Strasbourg Court fines Russia for disappearances in Chechnya

The Russian Federation has lost two more cases at the European Court on Human Rights (ECtHR) on complaints of residents of Chechnya on disappearances of their relatives. The statement of the ECtHR prescribes that Moscow shall pay out 120,000 to the applicants, plus legal costs.

The first claim was filed by parents of a Chechen Zurab Iriskhanov. According to the Court, a group of armed people took Zurab away from his house on June 19, 2002; and his traces were lost afterwards.

The Chamber of the Court has ruled that Russian authorities had broken the European Convention on Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR): Articles 2 (right to life and efficient inquiry), 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment), 5 (right to freedom and person immunity) and 13 (right to efficient legal defence). Russian authorities shall pay to Iriskhanov's parents 60,000 euros for moral damage and 5500 euros to compensate legal costs.

The claimant in the second case was the wife of Abu Aliev, a resident of Grozny, kidnapped by armed people in camouflage on October 29, 2002. In the opinion of the judges, the same articles of the ECHR were broken in this case as in the first one, as the "Kommersant" writes. The Court has obliged the Russian authorities to compensate the claimant with 60,000 euros for moral damage and pay 1650 euros of legal costs.