n. Then the applicant had been taken to a basement, where he had found Murad Gelayev and Mr Sul.S. The intruders had forced the detainees to put their hands on the table and had hit them with bludgeons. After that the applicant had been taken to Khankala, whereas Murad Gelayev and Mr Sul.S. had stayed behind. From Khankala the applicant had been taken to Chervlyenaya, then to Chernokozovo, then to Pyatigorsk in the Stavropol Region. In the remand prison in Pyatigorsk the applicant had met his fellow villagers Mr A.G., Mr L.G. and Mr M.V., who had been taken away from Gikalo on the same date, then two weeks later the applicant had been released.
57. On 14 August 2006 the investigators again questioned Mr V.Ts., who stated that on 27 February 2000 he had been taken from home by military servicemen who had arrived in an APC. The witness and his neighbour Mr Sh.Ts. had been transferred from the vehicle to an Avtozak lorry, in which they had met a number of their fellow villagers, including Murad Gelayev. The Avtozak had taken the detainees to the Oktyabrskiy VOVD, where they had been subjected to beatings and put into a basement. There the men had been stripped naked and subjected to further beatings by abductors who had kept taking turns to beat the detainees. On the second day of the detention the men had been taken to the military commander's office where they had been made to sign documents by a woman of Asian appearance, with a short haircut, called Tanya. She had taken samples of the detainees' nails and hair, put them in envelopes and sent them for expert evaluation. After that the detainees had been taken in a Ural vehicle to the Avtozak and then to Chervleynaya, where all the men, except for Murad Gelayev and Mr Sul.S., had been detained until 20 March 2000. On the latter date the detainees had been transferred to the Chernokozovo detention centre from which the twelve residents of Gikalo had been released on 18 May 2000.
58. On 14 August 2006 the investigators again questioned another resident of Gikalo who had been detained on 27 February 2000, Mr U.V., who stated that he could not recall the details of his detention because as a result of the beatings to which he had been subjected in Chernokozovo and other detention centres he suffered from memory problems. On 5 November 2006 the investigators again questioned the witness, but the Government did not furnish a copy of this statement to the Court.
59. On 15 August 2006 the investigators requested the MVD of Russia to provide information about the officers from the Khanty-Mansiysk Region who had served on 27 February 2000 in the Oktyabrskiy VOVD.
60. On 15 August 2006 the investigators requested information from various detention centres in the Northern Caucasus concerning the detention of seven residents of Gikalo, including Murad Gelayev and the sixth applicant, who had been apprehended on 27 February 2000. The investigators also requested various prosecutors' offices in Chechnya to inform them whether they had initiated a criminal investigation against any of these residents of Gikalo. On 6 September 2006 the Chechnya Department of the Execution of Punishment replied that the six applicants and four other residents of Gikalo had been detained in detention centre IZ-20/2 in Chernokozovo between 20 March and 18 May 2000 and that they had been released as a result of an amnesty. Murad Gelayev had not been detained in this prison. From the replies received from the prosecutors' offices, no criminal proceedings were pending against any of these men.
61. On 20 August 2006 the investigators questioned the applicants' neighbour Mr A.A., who stated that on the morning of 27 February 2000 a special operation had been carried out in Gikalo; as a result his neighbour Murad Gelayev and thirteen other village residents had been taken away. All of them except for Murad Gelayev and Mr Sul.S. had subsequently b
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