MOSCOW — Four Russian commando officers were acquitted Thursday in the shooting deaths of six Chechen civilians, after admitting in court that they mistakenly opened fire on their vehicle, then shot the survivors and set the car on fire to conceal the incident.
A civilian jury in southern Russia apparently accepted the officers' defense that they were following the orders of their superiors. Some jurors joined family members in applauding as Capt. Eduard Ulman, 30, the special forces commander on the scene, was released.
The verdict concluded only the second major prosecution filed in what human rights groups say are years of abuses committed in Russia's long-running conflict in the breakaway republic of Chechnya. The acquittal was denounced even by the republic's pro-Kremlin president, Akhmad Kadyrov.
"Today's verdict has made it difficult to convince the people of Chechnya that the country has a just judicial system that is guided by law," Kadyrov told Interfax. "In spite of the clear gravity of the crime, which shocked the entire republic, the killers have been acquitted and released."
In another courtroom Thursday, a judge sentenced a Chechen rebel to life in prison for an attack on a Russian military helicopter that killed 127 soldiers on board. The court found that Doku Dzhantemirov, 27, had transported the portable antiaircraft rocket used in the August 2002 strike in Chechnya and also filmed the attack. Four other suspects are at large.
In the civilian shooting case, prosecutors said there were "legal contradictions" in the verdict that could provide the basis for an appeal.
"Of course, there was a crime," Ulman's lawyer, Roman Krzhechkovsky, said in an interview. "I think this case will be reinvestigated, and those who gave the order should be found and tried." Ulman, he said, "just executed an order. That is all."
According to interviews with witnesses, family members and lawyers, the captain's elite Spe- tsnaz unit was checking out reports that a notorious rebel commander was near the village of Dai when a jeep carrying five men and a woman failed to follow its order to stop.
The soldiers opened fire, killing the driver and wounding two passengers. Inside the vehicle the troops found two village school administrators, who were coming home from a conference; a farmer, a forester and a 41-year-old mother of seven. The sixth passenger, 22-year-old Magomed Musayev, though injured, had fled into the woods. He was found dead later about half a mile away.
