CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 22 juillet 2010

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[1] Both cases concerned the applicants’ allegations that their close relatives had been kidnapped by Russian servicemen in Chechnya. They further complained that the domestic authorities had failed to carry out an effective investigation into their allegations. They relied in particular on Articles 2 (right to life) and 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights. The judgments are only available in English.     1.     Benuyeva and Others v. Russia (application no. 8347/05)   The applicants are 15 Russian nationals who live in different parts of Chechnya. They are the close relatives (parents, brothers and sisters) of Sayd-Selim Benuyev, born in 1982, and of Abu Zhanalayev, born in 1973.   According to the applicants, Sayd-Selim and Abu, aged 20 and 29 at the time, were abducted from their homes on 24 November 2002 by around 12 armed men wearing masks. The men entered their courtyards and asked for Abu’s identity papers and for Sayd ‑ Selim himself. Having returned to the courtyard after collecting Abu’s passport, his relatives saw no trace of Abu or the armed men and noticed a vehicle driving away from their courtyard. Sayd-Selim was dragged barefoot into the street, with a sack (or bag?) over his head, put into another vehicle and driven away. Both vehicles had distinctive marks, such as scratches on one side and an aerial, and a white cloth replacing broken windows. A few minutes later, relatives of Abu and Sayd-Selim took a car and chased the vehicles driving away with the two men. They stopped only after a serviceman from the military commander’s office came out of one of the vehicles and told them that the vehicles belonged to the department of the interior of the Urus-Martan District in Chechnya and that, if they continued in pursuit, they might be shot. The following day, the head of that department told the applicants that he had contacted those who had abducted Abu and Sayd Selim and had asked them not to use force against them. A day later, some of the applicants saw the two vehicles leave the interior department’s courtyard. There has been no news of Abu or Sayd-Selim since, despite the applicants’ repeated enquiries, both in writing and in person, to various official bodies. The criminal investigations into their disappearance, which have so far lasted more than seven years, have produced no tangible results.   Violation of Article 2 (right to life) in respect of Abu Zhanalayev and Sayd-Selim Benuyev; 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) on account of the mental suffering of the mother of Sayd-Selim and the parents of Abu; No violation of Article 3 (inhuman and degrading treatment) on account of the mental suffering of the rest of the applicants; Violation of Article 5 (unacknowledged detention) in respect of Abu Zhanalayev and Sayd-Selim Benuyev Violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) in conjunction with Article 2   The Court awarded 1,500 Euros (EUR) to Sayd-Selim’s mother and EUR 1,500 to Abu’s parents for pecuniary damage, as well as EUR 55,000 to Sayd-Selim’s mother and EUR 55,000 to Abu’s parents for non-pecuniary damage, and EUR 850 to each of the remaining applicants in respect of non-pecuniary damage, and also EUR   4,000 for costs and expenses.     2.     Akhmatkhanovy v. Russia (application no. 20147/07)   The applicants are four Russian nationals who are the parents, sister and wife of Artur   Akhmatkhanov. In the morning of 2 April 2003, Artur and his mother had gone to the city centre to run errands, when she realised she needed a document and returned home to fetch it. Shortly after she reached her house, she heard shooting coming from the former medical storehouse located about 250 metres away. She approached the site and saw that it had been cordoned off by Russian military servicemen. After going back to the city centre, and not finding her son, she returned home only to learn from her husband that Artur’s cap had been found at the site of the shooting. Several neighbours told her afterwards that they had either met Artur at the site shortly before the shooting, or that they had seen servicemen putting a young man with a plastic bag over his head into an armoured vehicle and driving away towards the city centre. In the afternoon of the same day, investigators went to the medical storehouse and collected cartridge and blood samples, apparently for a forensic examination. Two days later, an investigation was opened into Artur’s disappearance. The applicants’ complaints were forwarded numerous times to various prosecutors’ offices. In December 2006, an investigator, in charge of the case at the time, told Artur’s mother that the file did not contain any information about the blood samples and cartridges collected at the crime scene. The latest letter of February 2007 by Artur’s father to the prosecution authorities, asking for information on the progress of the investigation, received no reply.   The Russian Government submitted that the investigation was suspended and resumed several times for failure to identify the perpetrators and was still in progress. Despite specific requests by the Court, the Government did not disclose the full contents of the criminal case, claiming that such a step was incompatible with domestic legislation.   Violation of Article 2 (right to life) in respect of Artur Akhmatkhanov; Violation of Article 2 (right to life) for failure to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances of Artur’s disappearance; Violation of Article 3 (inhuman and degrading treatment) on account of the mental suffering of Artur’s parents, sister and wife; Violation of Article 5 (unacknowledged detention) in respect of Artur; Violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) in conjunction with Article   2   The Court awarded Artur’s wife EUR   15,000 in respect of pecuniary damage, EUR   60,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage to Artur’s parents, sister and wife jointly for non-pecuniary damage, and EUR   5,500 for costs and expenses.   **************   Information concerning the Court’s findings in these cases   The Court considered that the relatives of the two disappeared men had provided a consistent account of the abductions. The fact that a group of armed men in uniform and with military vehicles had been able to move freely through the two towns, to arrest Abu and Sayd-Selim, and to open fire after sealing off an area, had strongly supported the applicants allegations that those men had been Russian servicemen conducting a security operation. Further drawing inferences from the Russian Government’s failure to submit documents – despite specific requests from the Court – to which it exclusively had access, and the fact that it had not provided any other plausible explanation for the disappearances in question, the Court considered that the three young men had to be presumed dead following their unacknowledged detention by Russian servicemen. Accordingly, there had been a violation of Article 2 in respect of Abu, Sayd-Selim and Artur.   In both cases the Court found that there had been further violations of Article   2 on account of the authorities’ failure to carry out effective investigations into the circumstances in which Abu, Sayd-Selim and Artur had disappeared.   The Court also found that the mother of Sayd-Selim, the parents of Abu, as well as the parents, sister and wife of Artur, had suffered distress and anguish as a result of the disappearance of their close relatives and their inability to find out what had happened to them. The manner in which those applicants’ complaints had been dealt with by the authorities had to be considered to constitute inhuman treatment in violation of Article   3.   Furthermore, the Court held that the three young men 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.   The Court finally held that, as the criminal investigations into the disappearance and killings of the applicants’ relatives had been ineffective and the effectiveness of any other remedy that might have existed had consequently been undermined, the State had failed in its obligation under Article 13. Consequently there had been a violation of Article 13 in conjunction with Article   2 in both cases.   ***   The judgments are available only in English. This press release is a document produced by the Registry. It does not bind the Court. Decisions, judgments and further information about the Court can be found on its Internet site . To receive the Court’s press releases, you can subscribe to the Court’s RSS feeds .   Press contacts [email protected] / +33 3 90 21 42 08 or Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (telephone: + 33 3 88 41 35 70) or Emma Hellyer (telephone: + 33 3 90 21 42 15) Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone: + 33 3 88 41 35 30) Céline Menu-Lange (telephone: + 33 3 90 21 58 77) Frédéric Dolt (telephone: + 33 3 90 21 53 39) Nina Salomon (telephone: + 33 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 Articles   43   and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month period following its 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 the   day the   request is rejected. 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 .