2002 Abu Zhanalayev and Sayd-Selim Benuyev were abducted by State servicemen and that they must be presumed dead following their unacknowledged detention.
ii. The State's compliance with Article 2
109. The Court reiterates that Article 2, which safeguards the right to life and sets out the circumstances when deprivation of life may be justified, ranks as one of the most fundamental provisions in the Convention, from which no derogation is permitted (see McCann and Others v. the United Kingdom, 27 September 1995, § 147, Series A No. 324).
110. The Court has already found it established that Abu Zhanalayev and Sayd-Selim Benuyev must be dead following their unacknowledged detention by State servicemen (see paragraph 108 above). Given that the authorities do not rely on any ground of justification in respect of the use of lethal force by their agents, the deaths of Abu Zhanalayev and Sayd-Selim Benuyev are attributable to the respondent Government.
111. Accordingly, the Court finds that there has been a violation of Article 2 of the Convention in respect of Abu Zhanalayev and Sayd-Selim Benuyev.
(b) The alleged inadequacy of the investigation into the abduction
112. The Court reiterates that the obligation to protect the right to life under Article 2 of the Convention, read in conjunction with the State's general duty under Article 1 of the Convention to "secure to everyone within [its] jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in [the] Convention", also requires by implication that there should be some form of effective official investigation when individuals have been killed as a result of the use of force (see, mutatis mutandis, McCann and Others, cited above, § 161, and Kaya v. Turkey, 19 February 1998, § 86, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998-I). The essential purpose of such an investigation is to secure the effective implementation of the domestic laws which protect the right to life and, in those cases involving State agents or bodies, to ensure their accountability for deaths occurring under their responsibility. This investigation should be independent, accessible to the victim's family, carried out with reasonable promptness and expedition, effective in the sense that it is capable of leading to a determination of whether the force used in such cases was or was not justified in the circumstances or otherwise unlawful, and afford a sufficient element of public scrutiny of the investigation or its results (see Hugh Jordan v. the United Kingdom, No. 24746/94, §§ 105 - 09, ECHR 2001-III (extracts), and Douglas-Williams v. the United Kingdom (dec.), No. 56413/00, 8 January 2002).
113. In the present case, the kidnapping of Abu Zhanalayev and Sayd-Selim Benuyev was investigated. The Court must now assess whether that investigation met the requirements of Article 2 of the Convention.
114. The Court notes at the outset that the majority of the documents from the investigation were not disclosed by the Government. It therefore has to assess the effectiveness of the investigation on the basis of the few documents submitted by the parties and the sparse information on its progress presented by the Government.
115. The Court first notes that the authorities were made aware of the kidnapping of Abu Zhanalayev and Sayd-Selim Benuyev through the applicants' submissions shortly after the incident (see paragraphs 23 and 24 above). The investigation in case No. 61161 was instituted on 27 November 2002, that is, three days after the abduction. The Court notes that the delay in opening the criminal proceedings in the present case was not appallingly long but points out nonetheless that an effective investigation into kidnapping in life-threatening circumstances requires that crucial actions be taken in the first days after the event.
116. The Court further points out that the information on the course of the inv
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