The state did not insure us against terrorist attacks, but it insured itself against claims from their victims

Smoke of the Fatherland

What do we have? Not long ago, a young lawyer, Venera Kamalova, won a lawsuit against the Moscow government for compensation for material damage to the family of Timur Khaziev, a musician who died in the "Nord-Ost" siege. The widow and daughter of the deceased will be paid about $50,000 over 11 years. This is an exceptional case for Russian justice.

According to the law "On Combating Terrorism," moral and material damage caused by a terrorist attack must be compensated by the Ministry of Finance, and immediately, and then the money should be recovered from the perpetrators through subrogation. Nevertheless, the Moscow City Court, considering the case of the apartment bombings, refused to involve the Ministry of Finance as a defendant.

In the "Nord-Ost" trial, however, the Ministry of Finance did not escape this fate. The ministry representative then recognized the "fairness of the claims in the material part," but did not recognize "its obligation to compensate," although the obligation to pay for moral and material damage is provided for by the Civil Code. It says there in black and white: damage caused to a citizen as a result of criminal actions (inaction) of state bodies is subject to compensation.

All other arguments are legal casuistry and the state's elementary unwillingness to pay.

But when the victims at the Theater Center on Dubrovka filed lawsuits in court, the speaker of the Moscow City Duma, Vladimir Platonov, stated: "In the event of compensation payments, an increase in the cost of living in Moscow and the final impoverishment of pensioners and public sector workers is inevitable." Truly a statesmanlike mind: he cannot think of any other source of income besides the pockets of pensioners and teachers.

And how should one evaluate in this regard the words of former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, which he spoke while handing over housing certificates to Volgodonsk residents who lost their apartments: "This is a small compensation, moral and psychological..."

The number of victims of the Volgodonsk explosion is growing: three suicides and beatings for seeking the truth

...Ministry of Health No. 222. But it is a long way from the Moscow bosses to Volgodonsk.

Doctors who conducted the examination of the victims of the residential building explosion managed to do without specialists—military medics. What's more—they did without the victims themselves! Somehow, three forensic experts "examined" about 800 people in one day, which is simply impossible.

Who benefits from such a deception? Such a check (and investigators refused to conduct it for many victims altogether) deprived many people of the opportunity to prove that they suffered specifically from the terrorist attack. That is, the state's expenditures on compensation, already meager, were sharply reduced. Savings, you see...

Victim Irina Polinskaya told "Novaya": "The examination was done without us, based on our documents. For everyone, they wrote that sick leave was no more than 21 days. For me, who spent months in the hospital, they also wrote 21 days and a medium severity injury. We were not allowed to see these conclusions. We only discovered the results of the examination at the Prosecutor General's Office when we started the lawsuit. Therefore, we could not appeal them earlier or conduct a second examination. And we don't have money for an independent examination. All the doctors in Volgodonsk are afraid they will be fired, so you won't get the truth."

Another victim, Lyudmila Dubinskaya, under whose house the powerful explosion occurred, was diagnosed with a "cut on the left heel." "Besides our house, 56 houses around were damaged, but we, who were in the destroyed house, are considered completely healthy!" she says. "When the explosion happened, some of us victims, about 200 people, were taken out of town to an old [illegible]... they were given to anyone but the victims. One of the residents of the bombed house, upon learning about this, wanted to douse herself with gasoline and set herself on fire: she had been waiting for a voucher for two years, and she was told she would get nothing. Another victim, Lyudmila Galkova, tried to prove she had the right to rehabilitation. City health officials did not believe her and called the police. She had to go to court—the voucher was found immediately."

Among the victims, there is an epidemic of suicides. After the terrorist attack, people were supposed to be provided with psychological help, but according to Volgodonsk residents, there was none. However, the city's psychologists and psychiatrists claim the opposite. The chief physician of the Volgodonsk dispensary, Galkin, said in 2001: "More than two thousand people turned to us regarding mental disorders. And even now, two years after the tragedy, more than 600 victims continue to be treated at the Volgodonsk psychiatric dispensary."

Victim from Volgodonsk Viktor Sitnitsky said that "after the terrorist attack, the husband of Lyudmila Kremneva committed suicide, and when she was given an apartment to replace the destroyed one, they deducted his 18 square meters... In addition, they did not include her daughter in the certificate calculation, who is studying in Novosibirsk and does not have her own living space. The same situation occurred in the Fedorov family (the father threw himself out of a window). In the city's housing department, the widow was told: 'Say thank you to your neighbors who made the fact of the suicide public (publication in "Argumenty i Fakty" — Ed.), now they know about it in Rostov, and we are obliged to take these meters away from you.'"

A city health official, who wished to remain anonymous, told us for a long time that... in the region, funds are not allocated for prosthetics...

To all claims, the victims are told: you have already received everything due by law—according to government decree No. 1503-r, they were paid 50,000 rubles for lost property. And that's it. That's why the Volgodonsk residents went to court. They tried to have this very government decree declared illegal—they wrote to the Supreme Court.

On February 7, 2003, the court replied that the government decree cannot be illegal because it is "incorrectly interpreted and executed by officials on the ground," and in the event of its cancellation, "the rights of the victims... to receive compensation payments, provision of housing, and implementation of medical and social rehabilitation measures will be violated, since these issues are not regulated by any other legal acts."

Did you understand anything? Translation: there are many violations—if we cancel what exists, there will be even more violations of the law, and as for where your money is—figure it out yourselves.

THEIR WAY

To make it clear what is really happening, in Israel, a law on victims of terrorist attacks appeared in 1970. It applies not only to Israelis but also to foreigners. The status of victims is largely equated to the status of military personnel. The law gives a person the opportunity to receive necessary medical care for free, during the entire period of treatment, a pension in the amount of three average salaries. If after the end of the rehabilitation course a person is still unable to work, they have the right to apply to a state medical commission, which will determine the degree of disability. In case of total loss of work capacity-