ted above, § 122).
86. The Court has found that Usman Umalatov and Shamad Durdiyev were apprehended by State servicemen on 15 October 2002 and have not been seen since. Their detention was not acknowledged in any meaningful and reliable manner, was not logged in any custody records and there exists no official trace of their subsequent whereabouts or fate. According to the Court's practice, the absence of detention records, noting such matters as the date, time and location of detention and the name of the detainee as well as the reasons for the detention and the name of the person effecting it, must be seen as incompatible with the very purpose of Article 5 of the Convention (see Orhan, cited above, § 371). In fact, the Government's argument points to the heart of the problem, because even though there is overwhelming evidence, not contested by the parties, that the two men were deprived of their liberty by State agents (see paragraphs 31 and 32, for example), none of the safeguards against arbitrary detention contained in the domestic legal order were employed.
87. The Court further considers that the authorities should have been more alert to the need for a thorough and prompt investigation of the applicants' complaints that their relatives had been detained and then disappeared in life-threatening circumstances. However, the Court's findings above in relation to Article 2 and, in particular, the conduct of the investigation leave no doubt that the authorities failed to take prompt and effective measures to defend them against the risk of disappearance.
88. In view of the foregoing, the Court finds that Usman Umalatov and Shamad Durdiyev were held in unacknowledged detention without any of the safeguards contained in Article 5. This constitutes a particularly grave violation of the right to liberty and security enshrined in Article 5 of the Convention.
VI. Alleged violation of Article 13 of the Convention
89. The applicants complained that they had been deprived of effective remedies in respect of the aforementioned violations, contrary to Article 13 of the Convention, which provides:
"Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity."
A. The parties' submissions
90. The Government contended that the applicants had had effective remedies at their disposal as required by Article 13 of the Convention and that the authorities had not prevented them from using them. The applicants had had an opportunity to challenge the acts or omissions of the investigating authorities in court pursuant to Article 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and had availed themselves of it. They added that participants in criminal proceedings could also claim damages in civil proceedings and referred to a case where victims in criminal proceedings had been awarded damages from the prosecutor's office. In sum, the Government submitted that there had been no violation of Article 13.
91. The applicants reiterated the complaint.
B. The Court's assessment
1. Admissibility
92. The Court notes that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. It further notes that it is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.
2. Merits
93. The Court reiterates that in circumstances where, as here, a criminal investigation into the disappearance has been ineffective and the effectiveness of any other remedy that might have existed, including civil remedies suggested by the Government, has consequently been undermined, the Stat
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