Tuesday, May 24, 2005. Editorial A 12-member jury of the North Caucasus Military District Court in Rostov-on-Don decided last week that Captain Eduard Ulman and three subordinates were simply obeying orders when they killed six Chechen civilians in January 2002 and should not be held responsible.
The group was patrolling a road in the hope of ambushing rebels when a van carrying five men and one woman appeared. The commandos opened fire on the van, they said, because the driver refused to stop. One passenger was killed and two wounded.
After discovering that the passengers were all local residents and unarmed, Ulman radioed command for instructions on how to proceed and was told to finish off the survivors, the defendants testified. They did so, then placed the bodies in the van and burned it to cover up their trail.
Prosecutors' argument that military regulations do not allow the execution of non-combatants and allow subordinates to refuse orders they deem criminal had no effect on the jury.
The defendants said the orders were issued by Colonel Vladimir Plotnikov and relayed by Major Alexei Perevelevsky. Although Perevelevsky testified that Plotnikov issued the order, the colonel told investigators he had not issued it and he was not summoned to testify at the trial, according to reports in the Russian press.
This verdict is almost an exact copy of the one delivered in an earlier jury trial in the same case in the same court in April 2004. There is no evidence that prosecutors in the intervening year double-checked the claim that the executions were ordered by Plotnikov or any other officer. Meanwhile, one of the defendants was promoted from lieutenant to captain.
The Supreme Court had ordered a new trial after relatives of the victims appealed the verdict in the first trial, and their lawyers say they are going to appeal this verdict, too. The verdict has drawn protests and demands for justice from Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration and the Chechen public. But the damage has already been done.
The case has demonstrated that residents of Chechnya cannot hope for safety or for justice, even when their murderers are caught. Not only did two juries buy the murderers' explanation that they were following orders, but prosecutors did not bother to determine who, if anyone, gave those orders or attempt to bring him to trial.
The federal authorities cannot possibly hope that support for the rebels will wane if servicemen empowered to enforce the law kill innocent people while those responsible for upholding justice give them a free pass.
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