#13
gazeta.ru
December 11, 2002
Health Ministry washes its hands of theatre gas
By Yelena Vrantseva

The Health Ministry of Russia has forwarded a response to the State Duma's inquiry concerning the type of gas used by security forces during the storming of the Nord-Ost musical theatre last October. The deputies had wanted to know who ordered the information to be classified and who failed to inform medics and the public of the possible side effects of the agent. The Health Ministry admitted it does not know the answers to those questions.

On Friday the State Duma received the response to its inquiry concerning the lawfulness of the authorities' move to conceal the information concerning the gas used during the special operation to liberate the Nord-Ost hostages.

''It is not about the name of the gas. We are not asking them to divulge it,'' deputy Sergei Yushenkov, who initiated the inquiry, told Gazeta.Ru. The problem is that the majority of hostages died not at the hands of the terrorists but from the gas used by the special services during the counter-terrorist operation. In Yushenkov's opinion, had the information about that gas not been classified, many human lives could have been saved.

According to official reports, 129 hostages died as a result of the October theatre siege in Moscow. All but two of them died of poisoning with what was called ''a special gas'', used to disable the hostage-takers during the storming of the theatre building on Dubrovka Street.

In its answer to the parliamentary inquiry, the Health Ministry failed to name those who had placed the data about the gas on a secret list, but said such decisions were outside the ministry's competence. Similar inquiries, according to Yushenkov, have been sent by the deputies to the other agencies that were involved in the Nord-Ost operation -- the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service. However, neither of them has given any answers to the questions posed by the deputies.

Yushenkov explained to Gazeta.Ru that the participants of the counter-terrorist operation have violated Article 41 of the Russian Constitution, which bans state officials from concealing facts and circumstances posing hazards to human health and life. What is more, in the deputy's opinion, the law on state secrets has also been violated, because information that may shed light on circumstances connected with damage inflicted to human health cannot be classified as secret.

According to the politician, the special services should have informed doctors and all those tending the victims of the type of gas used, of its possible effects, and which antidotes had to be used.

And if the substance used by the special services in October was a secret gas, then, in line with the law on countering terrorism, the authorities did not have the right to use it against civilians in the first place.

Furthermore, international treaties explicitly ban the use of combat gas. ''Only the Germans used mustard gas during World War I, and during World War II they used gas in concentration camps. And only in our country has gas been used against our own citizens, as Tukhachevsky did when he suppressed the insurrection of the Tambov peasants,'' the deputy fumed.

As the State Duma deputy told Gazeta.Ru, they will now await answers to their inquiries from other governmental agencies. ''Then we will address the Prosecutor General's Office, or, on behalf of the aggrieved, the courts, so that those guilty of concealing information about the gas be found and punished. It is important for us, that things like this do not happen again.''

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