ad detained the Yansuyev brothers or brought criminal proceedings against them, and that they had not been detained in any detention centres.
95. The Government further argued that the applicants had not given any reliable evidence to corroborate their allegations concerning the involvement of State agents in the abduction. In the Government's submission, groups of Ukrainian or ethnic Russian mercenaries had participated in the armed conflict together with Chechen rebel fighters and committed crimes in the territory of the Chechen Republic; thus, the fact that the perpetrators had Slavic features and spoke Russian did not prove their attachment to the Russian military. The Government also alleged that a considerable number of weapons had been stolen by illegal armed groups from Russian arsenals in the 1990s and that anyone could purchase masks, camouflage uniforms and firearms.
96. The Government submitted that the area where the Yansuyev brothers were abducted had been under the formal control of the federal forces. They referred, however, to "official data" stating that in almost every settlement there had been illegal rebel fighters who had committed serious criminal offences under the disguise of civilians usually during the night and that some groups of illegal rebel fighters had been particularly active in their raids across the territory of the Chechen Republic resulting in occasional assaults on civilians and State officials and whole settlements being captured.
97. They further stated that the file of the investigation into the Yansuyev brothers' disappearance had contained no information about whether the area where the abduction had taken place had been secured by federal check-points and whether a curfew was in place during the night of the incident. According to the Government, the investigating authorities had been instructed to take additional measures to establish those circumstances.
98. The Government also pointed to contradictions between the applicants' account of the events of 13 February 2003 submitted to the Court and the statements concerning the incident made to the domestic authorities. In particular, while the applicants claimed in their submissions to the Court that the alleged perpetrators had arrived in two APCs and, having abducted the Yansuyev brothers, had then left in the direction of Khankala, the seventh applicant had stated in her witness interview given to the domestic authorities that she had not seen what had happened in the street, whilst the fourth applicant had allegedly seen only the tracks of the APCs leading in the direction of Khankala. The first applicant had not witnessed the incident of 13 February 2003 at all and had based her account on the statements of others. Moreover, she had refused to disclose the source of her information concerning the alleged implication of the federal forces in her sons' abduction, which had obstructed the investigation.
2. The Court's assessment
99. The Court reiterates that, in the light of the importance of the protection afforded by Article 2, it must subject deprivations of life to the most careful scrutiny, taking into consideration not only the actions of State agents but also all the surrounding circumstances. It has held on many occasions that, where an individual is taken into police custody in good health and is found to be injured on release, it is incumbent on the State to provide a plausible explanation of how those injuries were caused. The obligation on the authorities to account for the treatment of an individual within their control is particularly stringent where that individual dies or disappears thereafter (see, among other authorities, Orhan v. Turkey, No. 25656/94, § 326, 18 June 2002, and the authorities cited therein). Where the events in issue lie wholly, or in large part, within the exclusive knowledge of the authorit
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