The judge presiding over the trial in Russia of a Chechen charged with participation in the 2004 Beslan school massacre will today deliver his verdict.
Nurpashi Kulayev claims he was forced to take part in the raid, which killed 331 police and hostages
The judge said this morning that the only surviving member of the group that seized the school and 1,300 hostages in the town of Beslan had committed an act of terrorism.
Prosecutors have requested the death penalty for Chechen Nurpashi Kulayev, born in 1980, although an official moratorium on capital punishment would lead to such a sentence being changed to one of life imprisonment.
Interfax news agency quoted the court's ruling as saying Kulayev had taken hostages in an attempt to force the state to change its policy.
The court is yet to pronounce whether it will formally find the young Chechen, who says he was made to take part in the raid against his will, guilty. The summing up will take several days.
Many survivors of the siege say Kulayev has been made a scapegoat for officials who failed to prevent the rebel group driving to Beslan on September 1st, the first day of the new school year and a day of celebration for children and their families.