European Court considers another case on disappearances in Chechnya

On October 2, the European Court for Human Rights will make a decision on the case "Lyanova and Alieva versus Russia". The claim was lodged in connection with disappearance in summer of 2000 in Grozny of three Chechen teenagers.

According to the Human Rights Centre "Memorial", the applicants in the case "Lyanova and Alieva versus Russia" complain of the violation by the Russian Federation of the right to life, right not to be exposed to torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment, the right to freedom and personal immunity, the right to respect private and family life, the right to effective means of legal defence.

In the evening on June 28, 2000, in Grozny, the sons of the applicants, Murad Lyanov, 16, and Islam Dombaev, 15, together with a 17-year-old friend of them, were walking to the home of some other friend. Their parents never saw them back. The three teenagers were detained during a joint operation conducted by the Pskov OMON (Special Militia Unit) and OBRON-8 (Special Interior Brigade) and brought to the base of OBRON-8, and then to Khankala.

Since then, nothing was known about their destiny. Some days later, an inspector of the District Interior Department returned the guitar that belonged to Islam to his mother; he had received the guitar from an employee of OBRON-8. However, the investigation of the kidnapping case of the three teenagers gave no results; the guilty persons had never been established.

The decision on this and two more disappearances in Chechnya will be made by the European Court on October 2, 2008.