Families of Disappeared Chechens Win Suit
The European Court of Human Rights ruled simultaneously on five cases concerning people who have disappeared in Chechnya yesterday. The complaints were filed by their relatives. The Russian Federation has been ordered to pay them a total of €400,000. The complaints were all filed in 2003 and involved people who disappeared in 2002 or 2003. Roemer Lemaitre, director of the NGO Russian Justice Initiative, which provided legal support for some of the claimants, told Kommersant that, in all of the cases, residents of Chechnya were taken into custody by representatives of the federal forces and never returned home.
One case involved Kubika Zinabdieva and Aminat Dudaeva, girls who were arrested on May 16, 2003. Later, the press reported that they were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the terrorist act at the theater in Dubrovka, Moscow, in 2002. After they had been gone ten days without word of their whereabouts, the local prosecutor began an investigation. After six months, the girls’ families applied to the court.
The case of Satsita Utsaeva involves five men, Islam Utsaev, Movsar Taisumov, Idris Abdulazimov and Masud Tovmerzaev. They were taken away in an armored vehicle to verify their identifications during a cleansing operation in Novye Atagi. The court ruled on the case of the fifth man, Mr. Imakaev, who disappeared from the same village on the same day, in 2006 and made reference to the case yesterday. The disappearance of the Betaev brothers during a special operation in the village of Goity was also ruled on by the court yesterday.
Two other cases involve disappearances from Urus-Martan. Late in December 2002, 25-year-old Rizvan Ibragimov was taken into custody at night by federal forces without explanation. He was never seen again. The complaint was filed by his mother, brothers and sisters. Aset Sangarieva stated in her complaint that, on January 24, 2003, about 20 soldiers in two trucks arrested her husband Musa Gaitaev and her brother Magomed. Her brother returned the next morning. Her husband never returned.
“The Russian Federation send only standardized answers to the enquiries of the European Court,” Lemaitre noted. “The government denies the involvement of federal forces in the disappearances of people, but it does not provide the court with documents to confirm the legality of its case. Documents from criminal cases, for example. The victims proved their cases convincingly.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 30, 2008
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