Russian Pilots Likely To Go Unpunished

Chances are fading that the Russian aviator or aviators who killed six young Chechen children and their mother on April 8 (see Chechnya Weekly, April 21) will face serious penalties. In an April 29 article for Novaya gazeta, Anna Politkovskaya reported that the federal military procuracy based in the Russian army’s fortress at Khankala (outside Grozny) had finally opened a criminal investigation into the case – but was treating it merely as a matter of “negligence.” In addition, she wrote, “none of the pilots has been detained, none has even been required to pledge that he will not leave the area, no forensic examination of the bomb fragments has been ordered…and no decision has been made about exhumation.”