Russian blames government for son's siege death
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Alexander Karpov's mother says Russian security forces rescued him from a Moscow theatre siege in 2002, then let him die by leaving him unconscious on the steps outside for seven hours. He was 31 years old.
More than 100 of some 700 people who were watching the Nord-Ost musical when Chechen rebels took them hostage died, most from the effects of the gas Russian commandos pumped into the theatre. Some choked on their own vomit, others suffocated.
Victims' relatives who have been fighting since then to seek legal redress over the botched rescue received a boost this month when the European Court of Human Rights agreed to hear their 2003 suit against the Russian government.
The court has given the government until June 27 to respond to the accusations before ruling on the case.
"I am ready to lodge documents with the Strasbourg court that relate not to the death of my son Alexander Kaprov in Nord-Ost, but to a clear-cut murder of my son by the authorities who did not make appropriate effort to rescue the hostages," Tatiana Karpova told reporters on Thursday.
She said according to information she had her son received no medical help for seven hours and might have been still alive when taken to the morgue as the temperature of his corpse was 35.5 Celsius (95.9 Fahrenheit).
"This is a temperature of a living person. With such temperature my son was taken to the morgue. I do not know whether he was alive at the time or whether he had literally just died."
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