with connections to al-Qaeda, and claimed that they had picked up phone calls in Arabic from the Beslan school to Saudi Arabia and another undisclosed Middle Eastern country. Two British-Algerians, Osman Larussi and Yacine Benalia, were initially named as having actively participated in the attack. Another U.K. citizen called Kamel Rabat Bouralha, arrested while trying to leave Russia immediately following the attack, was suspected to be a key organiser. All three were linked to the Finsbury Park Mosque of North London. Allegations of al-Qaeda involvement were not repeated by the Russian government. Larussi and Benalia are not named in the Torshin Report and were never identified by Russian authorities as suspects in the Beslan attack. The following people were named by the Russian government as planners and financiers of the attack: Shamil Basayev – Chechen terrorist leader who took ultimate responsibility for the attack. He died in Ingushetia in July 2006 in disputed circumstances. Kamel Rabat Bouralha – British-Algerian suspected of organizing the attack who was reportedly detained in Chechnya in September 2004. Abu Omar al-Saif – Saudi national and accused financer, killed in Dagestan in December 2005. Abu Zaid Al-Kuwaiti – Kuwaiti and accused organiser who died in Ingushetia in February 2005. In November 2004, 28-year-old Akhmed Merzhoyev and 16-year-old Marina Korigova of Sagopshi, Ingushetia were arrested by Russian authorities in connection with the Beslan attack. Merzhoyev was charged with providing food and equipment to the terrorists, and Korigova was charged with having possession of a phone that Tsechoyev had phoned multiple times. Korigova was released when her defence attorney showed that she was given the phone by an acquaintance after the crisis. Motives and demands Russian negotiators say that the Beslan militants never explicitly stated their demands, although they did have notes handwritten by one of the hostages on a school notebook, in which they spelled out demands of full Russian troop withdrawal from Chechnya and recognition of Chechen independence. The hostage-takers were reported to have made the following demands on 1 September 11:00–11:30 in a letter sent along with a hostage ER doctor: Recognition of the independence of Chechnya at the U.N. and withdrawal of Russian troops. Presence of the following people at the school: Aleksander Dzasokhov (president of North Ossetia), Murat Zyazikov (president of Ingushetia), Ruslan Aushev (former president of Ingushetia) and Leonid Roshal (a paediatrician). Alternatively, instead of Roshal and Aushev, the hostage-takers might have