European court assails Russia over Chechnya killings

European court assails Russia over Chechnya killings

The Strasbourg-based court ordered Russia to pay damages of about US$ 200,000 to the families of 11 people who were killed when contract soldiers from the special police force of St. Petersburg rampaged through the bombed-out neighborhood, Novye Aldy, in the Chechen capital, Grozny, on February 5, 2000.

Human rights groups have said that at least 50 people died in the massacre.

In a statement published on its Web site, the court said Russia has failed to find those responsible and has offered no explanation about the circumstances surrounding the deaths. "The astonishing ineffectiveness of the prosecuting authorities in this case can only be qualified as acquiescence in the events," the court said in the statement.

A spokesman from the Russian Prosecutor General's office, reached by telephone, declined to comment.

The massacre in Novye Aldy came after Russian forces bombarded the neighborhood with artillery and airstrikes. Witnesses said that Russian contract troops killed women and elderly men and set fire to houses before carting off residents' belongings in trucks and armored personnel carriers.

Human rights groups maintain that through the course of two wars in Chechnya, beginning in 1994 and 1999, Russian soldiers kidnapped, tortured and murdered hundreds of civilians.

Frustrated by the Russian authorities' inaction, many relatives of victims appealed to the court in Strasbourg to investigate the killings and looting and to redress their grievances.

Russian citizens, mostly from the Caucasus, appeal to the court more often than the citizens of any other country. The 22,150 Russian cases pending before the court make up 22.6 percent of its total.

The court often has ruled against Russia, provoking accusations by officials in Moscow that its decisions are politicized and biased.

In a landmark case last July, the court found Russia guilty of violating the right to life of a Chechen man who disappeared in February 2000.

In the Novye Aldy case, the court accused Moscow of botching its investigation into the killings, despite the wide availability of evidence.

"The killings had been committed in broad daylight," the court said in its statement Thursday, "and a large number of witnesses, including some of the applicants, had seen the perpetrators face to face."

It said that bullets and spent cartridges had been collected, some with traceable serial numbers.

"Despite all that," the court said, "and notwithstanding the domestic and international public outcry caused by the cold-blooded execution of more than 50 civilians, almost six years after the tragic events in Novye Aldy no meaningful result whatsoever had been achieved in the task of identifying and prosecuting the individuals who had committed the crimes."