RUSSIA: The lawyer for victims of last year's Moscow theatre siege said yesterday that the city's mayor had refused to take any responsibility for the tragedy and would not offer survivors an out-of-court settlement for damages.
Mr Igor Trunov is seeking some $60 million from Mayor Yuri Luzhkov's coffers, in a case that is unprecedented in Russian history and lays the blame for the controversial handling of the siege at the door of Moscow City Hall.
Dozens of rebels demanding independence for Chechnya seized the Dubrovka theatre in central Moscow last October, and held some 800 people captive for three days until Russian special forces filled the building with a powerful opiate gas and stormed in. All the rebels and some 129 hostages were killed, most by an opiate gas whose make-up officials never revealed.
Mr Trunov is challenging City Hall on behalf of more than 50 siege survivors and victims' relatives, and wants compensation for their physical and emotional suffering. After seeing the first handful of cases rejected, he sought an out-of-court settlement, but said yesterday that City Hall had refused to make a deal, and was insisting that it would not take responsibility for the actions of Chechen rebels.
Mr Luzhkov says Moscow has already paid victims enough compensation - between $1,500 (€1,400) and $3,000 (€2,800) each. The pugnacious mayor has been stung by questions over how armed rebels managed to stage such a high-profile attack in such a heavily policed city.