13 June 2008, 22:57
European Court: Russia to pay 120,000 euros to residents of Chechnya
The European Court for Human Rights has satisfied two claims lodged by Chechnya's natives who had accused Russian authorities of implication in kidnapping their relatives in 2001-2003 and ruled that Russian government should to pay out over 120,000 euros of compensation. The ruling refers to the complaint against inefficient investigation conducted by the Russian justice system.
In both cases the applicants assert that their relatives were kidnapped by Russian militaries: in May 2001, while searching one of the villages, armed persons who refused to name themselves took away Ramzan Kukuev, and in 2002 and 2003, brothers Apti and Musa Elmurzaevs disappeared under similar circumstances. The latter was violently kidnapped from his house after he had applied to judicial bodies on disappearance of his brother. Since then, nothing is known about their destiny. The relatives of the missing people have repeatedly applied to Russian judicial instances; they started an investigation, but it was fruitless, the RIA "Novosti" reports.
After considering the circumstances of the cases, the European Court has unanimously decided that in both of them the authority of the Russian Federation had breached a number of Articles of the Convention on Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Now, the Russian state will have to pay in total to the applicants 106,000 euros for moral damages, 10,000 euros - as compensation of material losses, and 10,800 euros to cover legal costs.
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