Russia was held responsible for the massacre of dozens of civilians in Chechnya in a judgment yesterday by the European Court of Human Rights.

A chamber of seven judges, including one Russian, criticised the Kremlin in unusually severe terms after ruling unanimously in favour of relatives of 11 of the victims.

It awarded the five Chechens €143,000 (£95,000) in damages and €20,000 in costs after finding Russian military forces guilty of murder. The dead were among more than 50 people killed in the village of Novye Aldy, near Grozny, the Chechen capital, in February 2000.

“The court found it established that the applicants’ relatives had been killed by servicemen and that their deaths could thus be attributed to the State,” the chamber declared.

“No explanation had been forthcoming from the Russian Government as to the circumstances of the deaths, nor had any ground of justification been relied on by them in respect of the use of lethal force by their agents.”

The court condemned an official investigation by Russia as a cover-up, adding that no attempt had been made to bring the soldiers to justice despite ample evidence and witness testimony and a domestic and international outcry.

“In the court’s view, the astonishing ineffectiveness of the prosecuting authorities in this case could only be qualified as acquiescence in the events.”

The court found that Russia broke Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It had violated the right to life of the victims and failed their relatives by conducting an inquiry that the court described as “wholly inadequate”.

It also ruled that one of the five applicants, 67-year-old Yusup Said-Aliyevich Musayav, had suffered degrading treatment in breach of Article 3 of the convention.

He witnessed Russian troops killing seven of his relatives, then was threatened and forced at gunpoint to lie on the ground.

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