European Court finds Russia responsible for kidnapping and probable murder of two residents of Chechnya

Today, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has passed a decision on the complaint "Abaeva et al versus Russia", having ruled that Russian government should pay compensation of moral damage of 60,000 euros to relatives of the kidnapped citizens of Chechnya Magomed-Ali Abaev and Anvar Shaipov.

The complaint was lodged to the ECtHR five years ago by relatives of Messrs Abaev and Shaipov, who had been illegally detained by Russian power agents and then disappeared.

As reported by the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", on September 13, 2000, power agents detained the above young men at a block post, located 50 meters off the Abaevs house in the Lenin Street in the city of Urus-Martan, Chechen Republic, and took them to a subdivision of the federal troops deployed in the territory of a garment factory.

The eyewitnesses of the detention - two residents of Urus-Martan, who live nearby, - immediately notified Abaev's relatives about the detention. The latter went to the block post aiming to find out the reasons of the detention. Servicemen told them that in the yard of the factory Abaev's and Shaipov's documents will be checked, and they would be set free.

While the relatives were waiting for the promised release, a grey-coloured UAZ van without number plates drove to the factory. The militaries passed the van in, and soon it drove out. After that, the militaries announced that the detainees had been let out from the other side of the factory. However, people were on duty on the other side either, waiting for the young men, and they saw nobody going out of the factory.

The young men never came home, and their whereabouts is still unknown.

On the of Abaev's and Shaipov's disappearance their relatives met Lechi Mamatsuev, deputy head of the administration of the Urus-Martan District, who was then in charge of contacts with power agencies. Mamatsuev told them that, under his data, Abaev and Shaipov had been brought to the grouping of federal troops named "Zapad" (West), deployed near Tangi-Chu village, Urus-Martan District. He promised that on the following day, September 14, the detainees would be brought to Urus-Martan.

However, Abaev and Shaipov were never released. Mamatsuev said that militaries had changed in the "Zapad" grouping, and he could not find out where the detainees were taken. He supposed that they could be sent to the main military base of federal troops in Khankala in a suburb of a Grozny or to the investigatory isolation facility in Chernokozovo.

Relatives continued their searches of Abaev and Shaipov, but they failed to get any official information. About two weeks after the detention, a young Chechen came to their house and said that he has seen Anvar Shaipov in the disposition of the 245th Motor Rifle Regiment, a unit of the "Zapad" grouping of federal troops. The young man said that he himself had been there as a detainee, and then was released.

Only two and a half years after detention, on February 6, 2003, the prosecutor's office of the Urus-Martan District initiated a criminal case on the kidnapping; however, a year later the investigation of the case was suspended. The Urus-Martan District Court upheld the suspension; on February 8, 2005, the Supreme Court of Chechnya approved the decision; and on September 9, 2005, relatives of the missing young men addressed the ECtHR.

Now, five years later, the ECtHR has passed its decision on the case "Abaevа et al versus Russia". The Court found that the responsibility for the kidnapping and probable murder of the applicants' relatives is on the state, and that the authorities had failed to conduct an efficient investigation into the crime.

The ECtHR has ruled that relatives of each of the kidnapped persons should receive 60,000 euros each as moral compensation; and some of the applicants will also get 12,000 thousand euros for material damage. The Court has also obliged the Russian authorities to pay 2115 euros to applicants' representatives for rendered services.

The applicants' interests were presented by the HRC "Memorial" and the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC, London).