#15
RFE/RL Newsline
January 30, 2003
MOSCOW HOSTAGE DRAMA: THE CRUELEST QUESTION
By Daniel Kimmage

Judge Marina Gorbacheva ruled on 23 January that the city of Moscow is not obligated to provide material compensation to the Chernetsov, Karpov, and Khramtsov families for the loss of their loved ones in the 23-26 October hostage taking at a Moscow theater. The decision by the Tverskoi Municipal Court effectively dooms a group of lawsuits, over 60 in all so far, that have been filed against Moscow over the hostage standoff and subsequent loss of life. The aggrieved vow to carry their fight to the highest Russian court and, if that fails, to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

On 23 October, a group of Chechen radicals interrupted the musical "Nord-Ost" with a burst of automatic gunfire, seizing a full house of some 900 theatergoers. Special forces stormed the theater on 26 October, using a special gas that incapacitated hostage takers and captives alike. When the smoke cleared, 129 hostages were dead, almost all of them from the effects of the sleeping gas.

On 28 October, the city of Moscow issued Directive No. 1645, titled "On aid to the victims and the families of those who died as a result of the terrorist act...." Families of the dead were to receive 100,000 rubles ($3,144) and survivors 50,000 rubles, in addition to some compensation for lost property (up to 10,000 rubles) and help with burial expenses (14,200 rubles per person). Although the directive qualifies the sums as "onetime material assistance," it does not otherwise define the nature of the compensation nor specify precisely what the largest sums are for.

On 25 November, former hostages Aleksandra Ryabtseva and her father sued Moscow for $1 million each. Led by lawyer Igor Trunov, who hung out his shingle in the form of a small advertisement offering free legal assistance to the victims of the hostage taking, a minor avalanche of suits ensued. By the time Gorbacheva ruled on 23 January, claims against the city of Moscow totaled $60 million.

Hemmed in by legal restrictions that make it impossible to file suit against security forces, Trunov constructed his case around a 1998 antiterrorism law that places responsibility for a terrorist act on the subject of the federation -- Moscow, in the case of the October hostage taking -- where the crime takes place. According to a 9 December article in "Kommersant-Vlast," No. 48, the lawyer based the amount of compensation -- the bulk of the individual claims are for $1 million -- on a 2002 defamation suit against the newspaper "Novaya gazeta." Though eventually appealed and settled out of court, the initial 30 million-ruble ($943,100) judgment represented a landmark decision and apparently inspired Trunov to advise his clients that $1 million was not too much to ask.

The lawsuits became a magnet for commentary. In Russia, where millions of people make frayed ends meet on $100 to $200 a month, attention focused on the sheer amount of the compensation requested. In the West, "The Wall Street Journal" noted with approval on 17 January, "In a country where most people suffer in silence, the idea of seeking compensation for damages is something of a watershed."

Not everyone welcomed the suits. Putinophile television commentator Mikhail Leontiev, holding forth on state-run ORT on the eve of Gorbacheva's ruling, trotted out an age-old interpretation of lawyers and lawsuits. "Beyond the formal procedure, this case is much more about public relations, political speculation, and self-promotion. On that level, the ambitious Trunov looks like a profiteer advancing his career on someone else's blood and grief," Leontiev said. Moscow officials also stressed the profiteering motive, grumbling that the former hostages and relatives could, if successful, spawn a rash of copycat suits that would endanger the municipal budget and even rob the old of their meager pensions. Peering into some nightmare future of their own imagining, even "The Wall Street Journal" editors carefully qualified their position, "We wouldn't wish an American-style tort system on Russia, of course."

The actual court proceedings were largely anticlimactic. Trunov made numerous motions to challenge the judge, introduce additional evidence, and bring in expert witness. Gorbacheva rejected all of them. The case resists serious discussion on its merits. The antiterrorism law, with its jurisdictional focus, provided the most vague possible basis for a claim. The claims themselves were couched in terms of pain and suffering, leaving aside concrete questions of culpability. As a result, former hostages and surviving relatives testified in general about the anguish they endured during and after the siege. News of a hitherto unknown videotape recorded inside the theater during the hostage taking provided excitement but added nothing of substance. Finally, from the outset, the judge's demeanor seemed to presage the negative ruling she duly delivered.

Against this rather confused backdrop, what stood out in bright relief was the base and basic question of monetary compensation for death and suffering. As "Gazeta" reported on 21 January, widow Valentina Khramtsova asked bitterly in her testimony before the court how much a life is worth in Russia: "The 100,000 rubles they paid us? The price of a used car? A purebred puppy? A Yorkshire terrier puppy costs about $3,000."

For those who wanted to see a brave challenge mounted through the legal system to the Kremlin's sanitized account of the hostage tragedy, the proceedings and ruling must have come as a disappointment. Appeals, even if successful, are unlikely to produce answers to the questions that have plagued sensitive observers since the siege and storm that claimed so many lives. Queries about security lapses in Moscow, the quality of the first aid the hostages received, and the strangely convenient deaths of all the hostage takers will have to wait, if they are to be pursued at all.

The question Khramtsova asks is, in the end, what the hostage lawsuits are really about, and Gorbacheva's ruling will not make it go away. The question's simultaneous complexity and crudity do not make it any less important. Far too often in Russia, the answer has been "almost nothing."

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