Russia troops in new murder trial

Russian troops are still embroiled in Chechnya

Russia's Supreme Court has quashed a not guilty verdict on four soldiers accused of killing Chechen civilians.

They were found not guilty of murder and abuse of power over the 2002 shootings of six Chechens, including a pregnant woman.

Supreme Court judges ruled that there had been "considerable violations" of criminal rules during the case, which had dismayed human right activists.

The case will be retried at a military court in the North Caucasus.

The so-called "Ulman case", named after one of the defendants, is a rare example of Russian soldiers facing prosecution for alleged atrocities committed in Chechnya, where Russia has fought two wars since 1994.

The acquittals prompted angry protests in Chechnya when the verdicts were delivered in May.

'No reason to kill'

The shooting happened at a checkpoint inside Chechnya in 2002.

Captain Eduard Ulman and three other soldiers from a Russian elite military unit fired on a van which failed to stop at a checkpoint.

One of six civilians in the vehicle, a schoolteacher, was killed instantly and two others were wounded in the mountainous Chechen region of Shatoi.

The soldiers said they made radio contact with headquarters to report their blunder and were told to shoot the survivors to cover up the incident.

They then gunned down the civilians, loaded the bodies back into the vehicle and set it alight.

"The guilty must be punished, wherever and whoever they are," the Associated Press news agency reported Koka Tuburova, a relative of one of the victims, as saying after the retrial verdict.

Natalya Belyaeva, acting for the soldiers, insisted they were following orders, and had no "personal motivation".