CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 29 octobre 2009

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .sA678F94A { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right; font-size:11pt } .s598389F8 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center; font-size:11pt } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s11AD46B1 { font-family:Arial; font-size:7.33pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s34DFC730 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s92A5AB2 { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .sE0D34C67 { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s4BAE41EE { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt } .s2E932ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:11pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s99A63BFE { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left; font-size:11pt } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s5FFF0A7E { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:8pt } .sCC018295 { font-family:Arial; font-size:5.33pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   No. 810 29.10.2009   Press release issued by the Registrar   Three Chamber judgments [1] in respect of Russia   Khantiyeva and Others v. Russia (no. 43398/06) Satabayeva v. Russia (no. 21486/06) Vakhayeva and Others v. Russia (no. 1758/04)   DISAPPEARANCES IN CHECHNYA   Violations in all three cases of Article 2 (right to life of Mayrudin Khantiyev, Yusup Satabayev and Kazbek Vakhayev and lack of an effective investigation into their disappearances), Article 3 (inhuman treatment on account of the applicants’ psychological suffering), Article 5 (unacknowledged detention) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights; and, violation, in the last two cases, of Article 38 § 1 (refusal to submit documents requested by the Court)   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded the applicants a total of 9,000   euros   (EUR) in respect of pecuniary damage, EUR 105,000   in respect of non-pecuniary damage, and EUR   16,540 for costs and expenses. (The judgments are available only in English.)   Principal facts   The applicants in the first case are the parents, wife and son of Mayrudin Khantiyev, born in 1972. They have not seen their relative since 4 December 2000 when a group of armed men in dark-green camouflage uniforms burst into the family flat and, tying Mr Khantiyev up with adhesive tape, took him away in a vehicle with blackened windows and no licence plates. The applicants alleged that their relative had been abducted by Russian servicemen; the Government stated that Mayrudin Khantiyev had been kidnapped and taken away to an unknown destination by an unidentified illegal armed group who had passed themselves off as Russian servicemen, a frequent occurrence at the relevant time.   The applicant in the second case is the mother of Yusup Satabayev, born in 1977. The applicants in the third case are the mother, wife and children of Kazbek Vakhayev, born in 1975. All the applicants live in Urus-Martan (the Chechen Republic) where their two relatives were arrested, on 23   February and 1 August 2000, respectively: Mr Satabayev in the context of criminal proceedings against him for participating in an organised armed gang and illegal dealing in firearms; and, Mr Vakhayev during a security raid carried out on the eastern sector of town. Mr Satabayev’s mother alleged that, although the criminal proceedings against her son had been discontinued on 27 July 2000, he had not been released but transferred to the Urus-Martan temporary Department of the Interior of the Chechen Republic (the “VOVD”), a temporary police station with a detention facility set up in a former boarding school. Similarly, Mr Vakhayev was kept in the VOVD. The applicants routinely visited that detention centre and sent parcels to their relatives (for which they received receipts signed by their relatives) until 13 August 2000 when they were told by the authorities that their relatives had been released. The Government conceded that Mr Satabayev had been detained from 23   February to 1 August 2000 and then from 4 to 14 August 2000 and that Mr Vakhayev had been detained from 1 to 11 August; it failed however to provide any documents to confirm the arrests, subsequent detention or release. The applicants maintained that their relatives had never been released; they had subsequently identified from video footage their relatives’ bodies which had been found near the village of Goy-Chu.   Complaints and procedure   The three cases concerned the applicants’ allegations that their close relatives disappeared in Chechnya after having been detained by Russian servicemen. All the applicants further complained that the domestic authorities had failed to carry out an effective investigation into their allegations. They relied in particular on Articles   2, 3, 5 and 13. In the cases of Satabayeva and Vakhayeva and Others the applicants also complained about the Russian Government’s refusal to submit copies of the entire investigation file on the disappearance of their relatives, in breach of Article 38 § 1.   Decision of the Court   In the first case the Court considered that the applicants had presented a coherent and convincing picture of their relative’s abduction, corroborated by witness statements from neighbours and hand-drawn maps of their block of flats, situated in Grozny near at least three military checkpoints and with two military watch posts on its roof. Indeed, given the Russian authorities’ exclusive control over the area, the Court found it difficult to understand how a group of armed men in a vehicle without registration plates could abduct the applicants’ relative without any reaction by the servicemen posted on the roof of the block of flats. The Court therefore held that the evidence available to it established beyond reasonable doubt that the applicants’ relative had been abducted by agents of the State and that he had to be presumed dead following his unacknowledged detention by Russian servicemen during a security operation.   In the last two cases the Court found the Government’s submissions concerning the alleged release of the applicants’ relatives to be contradictory and inconsistent; nor had the Government, despite the Court’s requests, provided any proof that Yusup Satabayev or Kazbek Vakhayev had in fact been released. It therefore found it established that they had remained in continued detention under State control from, respectively, 23 February and 1   August 2000 onwards. There had been no reliable news of either of the applicants’ relatives since 14 August 2000; their names had not been found in any official detention records after that date and the Government had not submitted any explanation as to what could have happened to them. It was therefore found to be established that the applicants’ relatives had disappeared after 14 August 2000 while they remained in State custody and had to be presumed dead following their unacknowledged detention.   Noting in all the cases that the authorities had not justified the use of lethal force by their agents or otherwise accounted for the deaths, the Court concluded that there had been a violation of Article 2 in respect of all of the applicants’ relatives.   In all three cases, the Court further held that there had been violations of Article   2 relating to the authorities’ failure to carry out effective investigations into the circumstances in which the applicants’ relatives had disappeared.   The Court also found that all the applicants had suffered and continued to suffer distress and anguish as a result of the disappearance of their relatives and their inability to find out what had happened to them. The manner in which their complaints had been dealt with by the authorities had to be considered to constitute inhuman treatment, in violation of Article   3.   Lastly, the Court found in all three cases that the applicants’ relatives had been held in unacknowledged detention without any of the safeguards contained in Article   5, which constituted a particularly grave violation of the right to liberty and security enshrined in that article.   This press release is a document produced by the Registry; the summary it contains does not bind the Court. The judgments, with the composition of the Court, are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int/ ).   ***   Press contacts Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) or Stefano Piedimonte (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 04) Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 70) Céline Menu-Lange (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 58 77) Frédéric Dolt (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 53 39) Nina Salomon (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 49 79)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.   [1] Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17 ‑ member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer.