39;s statement to the SRJI and the District Court decision of 25 May 2006 issued in the context of the proceedings to have Bekman Asadulayev declared dead.
81. The Government denied that State agents had been involved in the abduction of Bekman Asadulayev. Although they referred to several inconsistencies in the applicants' and witnesses' statements, they did not question the main factual elements underlying the applicants' version of his abduction. The Government also insisted that the investigation was pending and that it had not confirmed the applicants' theory.
82. The Court notes at the outset that despite its requests for a copy of the file of the investigation into the abduction of Bekman Asadulayev, the Government produced no documents from the case file, referring to Article 161 of the CCP. 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)).
83. 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 that respect. The Court will thus proceed to examine the crucial elements in the present case that should be taken into account in order to decide whether the applicants' relative's disappearance should be attributed to the State authorities and whether he should be presumed dead.
84. The Court observes that it is common ground between the parties that on 14 January 2004 Bekman Asadulayev was summoned to the MVD and was subsequently abducted from its secure grounds. In this connection the Court points out that the Government did not challenge the description of the MVD grounds and the secured road leading to them, as presented by the applicants and, in particular, in the hand-drawn maps produced by them. From those documents it follows that the MVD grounds were surrounded by a high fence; that the entrance to the grounds had been secured by armed guards and that access to the grounds was only possible through a checkpoint where the visitors' identity information was registered in special logbooks. Moreover, two further checkpoints were situated on the access road to the MVD grounds. In the absence of any submissions by the Government to the effect that on 14 January 2004 there had been a security breach on the grounds of the MVD by reason of the insurgents' unhindered passage through several checkpoints, or any indication that the authorities had investigated that security breach, the Court is bound to conclude that the abduction took place on premises over which State authorities exercised full control at the material time. Bearing this in mind and applying the principles enunciated in paragraph 79 above, the Court considers that the onus is thus on the Government to provide a plausible explanation of what happened on the premises and to show that Bekman Asadulayev was not detained by the authorities, but left the premises without subsequently being deprived of his liberty.
85. However, the Court is not persuaded by the Government's submissions that Bekman Asadulayev had been abducted by insurgents or private persons because of a personal feud. In the first place the Court can hardly discern how a group of four men wearing camouflage uniforms, driving a car without licence plates and armed with automatic weapons could have passed three checkpoints leading to the MVD secure grounds, entered those secure premises, forced a person into their vehicle in broad daylight in front of the MVD building and left the secure grounds unhindered, without raising any suspicion. In the Court's view, this fact would rather strongly support the applicants' allegation that these were State agents (compare Alikhadzhiyeva v. Russia, No. 68007/01, § 59, 5 July 2007;
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