RUSSIA: The gas used to end the Moscow theatre siege was based on the powerful opiate fentanyl, the Russian Health Minister, Mr Yuri Shevchenko, said yesterday.
Special forces pumped the highly addictive painkiller into the theatre, where more than 800 hostages were being held by 50 Chechen separatists, before storming it early on Saturday.
Authorities said they were forced to use the gas to knock out the rebels, who had threatened to blow up the theatre should the security forces storm it. Russia has since come under heavy international pressure to identify the active agent in the gas, which was responsible for the deaths of all but two of the 119 hostages who died in the siege.
"To neutralise the terrorists, a substance based on fentanyl derivatives was used," Mr Shevchenko said in comments broadcast on Russian television. "On their own, these substances cannot lead to a fatal outcome. However, in this case the anaesthetic was given to people whose organisms, from a medical point of view, were in a critical condition as a result of a range of extremely aggressive factors."
He refuted earlier speculation that chemicals had been used in the gas, possibly BZ, a nerve agent developed during the Cold War. "I officially declare: chemical substances which might have fallen under the jurisdiction of the international convention on banning chemical weapons were not used during the special operation."
A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mr Alexander Yakovenko, said using the gas was "fully in accordance with Russia's international obligations and the convention on chemical weapons and Russian law".
Fentanyl is a potent opium-based narcotic which works on the brain's pain receptors. The drug works quickly and is used both for general anesthesia and light sedation, as well as in treating cancer patients. It is also highly addictive.
While it is one of the safer drugs used in anaesthetics it can, if taken in high enough doses, cause respiratory difficulties and death.
The US ambassador, Mr Alexander Vershbow, said on Tuesday hostages could have been saved if the doctors treating them had known what the gas was.
The initial death toll was put at just 10, but rose steadily in the days after the storming, as doctors complained that they had not been told how to treat the sick.
Mr Shevchenko said doctors were warned in advance of the operation, flatly contradicting what Moscow's top doctor and anaesthetist had earlier told reporters.
"Specialists were warned, including me, even though the operation was an emergency," he said, adding that thousands of doses of antidote had been prepared.
However, the chairman of the health committee of the city of Moscow, Mr Andrei Seltsovsky, said on Sunday he had received a call alerting him that there was an emergency only minutes before the first gassed hostages were taken from the theatre. Moscow's top anaesthetist, Dr Yevgeny Yevdokimov, said doctors could not give specific antidotes as they did not know what gas they were dealing with. - (Reuters)
AFP adds: A Danish court has ordered top Chechen envoy Mr Akhmed Zakayev to be detained for two weeks pending an extradition request after Russia accused him of involvement in last week's siege. Heavily armed police surrounded the court as Mr Zakayev appeared at a hearing following his arrest in Copenhagen by police acting on a warrant from Moscow.
"Akhmed Zakayev is suspected of a series of terrorist acts over the period 1996-1999 and he is furthermore suspected of having taken part in planning the hostage siege in Moscow," the Copenhagen police chief said in a statement.