http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0906russia06.html

Russia lied to public on scale of crisis

Says it downplayed hostage numbers

Washington Post Sept. 6, 2004 12:00 AM

MOSCOW - The Russian government admitted Sunday that it lied to its people about the scale of the hostage crisis that ended with more than 300 children, parents and teachers dead in southern Russia, making an admission through state television after days of criticism from citizens.

As the families of Beslan began to lay loved ones to rest Sunday, the Kremlin-controlled Rossiya network airedgruesome footage it had withheld for days and said government officials had deceived the world about the number of hostages inside School No. 1.

The admission of an effort to downplay the magnitude of a crisis that ensnared about 1,200 people, most of them children, marked a turnabout for the government of President Vladimir Putin. In previous crises with mass fatalities, such as the sinking of the submarine Kursk in 2000 and the 2002 siege of a Moscow theater, officials covered up facts but never acknowledged it.

The broadcast included no apology and referred only to the most blatant misstatement, the claim that only 354 hostages were inside the school.