Musayev and Others v. Russia

Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 99

July 2007

Musayev and Others v. Russia - 57941/00

Judgment 26.7.2007 [Section I]

Article 2

Positive obligations

Article 2-1

Life

Extrajudicial execution of tens of citizens by security forces and subsequent failure to conduct an effective investigation: violations

Facts: In February 2000 Russian forces conducted an operation in Novye Alde in the suburbs of Grozny (Chechnya). Numerous houses were burnt down and, according to the applicants, at least 60 civilians were killed. The first applicant witnessed the killing of nine people, including seven members of his family. He was himself threatened and forced at gunpoint to lie on the ground in the snow. Soon after the events the first applicant and other relatives of the victims set up a coordination group. It was a month before the prosecutor’s office opened an investigation. Thereafter, despite the efforts of the coordination group and a substantial body of evidence pointing to the implication of members of the special police forces, no progress was made in the investigation. The detachments involved in the security operation were never identified and no one was charged with any crime. The investigation was adjourned and subsequently resumed several times.

Following the communication to the Government of the applications the Court requested a copy of the investigation file. The Government replied that no access could be granted to information of a military nature or to witnesses’ personal data and that the file would have to be inspected in situ. The Court reiterated its request for the file once it had declared the applications admissible. In April 2006 the Government submitted a copy of the file but, with one exception, without full copies of the witness statements. The domestic investigation was still pending at the date of the Court’s decision.

Law: Article 2  – (a) The Court was entitled to draw inferences from the Government’s failure to produce the full investigation file without any explanation. The question of whether or not documents were relevant could not be unilaterally decided by the Government. The material before the Court established that the applicants’ relatives had been killed by servicemen and that their deaths could thus be attributed to the State. No explanation had been forthcoming from the Government as to the circumstances of the deaths, nor had any ground of justification for the use of lethal force by their agents been advanced. It was thus irrelevant whether the killings had occurred “with the knowledge or on the orders” of the federal authorities.

Conclusion: substantive violation (unanimously).

(b) It had taken a month for the investigation to be opened. That in itself was an unacceptable delay in a case involving dozens of civilian deaths. Thereafter, there had been a series of serious unexplained delays and failures. Yet the investigation body’s task had by no means been impossible. The killings had taken place in broad daylight and a large number of witnesses had seen the killers face to face. The injuries and the circumstances of the deaths had been established with sufficient certainty and the bullets and cartridges that had been found should have enabled individual weapons to be identified. Information about the alleged involvement of particular military units had been available within a month of the incident. Despite all that, and notwithstanding the domestic and international public outcry caused by the cold-blooded execution of more than 50 civilians, no meaningful result whatsoever had been achieved almost six years later. The astonishing ineffectiveness of the prosecuting authorities could only be qualified as acquiescence in the events.

Conclusion: procedural violation (unanimously).

Article 3 – Only the first applicant made a complaint under this provision. The Court noted that relatives of persons killed by the authorities in violation of Article 2 did not normally have a valid claim under Article 3. However, the situation of the first applicant went beyond that. He had witnessed the extrajudicial execution of several of his relatives and neighbours, his own life had been threatened and he had been forced at gunpoint to lie on the ground. The shock he had thus experienced, coupled with the authorities’ wholly inadequate and inefficient response to the events had caused him suffering beyond the threshold of inhuman and degrading treatment proscribed by Article 3.

Conclusion: violation in respect of the first applicant (unanimously).

Article 13 (in conjunction with Article 2) – The State had failed in its obligation to afford an effective remedy as the deficiencies in the criminal investigation had undermined the effectiveness of any other remedy, including civil remedies, that might have existed.

Conclusion: violation (unanimously).

Articles 34 and 38 § 1 (a) – The applicants had alleged that the Government had failed to discharge their obligations under these provisions on account both of their refusal to submit the documents from the investigation file at the communication stage and of their general handling of the Court’s request. The Court noted that Article 38 § 1 (a) was applicable to cases that had been declared admissible. It could not find that the failure to submit the information requested prior to the admissibility decision had prejudiced the establishment of the facts or otherwise prevented the proper examination of the case. Although the Government had not submitted the entire file even after the case had been declared admissible, the inferences drawn by the Court from the missing documents made it unnecessary to draw any separate conclusions under Article 38 § 1 (a). As to Article 34, there was no indication that there had been any hindrance of the applicants’ right of individual petition,

Conclusion: no separate examination necessary (unanimously).

Article 41 – EUR 8,000 to the third applicant for pecuniary damage (loss of financial support). Awards to each of the applicants for non-pecuniary damage ranging from EUR 5,000 (in respect of the Article 3 violation) to EUR 40,000.

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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