Many of the surviving hostages and eyewitnesses claim there were many more captors, some of whom may have escaped. It was also initially claimed that three hostage-takers were captured alive, including their leader Vladimir Khodov and a female militant. Witness testimonies during the Kulayev trial involved the reported presence of a number of apparently Slavic-, unaccented Russian-, and "perfect" Ossetian-speaking individuals among the hostage-takers who were not seen among the bodies of the militants killed during the assault by Russian security forces; witnesses also said they were not seen by the day of the crisis at all. The unknown men (and a woman, according to one testimony) included a man with red beard who was reportedly issuing orders to the kidnappers' leaders, and whom the hostages were forbidden to look at. He was possibly the militant known only as "Fantomas", an ethnic Russian who served as a bodyguard to Shamil Basayev.