News

18 September 2014

ECtHR once again finds Russia responsible for forced disappearances

All the cases concern facts of unlawful detention of applicants’ relatives (seventy males were detained directly from their houses); the detentions were conducted at different times across the Chechen Republic in the period of 2001-2006. Since their detention, the applicants have not been aware of their relatives’ roundabouts and fate. The European Court established that in every case the detention was conducted by Russian law enforcement officers. As a matter of fact, virtually all the detentions took place during the special operations by the military and police, as the crime scenes were controlled exclusively by Russian law enforcement structures, and the abductors were in possession of special purpose military vehicles and weapons; they crossed checkpoints freely, as well as felt themselves at ease and did not show signs of fear to be seen or arrested.