MOSCOW, December 22 (RIA Novosti) - Local police did not take appropriate measures to prevent a terrorist attack on a school in the southern Russian town of Beslan in September 2004, a parliamentary investigation commission said Friday.
The hostage crisis at Beslan's School No.1 in the North Caucasus republic of North Ossetia claimed the lives of 331 people, including 186 children. More than 700 people were wounded.
"The terrorist act was not prevented, because local police did not follow the regulations established by the Russian Interior Ministry," a report prepared by the committee said.
The report said police officers were not present at the school's start-of-term ceremony on September 1, 2004, when terrorists took 1,128 hostages.