The only surviving Beslan hostage-taker Nurpashi Kulayev looks on in a court in Russia's southern city of Vladukavkaz, May 26, 2006. (Xinhua/Reuters)

MOSCOW, May 26 (Xinhua) -- A southern Russian court on Friday sentenced the sole surviving attacker in the Beslan school seizureto life imprisonment, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

    The North Ossetian Supreme Court found Nurpashi Kulayev, 25, a resident of the Chechen town of Stary Engenoi in Nozhai-Yurt district, guilty on all charges, including banditry, hostage taking and murders.

    The court ruled that Kulayev deserves the death penalty but, with consideration for Russia's moratorium of capital punishment, replaced it with life sentence to be served in a maximum security prison.

    The court sentenced Kulayev on three points of the indictment -- terrorism, murders and encroachment on the life of law enforcement workers.

    The sentence can be appealed within 10 days.

    After the sentence was read, a judge asked Kulayev whether he agreed with it. Nobody heard his answer as several women tried to attack him. Police intervened and stopped the angered victims.

    On Sept. 1, 2004, a group of heavily armed militants stormed a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, on the first day of classes and took about 1,200 people hostage.

    The siege ended two days later in a chaotic shootout between the rebels and law enforcement officials that killed more than 330 people. Enditem