Former Grozny Residents Get Compensation
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled on the case of three former residents of Grozny. The three women are to receive ˆ40,000-50,000 for moral damages from the Russian government for suffering during the purge of the Staropromyslovsky district of the city in January 2000. Two of the women nearly died in gunfire at that time, and one lost her mother and brother.
The women, Elena Goncharuk, Kheedi Makhauri and Petimat Goigova, petitioned the court in 2000 and 2001. The Staropromyslovsky district was bombed in the autumn of 1999 and besieged by the Russian military in December of that year. The civilian population was supposed to leave the city through a “green corridor,” and all who remained after the deadline were considered bandits who could be killed. The escape corridor, however, was in reality a “corridor of death,” subject to bombing as much as the rest of the area, according to Memorial Society member Alexander Cherkasov, speaking at a press conference yesterday. Thus, all residents of Grozny were effectively under siege. People were unwilling to leave out of fear of bombs or attachment to their homes.
Goncharuk and Makhauri were left for dead by soldiers and Goigova found her mother dead in the car her brother was driving her in after she was wounded. She found her brother's body nearby. It had been mutilated and showed signs of torture. Kirill Moroteev and Andrey Nikolaev, lawyers for Memorial and the Legal Initiative for Russia, which represented the women in the European Court, said that the women were intimidated by law enforcement agents and that their relatives were beaten up until they left the country. Goncharuk now lives in Norway and Makhauri and Goigova in The Netherlands. There are more than 200 cases connected with Chechnya still before the court.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 05, 2007
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