Court rejects Moscow theatre siege lawsuits

A Moscow court today rejected six of the 24 lawsuits filed against the city government for moral and material damages suffered in the terrorist seizure of a Moscow theatre.

The court did not rule on the remaining 18 lawsuits because the plaintiffs had not appeared during the hearings.

Sixty-one victims of the October 23-26 theatre siege had sued for nearly £37m (€55.8m), an unprecedented damage award in Russia.

The crisis ended when Russian special forces stormed the building, killing all 41 hostage-takers, who said they were trying to dramatise their demands for an end to the war in the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya.

Of the approximately 800 people in the theatre, 129 died, the vast majority from the effects of a narcotic gas used to incapacitate the militants.

In addition to faulting the Moscow authorities for not preventing the theatre raid, the plaintiffs’ lawyer Igor Trunov has suggested that emergency officials were negligent in organising the mostly unconscious hostages’ evacuation after the special forces stormed the theatre.

The allegation was raised late last year by an independent commission formed by the liberal Union of Right Forces party.

The report faulted authorities for refusing to immediately divulge the composition of the knock-out gas to doctors, failing to organise emergency treatment outside the theatre, and carelessly handling the victims’ limp bodies. But doctors who helped organise the evacuation vigorously rejected the commission’s report.

The core of Trunov’s case, however, was based on Russia’s anti-terrorism law, which states that the Russian region where a terrorist attack occurs should pay moral and material damages to the victims.

City officials sharply criticised the lawsuit, saying the federal government - not Moscow – is responsible for the Chechen conflict and its consequences. Lawyers for the city noted during closing arguments that the government was already paying material compensation to victims and their relatives.

“Yes, the Moscow government did not commit the terrorist act, but they are guilty of letting it happen,” said Valentina Khramtsova, the widow of a musician in the Nord-Ost musical.

Like most of the plaintiffs, Khramtsova said money was not the main object, instead they wanted the city government to acknowledge its guilt. But Trunov said he was hoping to win the plaintiffs some financial assistance, and he spent most of the trial trying to highlight their ongoing suffering.

He complained today that he had hoped to call many additional witnesses, but they were too sick and the judge refused to prolong the trial.

“It would be nice to be able to help people with at least something and to help them right now when they need money for medication ... and not in some far off day in the future,” he said.