The ECHR awarded more than a million euros in compensation to the families of 12 people who disappeared in Chechnya

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has awarded more than a million euros in compensation to the families of 12 men who disappeared between 2000 and 2005 during the counter-terrorism operation in Chechnya. The human rights project “Legal Initiative” reported this to “Mediazona”. The decision was published on the court's website .

The exact amount of compensation for the families whose interests the project represented was 1 million 168 thousand euros. The ECtHR found a violation of Articles 2 (right to life), Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman treatment), 5 (right to liberty) and 13 (right to an effective investigation) of the European Convention on Human Rights in all cases.

Thus, relatives last saw 34-year-old Khanpash Kakhiev alive on May 14, 2002 in the village of Avruty. “On May 14, the military was at our house, my son Khanpash was with the neighbors when he learned about the inspection in the house. He came himself and introduced himself as a military man. The military grabbed him and took him to an unknown location,” said his mother Tamara Kakhieva.

Eight years later, in 2010, Kakhiev’s body was found in a mass grave near the village where he was detained by the military. The investigation into this case was suspended many times.

Brothers Lem Shamayev and Mair-Ali Shamayev disappeared on February 18, 2001 after they encountered Russian military personnel on the Grozny-Shatoy highway on their way to a shopping center. Their whereabouts are still unknown.

On April 24, 2001, in a former school in Novye Atagi, where refugees lived, Russian soldiers detained five men and took them to an unknown direction. The searches also turned out to be fruitless.