Captain Eduard Ulman and three other co-defendants are accused of attacking a jeep, killing six locals and burning a car during a reconnaissance mission in the North Caucasus republic in January 2002.
A RIA Novosti correspondent reported from the courtroom that the presiding judge was told that defense lawyer Olga Dzyba was ill, which led to an indignant response from an attorney acting for the victims.
"I consider the repeated non-attendance of defense lawyers to be a premeditated attempt on the part of the defendants and their lawyers to delay this trial," Lyudmila Tikhomirova said.
Preliminary hearings in the so-called 'Ulman case' had already been postponed three times, most recently in late August when it emerged that another defense lawyer was on vacation.
But Ulman's defense lawyer Roman Krzhechkovsky said "it was a simple coincidence of circumstances."
"People often fall ill," he said, adding that the lawyers are also involved in other trials, which are at least as important.
Ulman, Lieutenant Alexander Kalagansky, Major Alexei Perelevsky, and warrant officer Vladimir Voyevodin were acquitted twice on charges of murder and abuse of office by the North Caucasus District Military Court in jury trials, but Russia's Supreme Court overturned the rulings, returning the case to the local court for retrial.
The Supreme Court upheld an appeal filed by prosecutors and backed by lawyers acting for the victims, and ruled on June 7 that a professional non-jury court should hear the case.
The Constitutional Court ruled April 6 that serious crimes committed in Chechnya could be tried without a jury.
The ruling came following an enquiry made by Chechen President Alu Alkhanov concerning the legality of several articles in laws on military courts that he said gave the military rights not enjoyed by ordinary citizens.
Krzhechkovsky said a non-jury trial will most likely result in a guilty verdict with long sentences for defendants.
"A guilty verdict is predetermined if the case is decided in a professional non-jury court," he said.
Alkhanov said previously that servicemen suspected of crimes in Chechnya had been tried in front of a jury, while ordinary Chechen defendants would only be able to have jury trials as of 2007. He also said the jury in the Ulman case had not included ethnic Chechens, which had influenced the court decision.
The full-scale military offensive in Chechnya ended in 2000, when federal troops took control of the capital, Grozny. But militants continued resistance in Chechnya for several years and also carried out bloody terrorist attacks and hostage takings in other Russian regions.
Russian troops in the republic have also drawn international condemnation for human rights violations.
