ECtHR awards compensations to relatives of those killed in Chechnya

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has considered the complaints, filed a few years after the death of Chechen residents, Alvi Bugaev and Alkhazur Atabaev, and ruled that their relatives should receive compensations totalling more than 200,000 euros, said the advocate Dokka Itslaev.

The ECtHR has paid attention to the fact that "contrary to the assertion of the Government of the Russian Federation, the applicants were not properly informed about the progress of the investigation [...]. The citizens had hoped that the investigation of the criminal cases would be efficient; and only after several years of vain expectations, they were convinced of the opposite," Mr Itslaev has stated.

The ECtHR has found that law enforcers took Alvi Bugaev out of his home in the morning on December 27, 2001. On January 12, 2002, the prosecutor informed his mother, Zura Shamsudinova, that her son would be released on the same day, but on the way home he was shot dead in front of his wife and children, the case files evidence. On the same day, the prosecutor's office opened a criminal case on the fact of his killing, but two months later the investigation was suspended due to the inability to identify the perpetrators, but the relatives were not notified about this.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the car with three teenagers inside, Djabrail Abiev, Adam Atabaev and Alkhazur Atabaev, was shelled from submachine guns and grenade launchers on January 26, 2005, in the Staropromyslovsky District of Grozny. A criminal case was initiated on the same day; the investigation was suspended and resumed for about 10 times, according to the materials of the case.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on February 13, 2019 at 08:57 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.