Beslan

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia - The only known militant to survive the Beslan school siege was convicted in the deaths of 331 people — many of them children — and sentenced to life in prison Friday, touching off an emotional scene in which mothers of some victims tried to attack the defendant in court.

Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty for Nur-Pashi Kulayev, but Russia imposed a moratorium on capital punishment when it joined the Council of Europe a decade ago.

The verdict returned by the court in southern Russia ended a yearlong trial into the September 2004 hostage-taking that survivors and relatives of those who died say has left essential questions unanswered.

The Beslan massacre was a disaster all around. So many people died, and the rescue attempt was botched. The law enforcement were shown to be totally corrupt. I suspect that's true in a majority of countries.

But notice - no death penalty. How many Americans do you think know that? American's execute prisoners regularly and the Russians do not? You've got to be kidding me.

Really.. what do you gain from executing him anyway? Some self satisfaction? Does it change anything at all? Now he'll get to rot for decades.

The other thing that occurred to me when looking at this story.. I suspect that if he had been born in the United States, he'd be a Hollywood star. What the hell happened to him.. What a sad event in every possible way.

Oh.. and by the way.. the hostage takers were Muslim terrorists. They don't look like Arabs, do they? Who would suspect a Collin Farrel look alike? But what would cause people to do such a thing? After all, Muslim terrorists just kill people for fun, right?

An ex-policeman, Ali Tazivey was one of 32 hostages-takers in the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis. He reportedly led the negotiations on behalf of the hostage-takers, and had joined the group after his wife and five children were killed by a Russian bomb.