n resumed by the prosecuting authorities themselves a number of times owing to the need to take additional investigative steps. However, they still failed to properly investigate the applicants' allegations. Moreover, owing to the time that had elapsed since the events complained of took place, certain investigative measures that ought to have been carried out much earlier could no longer usefully be conducted. Accordingly, the Court finds that the remedy relied on by the Government was ineffective in the circumstances and dismisses their preliminary objection as regards the applicants' failure to exhaust domestic remedies within the context of the criminal investigation.
85. In the light of the foregoing, the Court dismisses the Government's preliminary objection as regards the applicants' failure to exhaust domestic remedies within the context of the criminal investigation, and holds that the authorities failed to carry out an effective criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the abduction and the death of Valid Dzhabrailov, in breach of Article 2 in its procedural aspect.
IV. Alleged violation of Article 3 of the Convention
86. The applicants further relied on Article 3 of the Convention, submitting that the first applicant had been tortured after his abduction, but that no effective investigation had been carried out on that account. The applicants also claimed that, as a result of Valid Dzhabrailov's death and the State's failure to investigate it properly, they had endured mental suffering in breach of Article 3 of the Convention. Article 3 reads:
"No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
A. The parties' submissions
87. The applicants maintained their submissions.
88. The Government disagreed with their allegations and argued that the investigation had not established that the applicants had been subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment prohibited by Article 3 of the Convention. They further contended that the first applicant's allegations had been unsubstantiated because the medical documents confirming his injuries had been obtained by him at a much later date.
B. The Court's assessment
1. Ill-treatment of the first applicant
Admissibility
89. The Court reiterates that allegations of ill-treatment must be supported by appropriate evidence. To assess this evidence, the Court adopts the standard of proof "beyond reasonable doubt" but adds that such proof may follow from the coexistence of sufficiently strong, clear and concordant inferences or of similar unrebutted presumptions of fact (see Ireland v. the United Kingdom, cited above, § 161 in fine).
90. The Court has already found that the first applicant was abducted on 16 February 2003 by State representatives (see paragraph 68 above). However, the Court notes that his allegations of ill-treatment were substantiated only by his own submissions and his references to the medical statements obtained by him in December 2003 and August 2004, that is, accordingly, ten and eighteen months after the events in question (see paragraph 19 above). In these circumstances the evidence as it stands does not enable the Court to find beyond all reasonable doubt that the first applicant was ill-treated in detention. It thus finds that this part of the complaint has not been substantiated.
91. It follows that this part of the complaint is manifestly ill-founded and should be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
2. Alleged ineffectiveness of the investigation
into the ill-treatment
Merits
92. The Court reiterates that "where an individual makes a credible assertion that he has suf
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