Russia may go on another trial

Ole Solvang, Executive Director of Stichting Russian Justice Initiative, a legal aid organisation which represents victims of human rights violations in Chechnya, is currently in Kabardino-Balkaria. Caucasian Knot's correspondent asked him to share his impressions of meeting and talking to the relatives of killed rebels.

Ole Solvang said that he was dissatisfied with how the government treated the relatives of the Nalchik dead. "The government does not fulfil its duty in the situation with the relatives of the killed rebels," Mr Solvang remarked.

"As far as we could understand from their words, the bodies of the killed rebels were not preserved in the due condition," says the human rights defender. "I saw a video clip made one week after the events. It shows bodies piled up, not laid separately and numbered in order to make it easier for the relatives to find and identify their family members, relieve their sufferings."

Furthermore, Mr Solvang said that human rights defenders had many questions concerning how the state would confirm the dead as gunmen. "Our position is this: there should be a trial in each case. Only the court can decide who is a terrorist and who is not," said the human rights defender.

"Another question," Mr Solvang continued, "is how fair the law itself is which prohibits giving out bodies. It seems to us that the very law violates the European Convention which says that every person has the right to freedom of religion. The convention in this case is violated in that these people cannot bury their family members according to their religion. Even if a person is a terrorist, he is dead. The Russian law does not provide for punishment of an already killed person. So the law punishes relatives who are not guilty as it were."

Ole Solvang said that Stichting Russian Justice Initiative had been set up four years ago and had a mandate to provide legal aid to Chechnya conflict victims. This case is the initiative's first outside Chechnya. "I do not rule out that we will have more cases here," Mr Solvang remarked.

Stichting Russian Justice Initiative has already submitted 90 Chechnya cases to the European Court of Human Rights. Most of them are about torture, disappearances, and killings. The first case will be heard on 8 December.

In spite that the bodies of those killed in Nalchik will have been buried somehow or other if a lawsuit is lodged with the European Court of Human Rights, the human rights defenders still intend to apply to it. "The point is that the European Court will prove that the Russian state violates human rights. After that, the state will have to pay compensations to the families of those killed. This decision will concern every state which has such a law. So the state will have to change the law," Ole Solvang told Caucasian Knot's correspondent.

• Suspects confirm torture in Nalchik