CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 17 juin 2010

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .s2E932ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:11pt } .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 } .s8304C6AF { font-family:Arial; font-size:7.33pt; font-weight:bold; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s4BAE41EE { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt } .s92A5AB2 { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .sA101A847 { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt; font-weight:bold } .sE0D34C67 { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .sE202B2ED { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .s1F6AC3E7 { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt; font-style:italic } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s99A63BFE { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left; font-size:11pt } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .s7C768949 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0000ff } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .s9FE28126 { margin-top:0pt; margin-right:42.5pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left; font-size:11pt } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .sB853CD26 { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt } .s52B1583 { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 }   490 17.06.2010   Press release issued by the Registrar [1]   Two Chamber judgments against Russia concerning disappearances in Chechnya and Ingushetia   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing two Chamber judgments concerning Russia, neither of which is final. [2] The applicants in both cases alleged that their close relatives were abducted and killed by Russian servicemen in Chechnya and Ingushetia, respectively, following unacknowledged security operations. They complained that the domestic authorities failed to carry out an effective investigation into their allegations. They relied in particular on Articles 2 (right to life), 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), 5 (right to liberty and security) and 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights. The judgments, which may be consulted on the Court’s website ( www.echr.coe.int ), are only available in English.     1.     Batayev and Others v. Russia (application nos. 11354/05 and 32952/06)   The ten applicants are Russian nationals and belong to six families. Their seven male relatives were detained in two separate incidents in 2000 in Grozny or the Grozny district and subsequently disappeared. The applicants’ account of the events is based on witnesses’ statements.   In the afternoon of 18 September 2000, Khasan Batayev, Zaur Ibragimov, Magomed Temurkayev, Rizvan Ismailov, Sayd-Ali Musayev and Kharon Musayev were taken away from Khasan Batayev’s home in Grozny by a group of men, armed with machine guns, wearing camouflage uniforms and speaking unaccented Russian, who had burst inside the house. Neither of the applicants’ relatives have been seen or heard of since. The Government did not contest the facts as presented by the applicants but submitted that there was no evidence that the abductors had been servicemen.   On 8 January 2000, Usman Mavluyev, walking from Grozny towards the village, where his wife, the tenth applicant, was staying with their children, was stopped at a checkpoint for a document inspection by servicemen, dragged into a military vehicle and taken away. He has not been heard of since. The Government did not challenge most of the facts as presented by the applicant, but referred to the abductors as “unidentified persons”.   The first nine applicants enquired with the prosecutors and other authorities, asking for assistance and details of the investigation into the disappearances, but received almost no information. Between October 2000 and April 2001, the Grozny town prosecutor opened criminal investigations into the kidnapping of the first nine applicants’ relatives. The investigations were suspended and resumed on several occasions and have produced no tangible results. The applicants’ claim for compensation for their relatives’ abduction was dismissed by the domestic courts.   Although the tenth applicant applied to the district department of the Federal Security Service a few days after her husband’s disappearance and repeatedly enquired with the Deputy Prosecutor of Chechnya, a criminal investigation was only opened more than four years later, in April 2004. The investigation was suspended and resumed on several occasions, and has so far failed to identify the perpetrators. In September 2008, the applicant’s request to study the case file was granted   The Government did not disclose most of the contents of the files of the criminal investigation into the first nine applicants’ relatives, stating that the investigation was in progress and that disclosure of the documents would be in violation of domestic criminal procedural legislation since the file contained information of a military nature and personal data concerning the witnesses or other participants in the criminal proceedings.   Violation of Article 2 (right to life) in respect of the applicants’ seven relatives Violation of Article 2 (right to life) for failure to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances of their disappearance Violation of Article 3 (inhuman and degrading treatment) in respect of the applicants Violation of Article 5 (unacknowledged detention) in respect of the applicants’ seven relatives Violation of Article13 (right to an effective remedy) in conjunction with Article 2   The Court held that Russia is to pay, in respect of pecuniary damage, 745 euros (EUR) to the parents of Khasan Batayev and between EUR 745 and 12,000 to the fourth to tenth applicant individually; in respect of non-pecuniary damage, EUR   60,000 respectively to the parents of Khasan Batayev, to the mother and wife of Zaur Ibragimov, to the mother and wife of Magomed Temurkayev, to the mother of Rizvan Ismailov and to the wife of Usman Mavluyev, and EUR 120,000 to the mother of Sayd-Ali and Kharon Musayev; for costs and expenses, EUR 4,150 to the first nine applicants jointly and EUR 3,500 to the tenth applicant.   2.     Tovsultanova v. Russia (application no. 26974/06)   The applicant, a Russian national, currently lives in the village of Katar-Yurt in Chechnya. She is the mother of Said-Magamed Tovsultanov, born in 1970.   According to witnesses’ statements, on 13 or 14 June 2004, her son was apprehended in the village of Sleptsovskaya in Ingushetia, where he was staying with relatives, by a group of armed masked men in camouflage uniforms, who took him away in a car.   With the help of relatives, the applicant contacted various official bodies, such as the Russian President, the Chechen administration, departments of the interior and prosecutors’ offices, asking for help in establishing the whereabouts of her son. In June 2005, the prosecutor opened a criminal investigation and took a number of steps. In particular, witnesses were questioned, the crime scene was inspected and information requests were forwarded to a number of law-enforcement authorities. The investigation was subsequently suspended for failure to identify the perpetrators. In February and March 2008, the applicant complained to the district prosecutor and to the district court about the ineffectiveness of the investigation and requested access to the investigation file. Both of her complaints were rejected. The Government did not challenge the facts as presented by the applicant, but submitted that she had not witnessed the events, that her son’s body had not been found and that the involvement of State representatives in his abduction and death had not been established. Despite requests by the Court for a copy of the investigation file, the Government produced only part of the investigation file.   No violation of Article 2 (right to life) in its substantive limb in respect of Said-Magamed Tovsultanov Violation of Article 2 (right to life) for failure to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances of his disappearance   The Court held that Russia is to pay the applicant EUR   30,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR   5,500 for costs and expenses.     Additional information concerning the Court’s findings in these cases   In the case Batayev and Others , the Court noted that despite its requests for a copy of the investigation file into the abduction and disappearance of the first nine applicants’ relatives, the Government had produced hardly any documents from the case file, referring to the incompatibility of such disclosure with domestic legislation. In previous cases the Court had already found that explanation insufficient to justify the withholding of key information it had requested. The Court found that it could draw the inference from the Government’s conduct that the applicants’ allegations were well founded. Moreover the fact that a large group of armed men in uniform, equipped with military vehicles, was able to move freely through military roadblocks in broad daylight strongly supported the applicants’ claim that these had been State servicemen.   According to the uncontested evidence submitted by the ten applicants, their seven relatives had not been seen or heard of after their abduction. Having regard to previous cases before it concerning disappearances in Chechnya, the Court found that in the context of the situation in the region, the detention of a person by unidentified servicemen without any subsequent acknowledgment of the detention could be regarded as life-threatening. In the absence of the applicants’ relatives or of any news about them for many years, the Court found that the applicants’ relatives had to be presumed dead following their unacknowledged detention by state servicemen and that their death could be attributed to the State. There had accordingly been a violation of Article 2 in respect of the applicants’ seven relatives.   The Court further held that there had been a violation of Article   2 on account of the authorities’ failure to carry out an effective investigation into the circumstances in which the applicants’ relatives had disappeared.   The Court also found that the applicants had suffered mental suffering as a result of the disappearance of their relatives and the lack of any plausible information about what happened to them, in violation of Article   3.   The Court found 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.   The Court further held that as the criminal investigations into the disappearances had been ineffective and the effectiveness of any other remedy that may have existed, including civil remedies as suggested by the Government, had consequently been undermined, the State had failed in its obligation under Article 13 of the Convention. Consequently there had been a violation of Article 13 in conjunction with Article   2.   In the case Tovsultanova , the Court noted that in other cases concerning disappearances of civilians it had found the Russian authorities responsible primarily on the basis of witness statements and based on the fact that the areas in question had been in exclusive control of the State, in view of security operations being carried out there. However, the present case differed from those cases in that the account of the events submitted by the applicant was based entirely on the summary of third persons’ anonymous statements. Moreover, the applicant’s statements before the investigators and the Court differed substantially and she had raised the issue of the possible involvement of State agents in her son’s abduction only after she had lodged her application with the Court. The applicant had further not alleged that there had been any military vehicles in the vicinity of the crime scene. The Court concluded that the information before it did not establish beyond reasonable doubt that State agents were involved in the abduction of the applicant’s son. As a consequence, it did not find a violation of the substantive limb of Article 2.   The Court noted that the investigation into the abduction had been instituted almost a year after the events in question, with part of the delay being attributable to the applicant herself. After the first steps the investigators had become inactive and failed to follow up important leads, such as by questioning the officers who had been on duty at a relevant checkpoint on the day of the events. The investigation had been suspended for almost three and a half years without an explanation, and was resumed only after the case before the European Court of Human Rights had been communicated to the Government. In conclusion, the Court found that the authorities failed to carry out an effective criminal investigation into the disappearance of the applicant’s son, in violation of Article 2 in its procedural aspect.   *** Press contacts [email protected] / +33 3 90 21 42 08   Nina Salomon (tel: + 33 (0)3 90 21 49 79) or Stefano Piedimonte (tel: + 33 (0)3 90 21 42 04) Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel: + 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (tel: + 33 (0)3 88 41 35 70) Céline Menu-Lange (tel: + 33 (0)3 90 21 58 77) Frédéric Dolt (tel: + 33 (0)3 90 21 53 39)   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] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. [2] Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, Chamber judgments are not final. During the three-month period following their delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. If such a request is made, a panel of judges considers whether the case deserves further examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final judgment. If the referral request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day. Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of its execution. Further information about the execution process can be found here: www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution