Mothers Seek Probe Into Russian Cult Leader Offering to Resurrect Victims
Created: 28.09.2005 10:23 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 10:34 MSK
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Mothers of children who perished in Russia’s Beslan school tragedy last
year have demanded a probe into a cult leader who has offered to
resurrect the victims, saying he is trying to discredit their campaign
for justice, Reuters news agency reports.
Grigory Grabovoi, who says he can heal, save people and cure AIDS with
his mind, convinced several Beslan mothers at a seance in Moscow last
weekend that their children would return — prompting the press to
characterize them as deranged by grief.
“This cultist’s cynical promise to resurrect those killed in the
terrorist act is blasphemous to all those who suffered in this dreadful
tragedy,” said an appeal to General Prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov faxed to
Reuters on Tuesday. “We ... ask you to investigate the legality of
Grigory Grabovoi’s actions and to bring him to justice under Russian
law,” said the appeal, signed by a group of mothers.
Earlier the Beslan Mothers group had been celebrated for their efforts
to bring to justice officials they say were inept or too corrupt to stop
the tragedy from unfurling in September 2004, leading to the deaths of
331 people — most of them children. At the meeting with President
Vladimir Putin, they blamed him for the tragedy, which they said was
caused above all by the incompetent and corrupt behavior of his police
and officials.
Some mothers said unnamed officials were now using Grabovoi to discredit
their demands that top officials be brought to account by making it
appear the mothers were deranged, thereby insinuating that their demands
were not valid. “The designers of this attack are presenting us to all
Russia as psychologically ill,” said a statement.
“Who paid $10,000 for these women to go and see Grabovoi? ... Obviously
those who did not like the women’s visit to Putin and the demands that
he admit his guilt, which would mean the guilt of the secret services
and the whole state.”
Russian newspapers compared Grabovoi to Grigory Rasputin — the “mad
monk” who gained influence over Russia’s royal family during and before
World War One. The mothers who met Grabovoi, including group head
Susanna Dudiyeva, were not available for comment.
“I believe in this miracle and know that it will happen. My maternal
heart and my maternal faith tells me this,” Dudiyeva was quoted by the
Izvestia daily saying. Dudiyeva’s mobile phone was turned off on Tuesday
and Grabovoi did not return repeated calls to his office.
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