutely innocent person. By the information of the Committee, Ruslan Demilkhanov is indeed living in Starye Atagi in Nagornaya Street. He was born in 1976 and has two diplomas - of secondary-special and higher education. He has graduated from a technical college and Financial-Economic Department of the Chechnya State University. He has been working for four years at secondary school No. 1 of Starye Atagi as a teacher of physical culture and informatics.