MOSCOW, April 13. /TASS/. The European Court of Human rights has pronounced its verdict on complaints filed by relatives of the Beslan terrorist attack. It ordered Russia to pay the applicants some three million euros in compensation. The decision was made public on the court’s website.
"The Court held that Russia was to pay the applicants a total of 2,955,000 euros in respect of non-pecuniary damage, and the applicants’ representatives a total of 88,000 euros in respect of costs," the court said in a news release.
The case concerns a terrorist attack on a school building in the city of Beslan, North Ossetia in September 2004. On the list of plaintiffs there are 409 names, including relatives of the hostages killed in the attack and the operation to storm the school building, as well as injured hostages.
The plaintiffs filed a complaint under a number of articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.
They argue that "the authorities had failed to take measures capable of preventing or minimizing the known risk, in violation of Article 2. The first group of applicants also maintained that many aspects of the planning and control of the security operation had been deficient, and that the deaths had been the result of an indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force by the authorities," the ECHR secretariat said.
A gang of 30 terrorists seized Beslan’s school N. 1 on the first day of the academic year, September 1, 2004 during a gala ceremony in the yard. The terrorists forced more than one thousand hostages, including small kids, into the school’s gym and kept them there for three days without food and water. The operation to free the hostages began on September 3.
The tragedy claimed 334 lives. Of those killed 318 were hostages, including 186 children. Nine commandoes, two Emergencies Ministry specialists and 15 police were killed and another 810 hostages, commandoes, police and troops were injured.