08 July 2008, 12:02
Woman from Kabardino-Balkaria wins suit against Russia's MoD
The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports that Rosa Khalishkhova, a resident of the city of Nartkala, Kabardino-Balkaria, who lost her son during the war in Chechnya, has adjudged 200,000 roubles from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of the Russian Federation as compensation of her moral damage.
Ms Khalishkhova's claim was considered by the Maikop City Court; from this city in 1995 as a soldier of the 131st Maikop Brigade her son Albert Khalishkhov went to Chechnya and disappeared there.
Nobody has ever informed the mother on what had happened with her son. For five years she was looking for him herself, trying to find him dead or alive, having covered on foot hundreds kilometres of Chechen land.
In 1999, Rosa Khalishkhova was wounded and captured by militants. Having hardly got out of the captivity, she continued the search of her son.
Rosa Khalishkhova says that her greatest victory is that the court has obliged the Ministry of Defence to provide her with the information about her son's fate within one month.
According to Rosa Khalishkhova, after disappearance of her son, the MoD's structures removed away from establishing the circumstances of his death and identification of the body, and rendered no assistance to the woman in searching her son, therefore, the court has ruled to partially satisfy her claim on moral damage compensation.
Let us note here that Ms Khalishkhova's interests at the trial were represented by the Foundation "Mother's Right".
Author: Luiza Orazayeva, CK correspondent