The authors’ purport is not to exculpate the terrorists — their guilt is obvious and undisputable. Nevertheless, this tragedy has once again revealed the attitude on the part of the Russian authorities towards human rights both in the course of the rescue operation, and in the way how investigation into the terrorist act was held, as well as in the course of court proceedings on cases initiated by the injured and affected persons in defense of their rights and interests.

The purpose of this report is to sum up the data resulting from the examination of criminal case documents related to this terrorist attack which were made available to the authors, and testimonies given by the victims, witnesses of this event, human rights activists and journalists.

The goal of the authors was to show the results they got after summarizing factual material, to analyze the validity of various versions of grounds for the special operation, to give legal opinion on the performance of the authorities in the course of the operation, and to let the readers know the most significant, from the authors’ point of view, opinions and estimates related to those events.