Theatre attack case restricted

A MOSCOW local court has begun hearing an unprecedented compensation claim filed over the October theatre siege by immediately placing tight restrictions to limit the scope of the case.

The presiding judge has rejected requests by the plaintiffs' lawyer to summon government officials to the hearings and have video footage of the siege played in court.

He also rejected the lawyer's request to have the case transferred to a bigger court, but he did grant journalists the right to make audio, though not video, recordings of the hearings.

The lawyer said that the small court is inadequate for hearings in which survivors of the siege and families

of some of the 129 hostages killed have already filed 61 individual lawsuits.

Most of the hostages who died in the October siege were killed as a result of knock-out gas used by security forces as they stormed the building which had been seized by a Chechen rebel suicide squad.

The survivors and relatives of the victims are demanding compensation from the Moscow municipal government worth more than $59m a record claim for Russia where individual claims rarely exceed a few thousand dollars.

Lawyer Igor Trunov also accused the court of being biased, saying its judges received perks such as accommodation and phones from the municipal government.

"This is not an independent court," he told journalists.

The case marks the first time that a claim for compensation has been filed under Russian anti-terrorist legislation against a local authority, and not the federal government.

The rebels had posed as traders.

The municipal government is said to be outraged that, after having helped the survivors and the victims' families, it is being asked to pay more.

The plaintiff's lawyers argue that help was voluntary and inadequate and the survivors have a legal right to mandatory compensation for their suffering and losses.