Women who lost children in last year’s Beslan school siege protested yesterday, accusing authorities of failing to investigate the tragedy properly ahead of next week’s anniversary.

Angry at the failure to name the hostage-takers or take officials accused of corruption to task, around 15 mothers spent the night in a courtroom where the man thought to be the only militant to survive the siege is on trial.

The women said their protest was not against Chechen Nurpashi Kulayev, who went on trial in May for his alleged part in the mass hostage-taking at the southern Russian school, but against the failings of the inquiry. “It is almost a year since our children have not been next to us. They are in the cemetery. Not a single person has been punished for this evil they did”, Rita Sidakova, among a group who joined the protest yesterday, told reporters. “Russian prosecuters are not interested in getting to the truth (and ensuring) that all those guilty are punished regardless of their names, epaulets or numbers of stars”, she said, referring to the symbols denoting military rank.

Around 330 people, half of them children, died after a gang of Chechen rebel sympathisers seized the school on Sept. 1 – the first day of term – and held more than 1,000 parents and children in a small gymnasium until Sept. 3 Russian media reported this week that President Vladimir Putin was dissatisfied with the progress of a parliamentary commission’s investigation, which will not be published in time for the anniversary.

Newspapers point out that Putin has yet to meet the head of the commission and say Kremlin officials have criticised its efforts to date.

Even when the inquiry does finally appear, there is little expectation that much blame will fall on high-ranking officials whose incompetence many blame for the catastrophic end to the siege. Protests by relatives, including hunger strikes and demonstrations outside local government buildings, have been common in Beslan over the past year.

The courtroom protesters were due to meet local Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel later in the day. “We don’t know if we will leave the courtroom,” protester Marina Pak told Ekho Moskvy radio. “It depends on how satisfied we are with his answer. If the situation is not in our favour, we will sit until the end.”