dministration of the Leninskiy District of Grozny that her sons had been abducted on that date and asked for assistance in finding them. On an unspecified date the military commander's office asked the Grozny prosecutor's office and the department of the interior of the Leninskiy District to render the first applicant assistance in the search for Ilyas and Isa Yansuyev.
20. On 17 February 2003, upon the first applicant's complaint of 13 February 2003, the Grozny prosecutor's office instituted an investigation into the disappearances of Mr D., Ilyas and Isa Yansuyev under Article 126 § 2 of the Russian Criminal Code (aggravated kidnapping). The case file was given the number 20039.
21. On 11 March 2003 the Grozny prosecutor's office granted the first applicant victim status in case No. 20039 and questioned her on the same date. She confirmed the account of events of 13 February 2003 as submitted before the Court. The first applicant also stated that, according to her information, the alleged perpetrators were servicemen of regiment No. 531 of the Russian Ministry of the Interior. According to the Government, the first applicant was further interviewed on 3 April 2003 when she stated that according to her information, the source of which she refused to disclose to the investigating authorities, the servicemen who had taken away her sons had been under the command of Mr Ruslan Amirov, an officer of an intelligence service.
22. On 8 April 2003 the Grozny prosecutor's office asked the head of detention facility IZ 20/2 based in the village of Chernokozovo to inform them whether Mr D., Ilyas and Isa Yansuyev were being or had been kept there.
23. On 9 April 2003 the seventh applicant was granted victim status in case No. 20039 and questioned in connection with the events of 13 February 2003. She submitted that at about 4 a.m. the entrance door of her flat had been broken, and around fifteen armed men in camouflage uniforms and masks had entered the room in which she and her husband had been sleeping. One of the men had hit her on the head with an automatic rifle butt and another one had started kicking her husband. She had not seen what had been going on in another room where her brother-in-law and Mr D. had been sleeping. The men had then put adhesive tape across her mouth, had tied the hands of the Yansuyev brothers and Mr D. and taken them away. She had not seen what had been going on in the street. She had not applied to any medical institutions in connection with her injuries.
24. On 17 April 2003 the investigation was suspended for failure to identify the alleged perpetrators.
25. On 25 November 2003 the SRJI submitted a request to the prosecutor's office of the Leninskiy District of Grozny ("the district prosecutor's office") for information on the progress in the investigation.
26. On 19 December 2003 the district prosecutor's office informed the first applicant and the SRJI that the investigation into the kidnapping of Mr D., Ilyas and Isa Yansuyev had been opened and was underway.
27. On 20 April 2004 the district prosecutor's office resumed the investigation in case No. 20039.
28. On 29 April 2004 the military prosecutor's office of the United Group Alignment forwarded the applicants' complaint to the military prosecutor's office of military unit No. 20102.
29. According to the Government, on 10 May 2004 the investigating authorities questioned Ms P., the applicants' neighbour, who stated that in March 2003 she had been working as a yard-cleaner in the federal military base in Khankala and upon the first applicant's request had attempted to obtain information regarding the fate of the Yansuyev brothers. Ms P. had received information from a serviceman named Vladimir that the applicants' relatives were alive and being held in a "pit". During that
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