APARTMENT BOMBING TRIAL IN RECESS.

On September 7, a ten-day recess was announced in the closed trial of five citizens from the North Caucasus autonomous republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia who are charged with having bombed two large apartment complexes in Moscow in September 1999, killing an estimated 220-250 persons, infamous events that have been compared by Russian journalists to the Oklahoma City bombing carried out by recently executed Timothy McVeigh. The five defendants–Aslan and Marat Bastanov, Muratbi Baiaramukov, Muratbi Tuganbaev and Taikan Frantsuzov (none of whom are ethnic Chechens)–are said to have waived their right to a trial by jury. The trial, which is closed to the public and to all journalists, is being held on the premises of a penal colony located in a suburb of the southern Russian city of Stavropol (Lenta.ru, September 7; see also Izvestia, September 1).