been present at the scene of the incident or the units they belonged to. In such circumstances the Court is ready to draw inferences from the Government's failure to submit such information. In any event, the use of a plural form of a word "witness" in the Government's submissions indicates that there were at least two eyewitnesses to the shooting of Aslan Dokayev and Rustam Achkhanov who claimed to have seen the two men being wounded and put in the APCs. Furthermore, the applicants' hypothesis that Aslan Dokayev and Rustam Achkhanov had been shot by State servicemen on 18 July 2001 is supported by the Government's admission that the servicemen had opened fire in the immediate vicinity of the two men who were allegedly attempting to escape.
103. The Court observes that those unnamed witnesses questioned by the investigators could not tell with certainty whether Aslan Dokayev and Rustam Achkhanov had died of the wounds received on the spot or had survived and remained in captivity for at least some time. Nonetheless, it follows from the depositions that they made, both before the domestic investigation and the applicants, that Aslan Dokayev and Rustam Achkhanov had been shot at and then taken away by armed men travelling in the APCs on the day of the special operation. This information combined with the fact that there has been no news from Aslan Dokayev and Rustam Achkhanov for nearly eight years confirms that those armed men were State servicemen.
104. Moreover, the applicants' allegation that the armed men travelling in APCs who had abducted Amir Magomedov and Ali Uspayev were State agents is plausible in view of the Government's statement that the special operation had been carried out in Pobedinskoe in the vicinity of Raduzhnoe on 18 July 2001. To assume the contrary would suggest that a group of insurgents had been able to travel unnoticed in highly visible vehicles such as APCs around a village where there were many federal troops.
105. The fact that the proceedings related to the disappearance of the applicants' relatives were - and apparently still are - pending before military prosecutors' offices empowered to deal with criminal cases attributable to military personnel implies that the domestic investigators accepted the applicants' factual assumptions of servicemen's implication in the crimes. Furthermore, on 9 November 2004 the district prosecutor's office stated in affirmative terms that military involvement in the murder of Aslan Dokayev and Rustam Achkhanov and the kidnapping of Amir Magomedov and Ali Uspayev had been proven (see paragraph 48 above).
106. The Court observes that where the applicants make out a prima facie case and the Court is prevented from reaching factual conclusions owing to a lack of documents, it is for the Government to show conclusively why the documents in question cannot serve to corroborate the allegations made by the applicants, or to provide a satisfactory and convincing explanation of how the events in question occurred. The burden of proof is thus shifted to the Government and if they fail in their arguments, issues will arise under Article 2 and/or Article 3 (see {Togcu} v. Turkey, No. 27601/95, § 95, 31 May 2005, and Akkum and Others v. Turkey, No. 21894/93, § 211, ECHR 2005-II).
107. Taking into account the above elements, the Court is satisfied that the applicants have made a prima facie case that Amir Magomedov and Ali Uspayev were abducted and that Aslan Dokayev and Rustam Achkhanov were shot and then taken away by State servicemen. The Government's statement that the investigation did not find any evidence to support the involvement of the special forces in the shooting and kidnapping is insufficient to discharge them from the above-mentioned burden of proof. Drawing inferences from the Government's failure to submit the documents which were in their exclusive
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