PARIS, Sept 8 (AFP) - A Russian pediatrician who acted as a mediator in last week's deadly hostage crisis on Wednesday insisted that security forces had not planned to storm the Beslan school where militants were holding some 1,000 captives.
"There was no pre-planned assault, I give you my word of honor," Leonid Roshal told a press conference at the Russian embassy in Paris.
"It was spontaneous and happened after an explosion at the school, at which point the terrorists started shooting at the children who had escaped," he added, backing official Russian assertions that the raid was impromptu.
Roshal also denied allegations that Moscow had failed to negotiate with the hostage-takers at the school in North Ossetia, saying: "Every day I had the same person on the phone 10 or 15 times."
The doctor said the man "spoke Russian with a Caucasian accent", adding that he was never told the demands of the militants, who communicated that information directly to Russian authorities.
A total of 336 people, half of them children, were killed and hundreds more wounded during the battle between security forces and the hostage-takers at the school in Beslan, in the southern Russian republic of North Ossetia.
Roshal, 71, helped mediate with Chechen rebels who held around 800 people hostage at a Moscow theater in October 2002.
He was called on again at the start of last week's hostage drama in Beslan on September 1 to negotiate with the militants, who were demanding independence for Chechnya.
In an interview published Wednesday in Le Parisien newspaper, Roshal said: "No decision was taken to stage the assault. Otherwise it would have happened differently.
"The men in the elite Alpha unit were not wearing their bullet-proof vests when they went to help rescuers trying to remove the bodies of hostages."
Roshal told reporters the hostage-takers had asked that he, North Ossetia president Alexander Dzasokhov, Ingush regional president Murat Zyazikov and an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin come into the school to negotiate.
But Moscow refused that demand, for fear the mediators would be killed.