Moscow court rejects three Moscow theater lawsuits

MOSCOW -- A Moscow court on Thursday rejected three lawsuits by six plaintiffs against the city government for moral damages suffered by hostages in the terrorist seizure of a Moscow theater last year.

The court did not rule on the remaining 21 lawsuits because the plaintiffs had not appeared during the hearings.

"I have no words, only emotions," said Sergei Karpov, the father of one of the victims. His case was not among those rejected, but he said he now held out little hope for winning a judgment.

Sixty-one victims of the Oct. 23-26 theater siege filed suit for nearly $60 million, an unprecedented damage request in Russia. The court began considering the first 24 suits on Dec. 3.

Lawyer Igor Trunov said the plaintiffs would probably appeal the decision to the Moscow City Court. He said he might ask the Supreme Court to take over the case because of its "special social significance."

City officials sharply criticized the lawsuit, saying the federal government -- not Moscow -- is responsible for the Chechen conflict and its consequences. Lawyers for the city said during closing arguments that the anti-terrorism law, under which the suits were filed, requires regional governments to pay only material, not moral, damages. At the request of the plaintiffs, the court decided earlier to separate material claims into a separate case to be considered at a later date.

"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.

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

Of the approximately 800 people in the theater, 129 hostages, 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 theater raid, the plaintiffs' lawyer Igor Trunov has suggested that emergency officials were negligent in organizing evacuation of the mostly unconscious hostages after the special forces stormed the theater.

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 to doctors the composition of the knock-out gas, failing to organize emergency treatment outside the theater, and carelessly handling the victims' limp bodies. But doctors who helped organize 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.

Trunov said he was hoping to win financial help for the plaintiffs, and he spent most of the hearing trying to highlight their ongoing suffering.

He complained Thursday 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.