In the afternoon, the gunmen allowed Ruslan Aushev, respected ex-President of Ingushetia and retired Soviet Army general, to enter the school building and agreed to personally release to him 11 nursing women and all 15 babies. The women's older children were left behind and one mother refused to leave, so Aushev carried out her youngest child instead. The rebels gave Aushev a video tape made in the school and a note with demands from their purported leader, Shamil Basayev, who was not himself present in Beslan. The existence of the note was kept secret by the Russian authorities, while the tape was declared as being empty (which was later proved incorrect). It was falsely announced that the hostage-takers made no demands. In the note, Basayev demanded recognition of a "formal independence for Chechnya" in the frame of the Commonwealth of Independent States. He also said that although the Chechen separatists "had played no part" in the Russian apartment bombings of 1999, they would now publicly take responsibility for them if needed. Some Russian officials and state-controlled media later attacked Aushev for entering the school, accusing him of colluding with the hostage-takers.