Estemirova's colleagues assess prospects for inquiry into her murder after ECtHR's verdict

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) will demand from Russia to investigate the murder of the human rights defender, Natalia Estemirova, committed in Chechnya, but Russian authorities will take no concrete steps for this, the rights defenders interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" believe.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on July 15, 2009, Natalia Estemirova, an employee of the Grozny office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) “Memorial”*, was kidnapped, taken to Ingushetia, and killed.

On August 31, the ECtHR will issue its ruling on the complaint of Natalia Estemirova's relatives against the violation of the right to an efficient investigation of her abduction and murder. The crime has not been properly investigated; the perpetrators have not been identified and not punished, the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial"* has stated.

The outcome of the ECtHR's decision should be a statement of the inefficiency of the investigation, said Oleg Orlov, a board member of the HRC "Memorial"*.

"The ECtHR can only state that Russia has failed to do everything necessary to investigate the case, or did nothing at all. The Court can demand from Russia to take all the required measures to carry out the inquiry. Further, we, by referring to the ECtHR's decision, can demand access to all the materials of the case," Mr Orlov told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

However, he does not believe that Russian authorities will perform the ECtHR's decision. "In light of the current situation in Russia and Moscow's relations with the PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe), I do not rule out that our authorities will simply neglect us. They don't care about all the ECtHR's decisions. Well, yes, we'll demand that certain steps be taken, but investigators will ignore all this. We see that many ECtHR's decisions on various cases are completely ignored. The inquiry into criminal cases has been and is inefficient," Oleg Orlov has stressed.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 30, 2021 at 09:42 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.