Captain Eduard Ulman and three other servicemen have been accused of attacking a jeep and killing its driver and passengers during a reconnaissance raid in the troubled North Caucasus republic in January 2002.
Colonel Vladimir Plotnikov, the officer in charge of the operation, dismissed witness allegations that the men were acting on his orders. He said the unit was not under his command, but under that of Major Alexei Perelevsky's.
"The headquarters of the special-task reconnaissance unit was based separately and had its own radio channel for communication. The unit did not answer to me, and I was not entitled to give them any orders," he said.
He admitted he received reports about the attack, but said no one told him the passengers were civilians.
"Perelevsky told me about five or six killed militants, and I instructed him to verify their number," he said. "It was not until the next day that I learned there were civilians in the car."
But witness Alexei Chernogrivov, who took part in the raid as a radio operator, said Perelevsky went to see Plotnikov for further instructions after the car had been stopped.
"He [Perelevsky] could receive the order only from the commander of the operation, Plotnikov, that is," he said.
On Perelevsky's return, all the people in the jeep were presumably pulled out and shot dead, after which the car was torched.
The co-defendants earlier admitted involvement, but denied the charges against them. North Caucasus Military Court juries twice acquitted Ulman, Perelevsky, Lieutenant Alexander Kalagansky and Warrant Officer Vladimir Voyevodin on charges of murder and abuse of office.
But the Supreme Court upheld an appeal filed by prosecutors and backed by lawyers acting for the victims, and ruled June 7 that a professional non-jury court should hear the case.
Prosecutors expect about 40 witnesses to appear in court hearings.
The Constitutional Court ruled April 6 that serious crimes committed in Chechnya could be tried without a jury. The ruling came following an inquiry made by Chechen President Alu Alkhanov concerning the legality of several articles in the laws on military courts that he said gave the military rights not enjoyed by ordinary citizens.
Alkhanov said previously that servicemen suspected of crimes in Chechnya had been tried in front of juries, while ordinary Chechen defendants will only be able to have jury trials as of 2007. He also said the jury in the Ulman case did not included ethnic Chechens, which influenced the court's decision.
Ulman's defense lawyer, Roman Krzhechkovsky, earlier said a non-jury trial would most likely result in a guilty verdict with long sentences for his defendants.
"A guilty verdict is predetermined if the case is decided in a professional non-jury court," he said.
