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Strasbourg court fines Russia $171,000 in Chechen cases

21 December 2010 17:59 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) fined Russia a total of 130,000 euros ($171,000) on Tuesday for the abduction of a Chechen man and inefficiently investigating the death of two Chechen children in a missile attack, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti.
The court ordered the Russian government to pay 73,500 euros ($96,528) to the relatives of Khamid Mukayev, who was abducted by Russian servicemen during an unacknowledged security operation in Katyr-Yurt (the Chechen Republic) in September 2004.
The Court considered that the relatives of Khamid Mukayev had provided a coherent and consistent account of the abduction, which had been corroborated by eye-witness statements made both to this Court and during the domestic investigation.
The other case involved two boys who were killed by a missile while walking home from school in Chechnya in 2000. The court ruled that "no effective investigation had been carried out into the killing."
The Russian prosecution service opened an investigation into the boys’ deaths but never informed the relatives of the victims of the progress in the probe.
Despite specific requests by the Court, the Russian government did not disclose any documents from the case, citing the incompatibility of such a step with domestic legislation.
However, the Court also said there was not enough evidence to prove that the children were killed by the Russian military.
Under the European Convention on Human Rights, Russia has three months to appeal both rulings in the court’s Grand Chamber.