Nasukhanova and Others v. Russia, No. 5285/04, § 95, 18 December 2008; and Ruslan Umarov v. Russia, No. 12712/02, § 91, 3 July 2008). Furthermore, had the abductors been insurgents, it would have been reasonable to expect the authorities to investigate such a serious security breach. However, nothing in the Government's submissions indicates that this had been done in the present case. In the same vein, they presented no evidence to confirm that the investigating authorities had ever considered the theory that a personal feud had been behind the incident or taken any genuine steps to examine it.
86. Reiterating the principles enunciated in paragraph 79 above, the Court notes that the foregoing elements alone would be sufficient to conclude that the applicants' relative was abducted by State agents. Nonetheless, it cannot disregard several further circumstances which weigh heavily in support of the applicants' submission that their relative had been abducted by State agents.
87. Thus, whilst the Court was refused access to the case file, it transpires from the decision of 25 May 2006 that the District Court was given such access (see paragraph 56 above). Having directly examined documents from the investigation case file, including the interview transcripts of Mr Zh., Mr S., Mr Sh. and Mr D., the District Court concluded that the applicants' relative had been taken away "with the knowledge" of the MVD officials and "most likely, by officials of the power structures" (ibid.).
88. The Court also cannot overlook the statements by Mr Sh. and Mr A., referred to by the Government and also by the District Court in its decision of 25 May 2006. Those officers had submitted to the investigators that Mr S. had confirmed to them that Bekman Asadulayev had been taken away by "the competent authorities" "for questioning", in connection with some "information capable of compromising him" (see paragraphs 32 and 44 above).
89. The Government disputed several details of the applicants' account of the events surrounding the abduction of their relative, such as the reason for his summoning to the MVD, the exact time of the arrival of the armed men in the office of Mr G., their "unusual" uniforms and, lastly, Bekman Asadulayev's possible handcuffing. However, as the Government themselves correctly suggested, the applicants had not eyewitnessed the abduction of their relative and it is logical that they based their account of the events on all possible sources of information available to them. Furthermore, the Court does not consider that those alleged inconsistencies are such as to undermine the otherwise coherent and convincing picture of Bekman Asadulayev's abduction presented by applicants. In any event, in view of its findings in paragraphs 84 - 86 it does not consider it necessary to resolve those alleged discrepancies.
90. Taking into account the elements discussed above, the Court is satisfied that Bekman Asadulayev was abducted on 14 January 2004 from the secure grounds of the MVD by State agents during an unacknowledged security operation.
91. It is further to be decided whether Bekman Asadulayev is to be presumed dead following his apprehension by State agents. In this connection the Court observes that the District Court refused to declare the applicants' relative dead. It firstly noted that the statutory five-year term for declaring dead a person that had gone missing in normal circumstances had not expired at the time of its examination of the case. Secondly, it did not consider that the applicants' relative had disappeared in life-threatening circumstances (see paragraph 56 above). However, this Court is unable to accept that domestic court's findings for the following reasons.
92. Firstly, the Court reiterates that its competence is confined to the international-law responsibility under the Convention which is based
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