s a result of their relative's disappearance 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
107. The Government submitted that the investigation had not established that the applicants' relative had been kidnapped by State agents. Neither had it established that the applicants had been subjected to treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention.
108. The applicants maintained their complaint.
B. The Court's assessment
1. Admissibility
109. The Court finds 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 ground. It must therefore be declared admissible.
2. Merits
110. The Court observes that the question whether a member of the family of a "disappeared person" is a victim of treatment contrary to Article 3 will depend on the existence of special factors which give the suffering of the applicants a dimension and character distinct from the emotional distress which may be regarded as inevitably caused to relatives of a victim of a serious human rights violation. Relevant elements will include the proximity of the family tie, the particular circumstances of the relationship, the extent to which the family member witnessed the events in question, the involvement of the family member in the attempts to obtain information about the disappeared person and the way in which the authorities responded to those enquiries. The Court would further emphasise that the essence of such a violation does not mainly lie in the fact of the "disappearance" of the family member but rather concerns the authorities' reactions and attitudes to the situation when it is brought to their attention. It is especially in respect of the latter that a relative may claim directly to be a victim of the authorities' conduct (see Orhan, cited above, § 358, and Imakayeva, cited above, § 164).
111. In the present case the Court notes that the missing person is the brother of the first and third applicants and the husband of the second applicant. For over five years they had no news of him. Although the applicants were not eyewitnesses to Bekman Asadulayev's apprehension, the first and the third applicants applied to various official bodies with enquiries about him. Despite their attempts, they have never received any plausible explanation or information as to what became of him following his abduction. The Court's findings under the procedural aspect are also of direct relevance here. The Court also considers that the second applicant, who constituted immediate family of the disappeared person, was also to a certain extent involved in the search for her husband. In the Court's view, the second applicant's mental anguish in connection with her husband's disappearance must have been exacerbated by the fact that, whilst the District Court explicitly stated that her husband had been apprehended by officials of power structures and with the knowledge of the MVD officials, the investigation persisted in denying any implication of State agents in the abduction.
112. In view of the above, the Court finds that the applicants suffered distress and anguish as a result of the disappearance of their close relative and their inability to find out what happened to him. The manner in which their complaints have been dealt with by the authorities must be considered to constitute inhuman treatment contrary to Article 3.
IV. Alleged violation of Article 5 of the Convention
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