ECtHR rules to collect compensation from Russia in favour of relatives of Vakhit Avkhadov, kidnapped in Chechnya

Today, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled on the complaint submitted by relatives of Vakhit Avkhadov, a resident of Urus-Martan, the Chechen Republic, who disappeared in 2001, after being detained by power agents. According to the court, Russian authorities had failed to carry out an effective investigation into the incident.

Vakhit Avkhadiev, born in 1979, was kidnapped in 2001. "The kidnappers, soldiers of the Russian Army, came to Avkhadovs' house at dawn on April 24, around 6:00 a.m. Power agents drove Vakhit out, put him into an APC and left for the centre of Urus-Martan," says the message of the HRC "Memorial" that arrived to the "Caucasian Knot".

Relatives filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights on 26 October 2007. At the national level the interests of the Avkhadovs were represented by the lawyer of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" Dokka Itslaev.

The complaint was filed with the ECtHR, since all the attempts to achieve the effective investigation at the national level had failed. "The whereabouts of Vakhit was not established; and those involved in his disappearance were not found," the advocate Dokka Itslaev told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

According to Itslaev, today the ECtHR examined the case and acknowledged that the responsibility for the illegal detention and probable death of Vakhit Avkhadov is on Russian power agents. "So, the decision was made in favour of the applicants, who were awarded a monetary compensation," the lawyer said, without specifying the amount of compensation.