had witnessed the incident, that is Ms Khamila D., Ms Kaypa A. and Ms Tamara S.; it was not clear whether one of the abducted men had been either kicked out from the abducted VAZ vehicle or he had been taken to the military commander's office; and that taking into account that the investigation had failed to establish the identities of Mr M.M. and Ms T.S., their information allegedly given to the applicant about the circumstances of the abduction could not be considered trustworthy.
B. The Court's evaluation of the facts
64. The Court observes that in its extensive jurisprudence it has developed a number of general principles relating to the establishment of matters in dispute, in particular when faced with allegations of disappearance under Article 2 of the Convention (for a summary of these, see Bazorkina v. Russia, No. 69481/01, §§ 103 - 109, 27 July 2006). The Court also notes that the conduct of the parties when evidence is being obtained has to be taken into account (see Ireland v. the United Kingdom, § 161, Series A No. 25).
65. The Court notes that despite its requests for a copy of the investigation file into the abduction of Aslan Sadulayev, the Government produced only a part of the documents from the case file. The Government referred to Article 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The Court observes that in previous cases it has already found this explanation insufficient to justify the withholding of key information requested by the Court (see Imakayeva v. Russia, No. 7615/02, § 123, ECHR 2006-... (extracts)).
66. In view of this and bearing in mind the principles referred to above, the Court finds that it can draw inferences from the Government's conduct in respect of the well-foundedness of the applicant's allegations. The Court will thus proceed to examine crucial elements in the present case that should be taken into account when deciding whether the applicant's son can be presumed dead and whether his death can be attributed to the authorities.
67. The applicant alleged that the persons who had taken Aslan Sadulayev away on 9 December 2002 and then killed him were State agents. The Government did not dispute any of the main factual elements underlying the application.
68. The Government suggested in their submissions that the abductors of Aslan Sadulayev may have been members of paramilitary groups or criminals pursuing a blood feud. However, this allegation was not specific and the Government did not submit any material to support it. The Court would stress in this regard that the evaluation of the evidence and the establishment of the facts is a matter for the Court, and it is incumbent on it to decide on the evidentiary value of the documents submitted to it (see {Celikbilek} v. Turkey, No. 27693/95, § 71, 31 May 2005).
69. The Court notes that the applicant's allegation is supported by the witness statements collected by the applicant and by the investigation. It finds that the fact that a group of armed men in uniform at the military checkpoint, equipped with military APCs, proceeded to check identity documents and detained several persons strongly supports the applicant's allegation that these were State servicemen conducting a security operation. In her application to the authorities the applicant and her relatives consistently maintained that Aslan Sadulayev had been detained by unknown servicemen and requested the investigation to look into that possibility (see paragraphs 30 - 33 and 42 above). The domestic investigation also accepted factual assumptions as presented by the applicant and took steps to check whether State bodies were involved in the abduction by forwarding information requests to various agencies (see paragraphs 34 - 36, 38 - 39, 44 above), but it does not appear that any serious steps were taken in that direction.
70. The Government questioned
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