Forty-one inhabitants of the Borozdinovskaya village in northern Chechnya filed a suit against the Defense Ministry demanding moral damages of $4.8 million following a special operation carried out by federal servicemen in the summer of 2005. The raid allegedly left one person dead and 11 missing.
The judge said the ruling could be appealed within 10 days.
The defense lawyer, Ramzan Radzhabov, said the lawsuit followed servicemen's brutal treatment of the villagers.
"On June 4, 2005, armed servicemen of the Vostok battalion of the Defense Ministry entered the village. They blocked the village using weapons and special equipment," Radzhabov said.
"They gathered all the local men together and forced them to lie face down on the ground. They beat the residents of Borozdinovskaya for eight hours in pouring rain," he said.
Straight after the raid, about 1,000 villagers left Borozdinovskaya for neighboring Daghestan where they set up a tent camp. A month after the incident, all of them agreed to return to the village after local authorities offered them security guarantees and promised to find the missing people who have not been found.
During the court session, the plaintiffs failed to offer any documental proof of their physical injuries. "We have no medical papers because people did not believe these cases would ever be opened," Radzhabov said, and added he was not surprised by the court decision.
"Of course, we had no doubt that the court would not rule in our favor - who would admit such crimes?" Radzhabov said but added he would appeal.
A Defense Ministry representative said the suit was unsubstantiated. "Documents confirming that dozens of people were beaten up with batons, rifles and other objects were not presented to court," he said.
The defendant's lawyer denied that the servicemen had committed any brutalities or had forced the villagers to leave their homes.
"There is no fault of the Defense Ministry here, and seeking moral damages from the Defense Ministry is a violation of the Civil Code," he said.
The court earlier decided to consider the 41 lawsuits separately but re-united them Tuesday following a request from the ministry.
In late January, a Moscow district court rejected a similar suit against the ministry from one of the villagers, Uzeir Abuliyev. Abuliyev's lawyer then said the federal servicemen who raided Borodzinovskaya "abducted and killed locals, torched four houses, and subjected all the community's male population to torture."
He said his client had also been tortured and beaten up, and made to spend eight hours lying on the ground in heavy rain.
The Defense Ministry submitted documents proving that Abuliyev had reversed his earlier testimony about the cruel treatment he had allegedly suffered during the "mopping-up operation".
Abuliyev has appealed with the Moscow City Court.
