possession or to provide another plausible explanation of the events in question, the Court considers that Amir Magomedov and Ali Uspayev were abducted and that Aslan Dokayev and Rustam Achkhanov were shot and then taken away by State servicemen during the security operation of 18 July 2001.
108. There has been no reliable news of Amir Magomedov, Ali Uspayev, Aslan Dokayev and Rustam Achkhanov since 18 July 2001. Their names have not been found in any official detention facilities' records. The Government did not submit any explanation as to what had happened to them after that day.
109. The Court is not in a position to establish with certainty whether Aslan Dokayev and Rustam Achkhanov died on 18 July 2001 of the wounds received or not. At any rate, having regard to the previous cases concerning disappearances of people in the Chechen Republic which have come before the Court (see, for example, Luluyev and Others v. Russia, No. 69480/01, ECHR 2006-...), it considers that, in the context of the conflict in the Chechen Republic, when a person is detained by unidentified servicemen without any subsequent acknowledgement of the detention, this can be regarded as life-threatening. The absence of Amir Magomedov, Ali Uspayev, Aslan Dokayev and Rustam Achkhanov or any news of them for almost eight years corroborates this assumption.
110. Accordingly, the Court finds it established that on 18 July 2001 Amir Magomedov and Ali Uspayev were abducted and that Aslan Dokayev and Rustam Achkhanov were shot and then abducted by State servicemen and that the four men must be presumed dead following these events.
ii. The State's compliance with Article 2
111. The Court reiterates that Article 2, which safeguards the right to life and sets out the circumstances when deprivation of life may be justified, ranks as one of the most fundamental provisions in the Convention, from which no derogation is permitted (see McCann and Others v. the United Kingdom, 27 September 1995, § 147, Series A No. 324).
112. The Court has already found it established that Amir Magomedov, Ali Uspayev, Aslan Dokayev and Rustam Achkhanov must be presumed dead (see paragraph 110 above). Noting that the authorities do not rely on any ground of justification in respect of the use of lethal force by State servicemen, it considers that responsibility for their deaths lies with the respondent Government.
113. Accordingly, the Court finds that there has been a violation of Article 2 of the Convention in respect of Amir Magomedov, Ali Uspayev, Aslan Dokayev and Rustam Achkhanov.
(b) The alleged inadequacy of the investigation
114. The Court reiterates that the obligation to protect the right to life under Article 2 of the Convention, read in conjunction with the State's general duty under Article 1 of the Convention to "secure to everyone within [its] jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in [the] Convention", also requires by implication that there should be some form of effective official investigation when individuals have been killed as a result of the use of force (see Kaya v. Turkey, 19 February 1998, § 86, Reports 1998-I). The essential purpose of such an investigation is to secure the effective implementation of the domestic laws which protect the right to life and, in those cases involving State agents or bodies, to ensure their accountability for deaths occurring under their responsibility. This investigation should be independent, accessible to the victim's family, carried out with reasonable promptness and expedition, effective in the sense that it is capable of leading to a determination of whether the force used in such cases was or was not justified in the circumstances or otherwise unlawful, and afford a sufficient element of public scrutiny of the investigation or its results (see Hugh Jordan v. the United Kingdom, No. 24746/94, §§ 105 - 09, ECHR 2
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