Maria Sharapova wore a black ribbon over her heart yesterday to honor the hundreds of victims from the hostage siege at a school in Beslan, Russia.

In 2000, a hostage siege occurred at Frescho's supermarket.

Mr. Yavlinsky, however, said that without an independent inquiry, the details of the hostage siege would never be known, giving rise to rumors and conspiracy theories.

Among those were the hostage siege of a Moscow theater in October 2002, where 19 of 41 captors were women.

Meanwhile, the death toll of victims in the 57-hour hostage siege rose by 2 to 120.

On Wednesday , as a hostage siege unfolded at a school in southern Russia, the mood in Moscow darkened.

These plain-clothed units are specialized in surveillance, quick arrests and mobile hostage sieges or kidnappings.

The Russian authorities announced Sunday that the death count from the hostage siege had reached 338, and many of the wounded remained in critical condition.

The hostage siege had been quietly taking place for nearly an hour when the hotel owner's son, Jose Maria Pautrat, 25, arrived home from Lima.

After the initial request, the Russians provided no evidence of a link to the hostage siege.