Court finds Russia responsible for Chechnya deaths

STRASBOURG, France, Nov 9 (Reuters) The European Court of Human Rights condemned Russia today in two cases involving the deaths and disappearance of three people in Chechnya and ordered Moscow to pay compensation to the victims' families.

The ruling comes as Russia's human rights record and policies in Chechnya face close scrutiny following the October murder of a investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya who was a fierce critic of Moscow's war in the turbulent region.

The first case involved a nurse whose body was found in a mass grave in February 2001 after she disappeared in Grozny the previous year. A forensic report established that she had died from multiple skull fractures inflicted by a blunt object.

''The court considered that there existed a body of evidence ... which made it possible to hold the state authorities responsible for Nura Luluyeva's death,'' the court said.

It also criticised Russia for failing to carry out a proper investigation into the case and ordered Moscow to pay nearly 70,000 euros (,440) in damages to members of her family.

The second case dealt with the disappearance of a son and father in 2000 and 2002.

The court found Russia was responsible for the presumed death of the son and that the father had also died following ''unacknowledged detention by state authorities''.

It said Russia must pay 90,000 euros in damages to the wife and mother of the two victims.

The ruling is the latest in a series of judgements by the court to have gone against Russia.

In October it found Russia responsible for the deaths of five Chechens, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old child, in late February 2000.

In July, the court found Russia guilty of violating the ''right to life'' of a young Chechen who disappeared after a Russian general ordered him shot.

Russian rights groups estimate there have been 3,000-5,000 disappearances in Chechnya since Russian troops moved to crush the breakaway region's self-declared independence in 1999.

They say Russian troops have used abduction, rape and torture as weapons and the government has done too little to punish those responsible.

Russia says the situation in Chechnya is getting back to normal after the region elected a Moscow-backed president and parliament and adopted a constitution.

REUTERS AB RN2148