6.  The applications have been lodged by five families who complain about the disappearance of their eight male relatives in Grozny or the Grozny District between March 2002 and July 2004. The abductions occurred in quite similar circumstances: the applicants’ relatives were arrested by groups of armed and masked men at their homes or in the streets in a manner resembling a security operation. In each case a criminal investigation file was opened by the local prosecutor’s office. At the end of 2011, when the latest round of observations was submitted, the investigations remained pending without having produced any tangible results as to the whereabouts of the applicants’ relatives or the identity of the perpetrators. 7.  In their observations the Government did not dispute the principal facts of each case as presented by the applicants, but noted that as the domestic investigations were pending, any conclusions about the exact circumstances of the crimes would be premature. They argued that it had not been established with sufficient certitude that the applicants’ relatives had been detained by State agents or that they were dead. 8.  Below are summaries of the facts relevant to each individual complaint. The personal data of the applicants and their disappeared relatives and some other key facts are summarised in the attached table (Annex I). 9.  The applicant was living in Urus-Martan, Chechnya, with her husband Apti Avtayev. They had two daughters, born in 1997 and 1999. According to the applicant, at 10 a.m. on 10 March 2002 a large group of servicemen (about fifty) wearing camouflage uniforms and armed with automatic weapons had conducted a sweeping operation in Dzerzhinskogo Street in Grozny, where the applicant’s husband had been working at the time. They had used several APCs and military Ural trucks without number plates. They had entered the houses, searched them and led Apti Avtayev away. 10.  The applicant had not been a witness to her husband’s abduction as at the relevant time she had been staying in Urus-Martan. The description of the events of 10 March 2002 was based on the accounts provided to the applicant’s representatives by her on 1 August and by the witnesses to Apti Avtayev’s abduction: by Mr M. D. on 14 July 2005; by Mr R. P. on 14 July 2005; and by Mrs A. B. on 15 July 2005. 11.  The applicant arrived in Grozny on 11 March 2002 and started to search for her husband. She personally visited the local police station, the military commander’s office and the prosecutor’s office. In the subsequent months she wrote to numerous official and public bodies, as testified by her and attested by some responses to her queries received in June 2002. 12.  On 19 August 2002 the Leninskiy District Department of the Interior (“the Leninskiy ROVD”) of Grozny opened criminal investigation file no. 48139 under Article 126 § 2 of the Criminal Code (aggravated kidnapping). On the same day the applicant was questioned and granted the status of victim. 13.  The investigation was suspended on several occasions. It was also transferred from one prosecutor’s office to another. The Government refused to disclose any documents from the file. Instead, they referred to some documents which, in their opinion, called into question the applicant’s presentation of the facts. The applicant therefore submitted a copy of a report of an unspecified date, in which the head of the Leninskiy ROVD had informed the Grozny Prosecutor’s Office that Apti Avtayev had been detained by contract servicemen of the Leninskiy district military commander’s office, who had told [local residents] that his body could be found in the Sunzha River. The same servicemen had later returned and terrorised the witnesses to the abduction, forcing them to flee. In their observations the Government questioned the validity of that document. Furthermore, they alleged that Mrs A.B., the owner of the house in Grozny where Apti Avdayev had been apprehended, had been away on the day in question. In turn, the applicant disputed that allegation and submitted an additional testimony by Mrs A.B. dated 15 September 2009, confirming her previous statements as an eyewitness to the abduction and attesting that she had not been questioned about the crime. 14.  On 19 September 2005, following a complaint by the applicant, the Leninskiy District Court of Grozny found that the investigation had been ineffective, ordered its resumption and instructed that the applicant be issued with copies of certain procedural documents. At the same time, the court observed that the applicant could access and make copies of documents in the criminal investigation file only after the completion of those proceedings. On 9 November 2005 the Supreme Court of Chechnya confirmed that decision on appeal. 15.  On 11 March 2003, following a request by the applicant, the Leninskiy District Court declared Mr Avtayev a missing person as of 10 March 2002. 16.  At 2 a.m. on 23 October 2002 a group of about thirty armed men in camouflage uniforms, wearing masks, armed with sub-machine guns equipped with silencers and speaking Russian entered the applicants’ house in Grozny, searched it and beat up the two Barshov brothers. They put black plastic bags over the heads of the two men, fixed them with adhesive tape and took them away in their underwear and barefoot. The intruders tied up the applicants’ hands and covered their mouths with adhesive tape. Once the applicants had managed to release themselves, they followed the footprints of military boots and bare feet, which were clearly visible in the wet mud. They arrived at a military checkpoint located by a bridge over the Sunzha River, about 700 metres from their house. The servicemen stationed there allegedly told them that their relatives had been taken away by “federal servicemen” in UAZ cars. 17.  The first applicant submitted her own statement of November 2006, as well as written testimonies by four of her relatives and neighbours made between August and November 2006, which were fully consistent with her statements. 18.  Akhmed (the applicant) and Abuyazid Shidayev (his father) were detained at 2.30 a.m. on 25 October 2002 at their home, presumably by the same group as the Barshov brothers (no. 8300/07). Akhmed Shidayev was released on 30 October 2002 in a forest near Grozny and gave detailed submissions to the Court and the investigation about being taken, blindfolded, to the checkpoint, placed in a UAZ vehicle and subsequently detained at a military installation. On the night of his abduction, while being transported in a UAZ vehicle, and later at the installation, he was detained together with his father and the Barshov brothers. 19.  According to the applicants, when the first applicant was released he had had numerous bruises on his body and head, scars on the inner side of his legs and a swollen testicle. He had been afraid to seek medical assistance in Chechnya and had undergone inpatient medical treatment for three months outside the region, under a false name. He had been recommended surgery on the injured testicle. The applicants furnished no medical documents in support of the allegations of injuries sustained by the first applicant. 20.  In addition to the detailed statements to the domestic investigating authorities (see below), the applicants made three testimonies to the Court dated June 2010, describing in detail the events in question. 21.  The investigation into the abduction of the Barshov brothers [in many documents in the file also spelled “Borshov”] and two members of the Shidayev family was opened on 31 October 2002 by the Leninskiy ROVD of Grozny. It was suspended and resumed on several occasions but produced no tangible results. In May 2011 the Government submitted 592 pages - the entire contents of the criminal investigation file no. 48188. In November 2010 (the date of the latest documents), the case remained pending; no progress had been made in respect of finding the missing men or identifying the perpetrators. Several eyewitnesses testified that the detained men had been taken by their abductors to UAZ vehicles parked near a roadblock at the Zhukovskiy bridge; however, it does not appear that the servicemen manning the roadblock were identified or questioned. 22.  On 18 November 2002 Mrs Barshova was granted the status of victim. She was questioned on several occasions after that date. Belkis Shidayeva was questioned and granted the status of victim on 28 July 2003. 23.  Akhmed Shidayev was questioned on 30 May 2003 and 23 May 2005. He testified that he had been detained together with the three missing men. He gave detailed submissions about his detention, beatings, questioning and release at an installation that he presumed to be military. He referred to the black camouflage uniforms of the abductors, the UAZ vehicles and the sounds of helicopters landing and taking off above the “pit” where he had been detained. On 30 July 2003 he was accorded the status of victim in the criminal investigation. When questioned in September 2009 he explained that at the time of release he had been afraid to seek medical help, but that for some time after the beatings he had suffered acute pain in the chest and had had difficulty breathing. It does not appear that any further steps were taken to back up his allegations of ill-treatment, such as the carrying out of a forensic expert report or medical examination. 24.  The investigators received mostly negative replies to their requests for information about the detained men. Various state bodies, including the Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Security Service (“the FSB”), denied having any knowledge of the events or of the fate of the disappeared men, or any information that could implicate them in any criminal activities. The case file contains a handwritten note dated June 2005 entitled “Report”, drawn up by a serviceman of the Leninskiy ROVD, Senior Lieutenant Kh. The note alleged, without further references, that the Barshov brothers had been members of an illegal armed group under the command of “emir Murad Yu.”, active in the Leninskiy District. It listed ten other men as members of the same group, some of whom had been killed and others who were being searched for. According to the note, in the autumn of 2004 the Barshov brothers had taken part in the secret burial of emir Yu., following which they had been abducted by unidentified servicemen. 25.  Another handwritten document, which was undated and entitled “Explanation” (объяснение), was signed by M.Ch, one of the men listed in the “Report”. According to the text, at some time in 2002 M.Ch. and “Sulumbek” [Barshov], following the orders of Murad Yu., had placed an improvised explosive device near a roadblock in Grozny, as a result of which three servicemen had been wounded. Further documents indicated that the crimes committed by that group had become the subject of a separate investigation; in 2009 some pieces of evidence had been declared inadmissible for serious procedural breaches and the investigation had been suspended. Sulumbek Barshov has never been formally charged or suspected of any criminal acts. 26.  The transcripts also state that the witnesses and Akhmed Shidayev were questioned about their possible relationship with Murad Yu. According to a statement made by Akhmed Shidayev’s sister to the Court in June 2010, their other brother, Magomed Shidayev, had been among the terrorists who had seized the Nord-Ost theatre in Moscow in October 2002, and had been killed there. 27.  In June 2006 the applicant Larisa Barshova submitted to the investigators a handwritten note, allegedly given to her by a man who had been released from prison and who had identified her son, Anzor Barshov, from a photograph. The investigation had not located the man. The note said that Anzor Barshov had been charged with the illegal handling of explosives and had been transferred to different prisons in the Southern Federal Circuit between December 2002 and December 2003. The note also indicated the names and positions of two FSB officers who had allegedly been in charge of the investigation. It does not appear that any of those leads were successful: the two officers were not identified, and the detention centres denied having Anzor Barshov or the other disappeared men on their records. 28.  Further to a complaint lodged by Mrs Barshova under Article 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, on 7 November 2006 the Leninskiy District Court of Grozny ordered the investigator to resume the suspended proceedings; it also criticised the investigating authorities’ inactivity in the preceding period. It also upheld the refusal of the prosecutor’s office to grant the applicant full access to the case file since the investigation was pending. On 7 February 2007 the Supreme Court of Chechnya confirmed that decision; it also ordered the prosecutor to issue the applicant with copies of the procedural documents sought by her. 29.  On 16 October 2008 the Leninskiy district prosecutor criticised the investigation as ineffective and ordered it to be resumed. 30.  On 7 May 2010, further to a complaint lodged by Belkis Shidayeva, the Leninskiy District Court of Grozny quashed a decision of 20 November 2008 to adjourn the investigation. The court found that the investigator had failed to carry out a thorough investigation. 31.  Between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. on 1 July 2004, fifteen to twenty persons armed with sub-machine guns, wearing camouflage uniforms and masks, entered the applicants’ flat in Grozny. Some of them were equipped with metal shields to protect their bodies and metal spherical helmets, typical of the police special forces. They spoke Russian and communicated by radio with someone in command. They searched the flat and adjacent flats, checked the residents’ identity documents and beat up the applicants. They covered the heads of Ayub Temersultanov and two other men with plastic bags or their own clothes and led them away to a convoy of six vehicles, consisting of a white Volga, a Niva, a Gazel and three grey UAZ vehicles, all without registration plates. The convoy passed in front of at least two permanent police checkpoints. Later that day, two of the applicants’ relatives who had been detained together with Ayub Temersultanov were released in the Grozny District, in the vicinity of the Khankala military base. They gave detailed submissions about their journey, blindfolded, to an unknown place about one hour away, where both were questioned about their relations. 32.  The applicants submitted six witness statements made in 2006 and 2007 by them, their neighbours and relatives who had witnessed the abduction. 33.  The investigation into the abduction was opened by the Leninskiy District Prosecutor’s Office of Grozny on 9 August 2004, even though a number of investigative measures had already been taken in July 2004. It was suspended and resumed on several occasions, without any apparent outcome. The Government have provided seventy-five pages of documents from the file. The second applicant was granted the status of victim on 10 August 2004. The witnesses alleged that some of the vehicles (including the Gazel and the UAZ) had been armoured and that the abduction had occurred in full view of a permanent police checkpoint. Two men who had been taken away and then released were questioned in August and October 2004. One of them testified that he had been questioned about the terrorist act of 9 May 2004 in Grozny. The latest documents submitted by the Government relate to October 2007, at which time the investigation was pending. The applicants petitioned the prosecutor’s offices, but not the court. 34.  Between midnight and 3 a.m. on 22 February 2003 a group of about ten men, wearing camouflage uniforms, masks and armed with automatic rifles consecutively broke into three houses in Dachu-Borzoy, in the Grozny District. The men spoke Russian and communicated with their superiors by radio. They used several (up to five) APCs and UAZ vehicles. They beat up Ayub Nalbiyev, Badrudin Abazov, Ramzan Tepsayev and some of the applicants; covered the detainees’ heads with their clothes and led them away. All detainees were taken away in their underwear and barefoot. The applicants claimed to have seen the APCs’ tyre tracks in the snow the following day, leading over a bridge to the village of Duba-Yurt, and passing by the side of a military base and a permanent military roadblock located on the bridge over the Argun River between the villages of Dachu-Borzoy and Duba-Yurt. 35.  In 2007 three of the applicants provided the Court with witness statements describing the abductions and their efforts to locate their relatives. 36.  On 12 March 2003 the Grozny district prosecutor’s office opened a criminal investigation into the abduction of the three men. The Government have submitted 422 pages from that file. The documents contain numerous references to military vehicles and the servicemen’s participation in the abduction; however, the investigation was not transferred to the military prosecutor’s office. 37.  In February 2003 the head of the Dachu-Borzoy administration corroborated the applicants’ statements about the circumstances of the abductions. In his statement he also alleged that later that year an FSB officer had shown him a list of wanted persons, including the names of the three detainees. It does not appear that that officer has ever been identified or questioned. The only other testimonies contained in the file had been given by the applicants and their relatives. 38.  The site was examined on 26 February 2003. In March 2003 the family members of the disappeared men were accorded the status of victims in the proceedings. On 17 May 2007 the applicants’ representative was allowed to study the file. By that time, the investigation had been suspended and resumed on several occasions. 39.  Judging by the responses received from the Ministry of the Interior and the military prosecutor’s office, their cooperation was minimal: most of the letters contained standard phrases that no information relevant to the case had been available. 40.  On at least two occasions in 2003 the progress of the case was discussed at working meetings held by the deputy prosecutor of the Grozny District, together with the police and military commanders. The minutes of the meetings contain references to the lack of cooperation of the military and the Ministry of the Interior with the investigation, and in particular to the absence of information about the possible provenance of five APCs and a UAZ vehicle. 41.  On 23 March 2007 the central archive office of the Ministry of the Interior informed the investigators as follows:
“...[P]ursuant to the State Secrets Act (Federal Law No. 5485-1) of 21 July 1993, Presidential Decree No. 1203 of 30 November 1995 setting up the list of information constituting state secrets, and Order of the Ministry of the Interior No. 200 of 2 March 2002 [confidential], all documents contained in the central archive of the Ministry of the Interior, deposited by the military units that took part in restoring constitutional order and fighting the [illegal armed groups] in the Chechen Republic, have been classified as confidential and containing state secrets.
Pursuant to section 30 of the Troops of the Ministry of the Interior Act (Federal Law No. 27-FZ) of 6 February 1997 it is prohibited to disseminate information about the location or movements of the military units of the Interior Troops, or about the carrying out by those units of tasks in the context of fighting the illegal armed groups.
Information about the service missions of those units may be disclosed only by an appropriate commander, upon the permission of the Ministry of the Interior.
Pursuant to section 16 of the State Secrets Act (Federal Law No. 5485-1) of 21 July 1993, such information cannot be made available to you without the authorisation of the Ministry in charge of the archive. It would therefore appear necessary for you to seek permission from the Ministry of the Interior to peruse documents containing state secrets. Once such an authorisation has been obtained, the necessary documents will be provided to you by the [central archive].” 42.  The investigation was adjourned in 2007. The Government submitted that it was still pending.