CEDH · CASELAW;JUDGMENTS;CHAMBER;ENG — 24 février 2005

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margin-left:17.3pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s5D08A2D6 { margin-top:0pt; margin-left:34.6pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s94DFC72B { margin-top:0pt; margin-left:17.3pt; margin-bottom:12pt } .s2452CEB3 { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:36pt; text-indent:14.4pt } .s5EA978D4 { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:36pt; text-align:left; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s2DF49AA6 { width:24.54pt; display:inline-block } .s6AC2EB63 { width:201.8pt; display:inline-block } .s7602FED2 { width:18.21pt; display:inline-block } .s60570E66 { width:233.81pt; display:inline-block } .s379BC09C { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s8978683B { font-family:Arial; letter-spacing:1.6pt } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } .sB343B0AA { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#000000 }     FORMER FIRST SECTION     CASE OF ISAYEVA, YUSUPOVA and BAZAYEVA v. RUSSIA     (Applications nos. 57947/00, 57948/00 and 57949/00)     JUDGMENT     STRASBOURG     24 February 2005       FINAL     06/07/2005       This judgment will become final in the circumstances set out in Article   44 §   2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Isayeva, Yusupova and Bazayeva v. Russia The European Court of Human Rights (Former First Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:   Mr   C.L. Rozakis , President ,   Mr   P. Lorenzen ,   Mr   G. Bonello ,   Mrs   F. Tulkens ,   Mrs   N. Vajić ,   Mr   A. Kovler ,   Mr   V. Zagrebelsky, judges and Mr S. Nielsen , Section Registrar , Having deliberated in private on 14 October 2004 and 27 January 2005, Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on the last ‑ mentioned date: PROCEDURE 1.     The case originated in three applications (nos. 57947/00, 57948/00 and 57949/00) against the Russian Federation lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by three Russian nationals, Medka Chuchuyevna Isayeva, Zina Abdulayevna Yusupova and Libkan Bazayeva (“the applicants”), on 25, 27 and 26 April 2000 respectively. 2.     The applicants, who had been granted legal aid, were represented by Mr Kirill Koroteyev, a lawyer of Memorial, a Russian Human Rights NGO based in Moscow, and Mr William Bowring, a lawyer practicing in London. The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented by Mr P. A. Laptev, the Representative of the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights. 3.     The applicants alleged, in particular, that they were victims of indiscriminate bombing by Russian military planes of a civilian convoy on 29   October 1999 near Grozny. As a result of the bombing, two children of the first applicant were killed and the first and the second applicants were wounded. The third applicant's cars and possessions were destroyed. The applicants alleged a violation of Articles   2, 3 and 13 of the Convention and of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. 4.     The applications were allocated to the Second Section of the Court (Rule   52 §   1 of the Rules of Court). Within that Section, the Chamber that would consider the case (Article 27   §   1 of the Convention) was constituted as provided in Rule 26   §   1. 5.     On 1 November 2001 the Court changed the composition of its Sections (Rule 25   §   1). This case was assigned to the newly composed First Section (Rule 52   §   1). 6.     The Chamber decided to join the proceedings in the applications (Rule 42   §   1). 7.     By a decision of 19 December 2002, the Court declared the applications admissible. 8.     The applicants and the Government each filed observations on the merits (Rule 59   §   1). 9.     A hearing took place in public in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 14 October 2004 (Rule 59   §   3).   There appeared before the Court: (a)     for the Government Mr   P. Laptev , Representative of the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights,   Agent ,   Mr   Y. Berestnev ,   Counsel , Mrs   A. Saprykina ,   Adviser ; (b)     for the applicants Mr   B. Bowring , Professor,   Counsel , Mr   P. Leach , Mr   K. Koroteyev , Mr   D. Itslaev ,   Advisers .   The Court heard addresses by Mr Laptev, Mr Bowring, Mr. Leach and Mr. Koroteev. THE FACTS I.     THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE 10.     The first applicant was born in 1953, the second applicant was born in 1955 and the third applicant was born in 1945. The first two applicants are residents of Chechnya. The third applicant currently lives in Germany. A.     The facts 11.     The facts surrounding the bombing of the civilian convoy and the ensuing investigation were partially disputed. In view of this fact, the Court requested the Government to produce copies of the entire investigation files opened in relation to the bombing. The Court also asked the applicants to produce additional documentary evidence in support of their allegations. 12.     The submissions of the parties on the facts concerning the circumstances of the attack on the convoy and the ensuing investigation are set out in Sections 1 and 2 below. A description of the materials submitted to the Court is contained in Part B. 1.     The attack on the civilian convoy 13.     The first and third applicant lived in the city of Grozny, and the second applicant in Staraya Sunzha, which is a suburb of Grozny. In the autumn of 1999 hostilities began in Chechnya between the federal military forces and Chechen fighters. The city and its suburbs were the targets of wide-scale attacks by the military. The applicants allege that at some date after 25   October   1999 they learned from radio and television announcements, including on the all-Russian channels RTR and ORT, that on 29 October 1999 a “humanitarian corridor” would be arranged for civilians to escape from the fighting in Grozny. 14.     Because of the attacks the third applicant and her family left Grozny on 26   October 1999 and went to stay with relatives in the village of Gekhi. The first applicant and her relatives tried to cross the border with Ingushetia on 28   October, but were told by the military at a roadblock that the corridor for civilians would be open the next day. 15.     Early in the morning of 29   October 1999 the first and the second applicants and their relatives – about a dozen persons in a RAF mini-van – left Grozny along the road towards Nazran, also known as the Rostov – Baku highway, or the “Kavkaz” highway. Around 8   a.m. they reached the military roadblock “Kavkaz-1” on the administrative border between Chechnya and Ingushetia. There was already a line of cars about one kilometre long. The first applicant and some relatives walked to the roadblock and the military informed them that they were expecting an order from their superiors to open the road, and that the order should arrive at about 9 a.m. The weather was bad at that time, it was cloudy and raining. 16.     The family of the third applicant left the village of Gekhi at about 5   a.m. on 29   October 1999 in three cars, a Zhiguli, a Niva and a blue GAZ-53, and travelled along the road to Nazran. When they reached the queue in front of the roadblock, they were assigned numbers 384 and 385 in the line. The line of cars grew very quickly, and there were three or four times as many cars behind them as in front. The third applicant estimated that there were over 1,000 cars in the column, including trucks, vans and buses. 17.     People started asking the servicemen about the opening of the border. At first they were told that it should be opened after 9   a.m., and that the soldiers were expecting an order to that effect. The first applicant estimated that about 11   a.m. a senior officer came out and told the people that the “corridor” would not be opened that day and that he had no information as to when it would be opened. According to the applicants, he also ordered everyone to clear the space in front of the roadblock and to return to Grozny. The column started to turn around, but progress was very slow because there were several lanes of cars and little space. 18.     The applicants turned around and were slowly moving with the convoy away from the roadblock. According to the second applicant, there was a large number of cars, and the column stretched over about 12   kilometres. Sometime later the clouds cleared and the applicants saw two planes in the sky. The planes turned over the column and fired missiles. 19.     The driver of the first and the second applicants' minivan stopped and the passengers started to get out. The first applicant's children, Ilona (also spelled Elona) Isayeva (born in 1983) and Said-Magomed Isayev (born in 1990) and her sister-in-law Asma Magomedova (born in 1954) were the first to get out. The first applicant saw them thrown to the side of the road by a blast. She recalled that the planes circled around the convoy and dropped bombs several times. The first applicant's right arm was hit by a fragment of a shell and she fainted. When she regained consciousness and ran to her relatives, all three were dead from shell-wounds. Another woman, Kisa Asiyeva, who was in the minivan, was also killed. After the attacks were over, the first applicant was taken by car with other wounded person to a hospital in Atagi. The doctors treated the wounds and sent her home, because there was no room in the hospital. One week later the first applicant travelled to Nazran, Ingushetia, where she had an operation on her right arm. She needs another operation on her arm. 20.     The second applicant recalls that, as their mini-van was nearing Shaami-Yurt, they saw two planes in the sky launching rockets. In a few minutes a rocket hit a car immediately in front of theirs. The second applicant thought the driver was hit, because the car turned around abruptly. When they saw this, everyone started to jump out of the minivan, and then the second applicant was thrown over by another blast. She fainted, and when she regained consciousness, she realised that two of the first applicant's children, Ilona Isayeva and Said-Magomed Isayev, were dead. The second applicant believes that there were eight explosions after the first one. She was dragged to the side of the road by others, but later she returned to the road to help the first applicant to collect the bodies. Said-Magomed had a wound to the abdomen and Ilona's head had been torn away, and one leg was crushed. The second applicant was wounded by shells in the neck, arm and hip. Their minivan was not hit, and they used it to leave the scene afterwards. On 7   November 1999 she was taken to Ingushetia by ambulance for further treatment. 21.     The third applicant was in a Zhiguli car with her husband and his friend. Her son and two of her husband's nephews, one with his wife, were in the GAZ car behind them. She recalled that the rain stopped and the sky cleared when they passed the village of Khambirzi and were nearing the village of Shaami-Yurt. Then there was a powerful blast, and their car was thrown to the left side of the road. All its windows were broken. The third applicant realised that there had been a blast behind, and she ran over to see if her son and his cousins were alive. She believes that in the 50-60 metres she ran along the road to find her son's car, she saw several destroyed cars, vans and trucks and 40-50 dead bodies, disfigured and mutilated, some of them in vehicles, some thrown around by the blasts. She recalled a bus with the rear side totally destroyed and a Kamaz truck with human and cattle bodies inside. 22.     The third applicant, her husband and their friend picked up some people who needed help. Their Zhiguli car had flat tyres, but they reached Shaami-Yurt, where they changed tyres. They then travelled back to Gekhi where their relatives lived. In the meantime, the applicant's son picked up the wounded and took them to a hospital in Achkhoy-Martan, the district centre. He later returned to the place of the bombing, as he was not sure if the third applicant had been able to leave it. The planes were still flying over the remains of the convoy and struck again. Their GAZ car with all the family possessions was destroyed by a direct hit, as well as their Niva car. The applicant's son and his cousins ran on foot through neighbouring villages, and in the evening reached Gekhi. They later fled to Ingushetia. 23.     The applicants are not certain about the exact timing of the attack, as they were in a state of shock. They accepted the timing of the attack given by the Government. They submitted transcripts to the Court of interviews with other witnesses of the attack. In their testimonies these witnesses described the bombing of a convoy of refugees from Grozny near the village of Shaami-Yurt on 29   October 1999, confirming that after the strikes they saw numerous burned and damaged cars, including at least one Kamaz truck filled with civilians and at least one bus. They also confirmed that there were dozens of victims, killed and wounded. Several testimonies concerned the deaths of the first applicant's relatives (see Part B below for a description of the testimonies). 24.     The applicants submitted that they saw only civilians in the convoy, and that they did not see anyone from the convoy attempting to attack the planes. 25.     According to the Government, on 29   October 1999 the representative of the Chechen Committee of the Red Cross decided to evacuate the office to Ingushetia. As he did not co-ordinate the move with the military authorities, when he and a convoy of vehicles reached the check-point “Kavkaz-1” on the administrative border with Ingushetia, they had to turn back as the check-point was closed. 26.     The Red Cross could have used the opportunity to inform the security and military authorities in advance about their travel, which would have made it possible for them to ensure a safe evacuation route. The checkpoint was closed because it could not supervise the passage of a “fair quantity of refugees”. On the way back to Grozny the convoy was joined by a Kamaz truck carrying rebel Chechen fighters. 27.     At that time the military authorities were planning and conducting counter-terrorist operations in the Achkhoy-Martan district, aimed at preventing supplies and personnel of the rebel fighters being brought to Grozny by heavy transport, as well as identification and suppression of any other persons, supporting networks or command centres offering armed resistance to the authorities. 28.     As part of that mission, on 29   October 1999 two military SU-25 aeroplanes, flown by military pilots identified for security reasons as “Ivanov” and “Petrov”, were on a mission to conduct reconnaissance and to suppress such movements. At around 2   p.m., when flying over the village of Shaami-Yurt, they saw vehicles moving towards Grozny. The planes were attacked from a Kamaz truck with large-calibre infantry fire-arms. The pilots reported the attack to an air-traffic controller identified as “Sidorov” at the command headquarters, and were granted permission to use combat weapons. At about 2.15   p.m. the planes fired four rockets each from a height of about 800 metres at the Kamaz, which they estimated carried at least 20 fighters, and destroyed it. They then located a second Kamaz truck on the same road on an intersection with a road to the village of Kulary, from which they were also attacked. The pilots retorted by launching two missiles each at the target. They then returned to their deployment aerodrome. In their submissions on the admissibility of the applications, the Government indicated the timing of the attack as 2.05   –   2.20   p.m. and 3.30   –   3.35   p.m. 29.     The Government conceded that apart from the two Kamaz trucks targeted, other vehicles were destroyed or damaged. From the observations on the merits submitted by the Government, it appears that 14 civilian vehicles were damaged. This resulted in 16 civilians being killed and 11 wounded. Among the killed were two employees of the local Red Cross Committee and the first applicant's three relatives. Among the wounded were the first and the second applicant. The Government did not submit any information about the number or names of wounded or killed fighters in the Kamaz trucks. 30.     At the same time, the Government submitted that the pilots had not foreseen and could not have foreseen the harm to the civilian vehicles, which appeared on the road only after the rockets had been fired. In the Government's view, the fighters were deliberately using the convoy, which had been moving without authorisation, as a human shield. The radius of damage of the rockets is 600 – 800 metres, which explained the casualties. 31.     In connection with the incident, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva issued a press release on 30   October   1999. It stated that, according to the local branch of the Red Cross, on 29   October 1999 a convoy of vehicles, among them five vehicles of the Chechen Committee of the Red Cross, had tried to cross the border into Ingushetia but had been turned back at the check-point and were returning to Grozny. All five cars were clearly marked with the Red Cross sign, and the truck displayed a red cross on its roof. They were attacked by missiles from aeroplanes, as a result of which two Red Cross workers were killed and a third was wounded. A number of other vehicles were also hit, resulting in some 25 civilian deaths and over 70 injured. 32.     The Russian military air force issued a press release which stated that on 29   October 1999 at 2   p.m. a column of trucks with fighters and ammunition was moving along the road from Nazran towards Grozny. A SU-25 plane flying over the convoy was shot at with automatic weapons and called a second plane for support. The planes hit the convoy with missiles at an interval of five minutes, as a result of which two trucks full of fighters were destroyed. The press service denied that civilians could have been hit by the air strikes. 33.     On 2 December 1999 the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), New York, stated that on 29   October 1999 two TV journalists, one working for a Moscow-based company, and the other for a local station in Grozny, were killed during a military attack on a convoy of refugees fleeing Grozny near the village of Shaami-Yurt. According to the statement, the two journalists were covering the movement of a convoy, and when the first rocket hit a bus with refugees, they went out to film the scene. As another rocket hit a nearby vehicle, both were fatally injured. 34.     The attack on the convoy was reported in the Russian and international media. 2.     The investigation of the attack 35.     On 20 December 1999, at the first applicant's request, the Nazran District Court of Ingushetia certified the deaths of Ilona Isayeva, born on 29   May 1983, and Said-Magomed Isayev, born on 30   October 1990, “due to shell-wounds received as a result of bombing of a convoy of refugees from Grozny by fighter planes of the Russian military air force on the “Kavkaz” road between the villages of Shaami-Yurt and Achkhoy-Martan on 29   October 1999, around 12 noon”. 36.     In September 2000 the Ingushetia Republican Prosecutor introduced a request for supervisory review to the Presidium of the Supreme Court of Ingushetia, by which he sought to quash the decision of 20   December 1999. On 17   November 2000 the request was granted, and the decision was quashed. The case was remitted to the District Court. The Government submitted that the first applicant failed to appear at the District Court for a new consideration and that her place of residence was unknown. On 18   March 2002 the Nazran District Court adjourned the case due to the first applicant's failure to appear on summonses. 37.     On 3   May 2000 the military prosecutor of the Northern Caucasus military circuit ( военная прокуратура Северо- Кавказcкого военного округа ), military unit no.   20102, located in Khankala, the Russian federal military headquarters in Chechnya, opened a criminal investigation, no.   14/33/0205-00, concerning the aerial bombardment of a refugee convoy near the village of Shaami-Yurt on 29   October 1999. 38.     The investigation confirmed the fact of the bombardment, the deaths of the first applicant's relatives and the wounding of the second applicant. It also identified several witnesses and relatives of other victims of the bombardments, who were questioned. Some of them were granted victim status and recognised as civil plaintiffs. The investigation identified a number of individuals who had died as a result of the strikes and who were wounded. It also identified two pilots who had fired at the convoy and the control tower operator who had given permission to use combat weapons. The pilots, who were questioned as witnesses, stated that their targets had been two solitary Kamaz trucks with armed men, who fired at the planes. In response, the pilots used eight S-24 air-to-ground missiles [1] against the first truck and four such missiles against the second truck. No one was charged with having committed a crime (see Part B below for a description of the documents in the investigation file). 39.     On 7 September 2001 the criminal investigation was closed due to lack of corpus delicti in the acts of the pilots. This decision was appealed to the military court by a victim of the attack, Ms Burdynyuk. Following her complaint of 6 June 2002, the Bataysk Garrison Military Court quashed the investigator's decision on 14   March 2003 and remitted the case for a new investigation to the military prosecutor of the Northern Caucasus military circuit (see §   88 below). 40.     After the hearing of 14   October 2004 the Government submitted a document of 5   May 2004 issued by a military prosecutor of the Northern Caucasus military circuit. By this decision the criminal investigation was again closed due to the absence of corpus delicti in the acts of the pilots (see §§   90-97 below). 41.     The applicants stated in their submissions that they were not aware of any adequate steps taken by the authorities to conduct an efficient and meaningful investigation and to ensure their participation in it. The first applicant submitted that some time after her complaint to the Court had been communicated to the Russian Government, her elder brother, Aslanbek Vakhabov, was twice visited at his house in Chechnya by the military prosecutors, who were looking for her. After the second visit the prosecutors left a note for the first applicant, instructing her to appear at the Khankala military base for questioning. The first applicant failed to do so. She submitted that Khankala was the main military base of the federal forces in Chechnya, was not freely accessible to civilians and was heavily guarded and surrounded by numerous check-points. It would be very difficult and unsafe for her to attempt to get there on her own, and she believed that the prosecutors could have found her either in Ingushetia, where she was staying, or in Chechnya, where she travelled. The first applicant was also aware that prosecutors from the Chechen town of Achkhoy-Martan were once looking for her in Ingushetia, while she was in Grozny. 42.     The second and third applicants were never called for questioning. They were not given any official information in relation to the incident. None of the applicants was officially informed that they had been granted the status of crime victims ( потерпевшие ), as provided by Article   53 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. B.     Documents submitted 43.     The parties submitted numerous documents concerning the investigation into the killings. The main documents of relevance are as follows: 1.     Documents from the investigation file 44.     The Government submitted a copy of the investigation file in the criminal case, divided into two volumes. No list of documents was provided, but it is apparent from the numbering of the pages that there were initially at least three volumes and that a certain part of the file is missing. According to the documents submitted, the investigation made some attempts to locate the first applicant and, to a lesser extent, the second applicant. Although some of their relatives were questioned and granted victim status (it is not clear whether they were informed of this), the investigators did not contact the first and the second applicant directly. It does not appear that the third applicant was ever sought. The documents contained in the case-file present a coherent and detailed account of the attack of which the applicants complain. 45.     The most important documents contained in the file are as follows: a)   Documents from the Red Cross 46.     The Moscow Office of the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) addressed the Main Military Prosecutor's Office in Moscow in relation to the attack on the convoy on 29   October 1999. On 29   October 1999 the ICRC urgently informed the Ministry of Internal Affairs that, due to a rapid deterioration of the security situation in Grozny, the local personal of the ICRC and of the Chechen Committee of the Red Cross were being evacuated from Grozny by a convoy of five trucks and six passenger vehicles. The letter stated that the vehicles would not be marked by any emblem. 47.     Later on 29 October 1999 the ICRC again urgently informed the Ministry of the Interior that the Red Cross personnel were unable to cross the border with Ingushetia. The road between Ingushetia and Grozny was under fire and one of the Red Cross trucks had been damaged. 48.     On 16   November 1999, in reply to a request from the Main Military Prosecutor's Office of 9   November 1999, Mr Ruslan Isayev, chairman of the Chechen Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, submitted his account of the attack. He submitted the following: “I have been the Chairman of the Chechen Committee of the Red Cross since January 1995. We worked together with the ICRC, taking care of 15,000 elderly and disabled persons in Chechnya... From 1   October 1999 we had to close the food centres since electricity and gas had been cut off, but we continued to bake bread using diesel fuel and to distribute it to 12,000 elderly persons... Starting from 20   October 1999 Grozny came under heavy air bombardment, and on 27   October we stopped all programmes, because it was impossible not just to work, but to stay there. We started to prepare to evacuate, and I informed the ICRC Office in Nalchik [Kabardino-Balkaria] of this fact. Because all public media were declaring that an exit route to Ingushetia would be opened for refugees on 29   October 1999, we decided to evacuate on 29   October 1999, together with the ICRC staff. In order to evacuate we needed special permission, and on 29   October we brought all our transport to the [rebel] commandatura , which issued a permit to travel. I went ahead of the convoy to check the road, and saw several craters from explosions on the road, so I personally ensured that we had flags with red crosses on the roofs of our three trucks. Our cars travelled in a convoy, and at about 8.30 a.m. we were in a line of cars on the Rostov- Baku highway. The line extended for about 3 kilometres from the check-point [at the border with Ingushetia]. About 10 a.m. at the check-point, where about 3000 people were waiting and no one was let through, a general appeared ... and said that no one would be allowed to cross, because the check point was not prepared. He said that it would open five days later, that everyone should go back, and that he guaranteed that the road would not be attacked. Until about 11.30 a.m. we could not turn around, because of a line of cars about seven kilometres long behind us. At noon we started to move towards Grozny. I was heading the convoy in a Zhiguli car, the others were behind me. Other refugees followed our convoy, having seen our red cross symbols; they were also flying white flags. About two kilometres before Shaami-Yurt I saw two military planes launching rockets. As cars were also approaching from opposite direction, I thought that they had been shooting at something by the side of the road. In order to verify, I accelerated and went ahead of the convoy. When I reached the bridge, I saw the road turning to the left and the planes bombing the road. When I reached the spot, two trucks were lying on the left side of the road, both on their sides, on the right side a Zhiguli car was burning after a direct hit and nearby a woman covered in blood was trying to take out of the car a man's beheaded body. I stopped to help, but at that moment passengers in my car whom I had picked up on the road to Grozny started to scream and pointed to the skies. I saw two military planes coming towards us. I got back into the car and drove forward. After about 100 metres the car jolted and the back windscreen was broken. The car slowed down because one of the back wheels had been punctured. After 600 metres I reached Shaami-Yurt, where I let the passengers out, changed the tyre and returned to the convoy. When I approached the bridge I saw a horrible site. In front, on the bridge, was our Mercedes truck. Its cabin was almost entirely gone. Other cars were behind it. I ran to the truck and saw that the bodies of two drivers, Aslanbek Barzayev and Ruslan Betelgeriyev, were torn apart. Then I started to look for the others. To the right under the road I found Ramzan Musliyev, who was wounded in the back. Then I found other colleagues who were assisting the wounded from a PAZ bus, which had taken a direct hit by a rocket; 12 people had been killed on the spot. We took the wounded and two cars with broken windows which could drive and went to the village of Khambirzi. I told the staff to unload the trucks and take away the dead after things had calmed down. In the meantime I drove the wounded to the village of Alkhan-Yurt. At 4   p.m. I returned to my colleagues in Khambirzi. They told me that the planes had returned and attacked the convoy twice more, and that they had descended to a very low height and shot at the cars with machine-guns. To sum up, on 29   October 1999 between 12 and 4   p.m. on the bridge near the village of Shaami-Yurt, military planes attacked a civilian convoy containing refugees five times; consequently, dozens of cars were destroyed, about 25 persons were killed and about 75 were wounded. I believe that many victims were hurt because numerous refugees followed our convoy, having noticed the Red Cross sign. I and my colleagues categorically deny that the planes were allegedly shot at from the convoy. Starting from the cross-roads with the road to Urus-Martan, not only we did not see any cars with an anti-aircraft gun, but we did not see not a single armed person. While in Chechnya we ourselves suffered from the [Chechen] fighters, who accused us on many occasions of working for the Russians, and our office and staff had been attacked, so we were very cautious. I cannot state that the pilots deliberately aimed at the Red Cross convoy, but they could not have failed to see our trucks with the crosses on the ill-fated bridge, and afterwards they were striking at the civilian convoy for four hours.” 49.     To this statement were appended copies of the identity documents of the two drivers who had been killed, Aslanbek Barzayev and Ramzan Bitilgiriyev. There was also a travel permit for six vehicles, issued by an “independent Chechen authority” – the Aldy commandatura – on 29   October 1999. 50.     Three other testimonies were collected from the Red Cross workers in April 2000. They confirmed Isayev's statements as regards the timing and the circumstances of the attack and the identity of the victims who had been Red Cross employees. b) Decision to start the criminal investigation 51.     On 27 April 2000 a military prosecutor from military unit no.   20102 in Khankala issued a decision not to open a criminal investigation into the complaint by the Red Cross Committee. The decision said that a review of the complaint established that the Red Cross convoy was travelling on 29   October 1999 to Ingushetia, and that it could not cross the administrative border because the check-point had not been prepared. The convoy movements were not coordinated with the headquarters of the United Group Alignment (UGA). When returning to Grozny, the convoy, together with other vehicles, was attacked at the bridge near the village of Shaami-Yurt by “unidentified airborne devices”. The decision further referred to information from the headquarters of the UGA that, according to the operations record book, on 29   October 1999 the UGA aviation forces had not conducted flights in the vicinity of Shaami-Yurt. The investigator concluded that there was no proof that the servicemen from federal forces had been involved in the air bombardment of the Red Cross convoy and refused to open a criminal investigation because of the absence of a corpus delicti in the actions of servicemen of the armed forces. 52.     On 3 May 2000 a prosecutor of the Military Prosecutor's Office for the Northern Caucasus in Rostov-on-Don quashed the decision of 27   April 2000 and ordered an investigation. On 10   May 2000 the military prosecutor of military unit no.   20102 accepted the case no.   14/33/0205-00 for investigation. On 28   June 2000 the case-file was transferred to another investigator within the same military unit. 53.     After communication of the case by the Court to the Russian Government in June 2000, the Prosecutor's Office for the Northern Caucasus requested information about the case from the Chechnya Republican Prosecutor's Office. On 13   September 2000 the Achkhoy-Martan District Prosecutor's Office opened criminal investigation no.   26045 into the killing of the first applicant's three relatives and the wounding of the first and the second applicants. In November 2000 the criminal case was forwarded for investigation to military unit no.   20102. On 4   December 2000 a military prosecutor in the same military unit joined it with the investigation no.   14/33/0205-00. 54.     It appears that at some point in 2001 the criminal case was transferred for further investigation to the North Caucasus Military Prosecutor's Office in Rostov-on-Don. c) Documents related to the Burdynyuk family 55.     Among the victims of the attack were Nina and Boris Burdynyuk, residents of Grozny. The husband was killed in the attack, and the wife was wounded. On 6   December 1999 Nina Burdynyuk wrote to the local military prosecutor in Anapa, Krasnodar Region, where she was staying. She stated that on 29   October 1999 she and her husband travelled along the “humanitarian corridor” that had been declared for Grozny residents. Through a local transport agency, they had arranged in advance for a truck to collect them and their movable property. As the roadblock was closed, they had to go back to Grozny. At 1.10 p.m. near the village of Shaami-Yurt they were attacked by military planes. Their car was thrown to the side by a blast, which killed her husband, and wounded her and the driver. Ms   Burdynyuk was taken away by passers-by for first aid, but returned for her husband's body, which had in the meantime been taken to a village mosque. With the assistance of a local resident, she took her husband's body to a roadblock near Achkhoy-Martan and buried it in a shallow grave. On 4   November she reached Anapa, where her daughter lived. She was treated in hospital for head trauma and concussion. Upon release from the hospital, on 2   December 1999, she returned to Chechnya to collect her husband's body. On 5   December 1999 she placed it in the Anapa town morgue. She requested the military prosecutor of the Novorossiysk Garrison to open a criminal investigation into the attack and to order a forensic expert report on her husband's body. 56.     On 8 December 1999 a forensic report on the body of Boris Burdynyuk concluded that he had died of a shell wound to the chest, possibly in the circumstances indicated in his wife's statement. On 8   December 1999 the Anapa civil registration office issued a death certificate for Boris Burdynyuk, who had died on 29   October 1999 in the village of Shaami-Yurt, Chechnya. 57.     The documents pertaining to the case were forwarded to the military prosecutor of military unit no.   20102, who on 7   February 2000 issued a decision not to start criminal investigation because no crime has been committed. There were no grounds to conclude that military pilots could have been involved in the death of Boris Burdynyuk. 58.     On 23   October 2000 that decision was quashed by a military prosecutor of military unit no.   20102. The investigation was joined to investigation of criminal case no.   14/33/0205-00, which concerned the attack on the Red Cross convoy. 59.     On 1 September 2000 Ms Burdynyuk was questioned as a witness. On the same day an investigator of the Anapa Prosecutor's Office, acting upon directions from the military prosecutors, issued a decision to recognise her as a victim and as a civil plaintiff in the case. d) Questioning of the first applicant's relatives 60.     On 11 August 2000 two of the first applicant's relatives – her brother Aslanbek Vakhabov and nephew Alikhan Vakhabov - were questioned as witnesses. Aslanbek testified that his wife and son, the first and the second applicants and other relatives (he named 12 persons) had left Grozny on the morning of 29   October 1999 for Ingushetia. The witness had remained at home, and at about 5   p.m. his relatives had returned with the same minibus. Four of the people inside had been killed and the rest were wounded, as a result of an air strike at the convoy. The first applicant's two children, Ilona Isayeva and Said-Magomed Isayev, were buried in the Chernorechye cemetery near Grozny. Alikhan Vakhabov, a teenager who was in the minibus, testified about the circumstances of the attack and about his splinter wound in the left shoulder. He was treated in the Atagi hospital immediately after the incident, and then stayed for some time in the Nazran hospital in Ingushetia. 61.     On 18 October 2000 the investigators questioned Zhalavdi Magomadov, a relative of the Vakhabovs, who was in the minivan on 29   October 1999 and who gave a detailed account of the events. He submitted that there were 15 passengers in the minibus, himself included, plus the driver. He estimated the timing of the attack between 12 and 1 p.m., because some people had stopped by the road for the midday prayer ( namaz ). He recalled that first he heard an explosion in front of their car, where a Mercedes truck had been travelling. Their minivan stopped and everyone started to get out of the car and ran towards the shoulder of the road. At that point a second explosion occurred on the right side of the road. The witness was wounded by shrapnel in both legs, one arm and his back and he was in a state of shock, but he recalled two other explosions somewhere nearby. He further recalled being brought by his relatives to the hospital in Staraya Sunzha, where he was operated on and shrapnel were extracted from his body. Six passengers in the van were killed: the witness's mother (Asma Magomedova) and two sisters, the first applicant's two children and another woman. The witness submitted that no forensic examinations were performed on the bodies before burial and that he objected to exhumation of the bodies of his mother and two sisters. Seven passengers in the minivan, including himself and the driver, received shrapnel wounds of varying severity. When asked if he had heard anyone shooting from the convoy at the planes, the witness denied it and said that he did not see any armed men in the convoy. He also produced a detailed drawing of the site, with an indication of the placement of the cars on the road and the explosions. 62.     The investigators attempted to find the first and the second applicants. In September 2001 they questioned a resident of Nazran, who stated that in September 1999 – autumn 2000 two families of refugees, the Yusupovs and Isayevs had lived in his house. He did not know anything of the attack in October 1999 and did not know where they had gone afterwards. e) Examination of the site 63.     On 15 August 2000 the investigators of military unit no.   20102, together with two employees of the Red Cross who had witnessed the attack, travelled to the site. They found the damaged carcass of the Mercedes truck about 30 metres from the bridge and photographed it and the fresh asphalt patch on the road where the witnesses stated the crater had been. The Red Cross submitted their own photographs of the destroyed truck and of the explosion craters on the road. f) Documents related to identification of other victims 64.     The investigation attempted to identify and question other victims of the attack or their relatives and to collect medical records and death certificates. Requests were sent to the local