Russian military tortured Chechen brothers-court

MOSCOW, Jan 18 (Reuters) The European Court of Human Rights today ruled that the Russian military tortured two Chechen brothers when they were held in detention in 2000, the first such conviction against Russian forces.

Adam and Arbi Chitayev said they were beaten with full water bottles and rubber truncheons, almost strangled with adhesive tape and gas masks, had set dogs on them and their skin torn with pliers during about six months of detention.

They said they believed they had survived only because of an article written by Anna Politkovskaya, a critic of President Vladimir Putin and human rights campaigner who was shot dead last year, and thanks to help from a human rights group.

The Strasbourg-based court said in a ruling: ''It (the court) has found above that the authorities tortured the applicants and failed to provide a prompt and public investigation.'' It awarded each brother 35,000 euros (,280) compensation.

Human rights groups have long accused Russian forces of abuses in Chechnya, where a second separatist war has been under way since 1999, but Thursday's ruling was the first torture conviction against Russian forces.

Russia denies using torture in Chechnya. It can appeal against the ruling.

Russian soldiers detained the brothers in April 2000. They endured a week of beating at a local police station before guards drove them to the military-run Chernokozovo detention centre in Chechnya.

Under duress, the brothers signed confessions to working with Chechen rebels fighting Russian forces, but Arbi Chitayev said they had no rebel links.

''The conditions there were very tough,'' Arbi Chitayev, 41, told Reuters by telephone from Germany where he now lives.

''I think it's possible to compare conditions with fascist camps during the Second World War or with conditions at (late Soviet dictator Josef) Stalin's Gulags (Siberian prison camps).'' He said he and his brother had not seen Russian guards kill anyone but they were asked to carry bodies out to waiting trucks.

A few days after Politkovskaya's newspaper article, the two brothers were released -- six months after their initial detention. They were also helped by Memorial, a group of human rights lawyers who document kidnap and torture cases by both sides in Chechnya.

''It was Anna Politkovskaya who had my story. There was an article in a newspaper about my brother and myself,'' Arbi Chitayev said. ''Politkovskaya's interference and the Memorial people were the only thing that saved us.'' He said he had suffered from headaches and kidney problems after leaving Chernokozovo and had been scarred for life on his head and body.

REUTERS KD BST00.08