inadequacy of the investigation into the kidnapping
86. The Court has on many occasions stated that the obligation to protect the right to life under Article 2 of 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. It has developed a number of guiding principles to be followed for an investigation to comply with the Convention's requirements (for a summary of these principles see Bazorkina, cited above, §§ 117 - 119).
87. In the present case, the kidnapping of Ruslan Askhabov, Isa Dubayev and Isa Dokayev was investigated. The Court must assess whether that investigation met the requirements of Article 2 of the Convention.
88. The Court notes at the outset that the documents from the investigation file were not disclosed by the Government. It therefore has to assess the effectiveness of the investigation on the basis of the few documents submitted by the applicants and the information about its progress presented by the Government.
89. The Court notes that the authorities were immediately made aware of the crime by the applicants' submissions. The investigation in case No. 52158 was instituted on 16 December 2002, that is six days after the abduction of the applicants' relatives. While this delay in itself was not very long, the Court, having regard to the absence of any explanations by the Government in this respect, cannot accept that it was justified in a situation where crucial action has to be taken in the first days after the event. It appears that after that a number of essential steps were not taken by the investigators. For instance, the investigators had failed to take such basic steps as identifying and questioning the servicemen who had manned the checkpoints in the Oktyabrskiy district of Grozny on the night of abduction; questioning the servicemen of the military commander's office which was located in the vicinity of Isa Dokayev's house; establishing which military units could have used the military vehicles described by the relatives of the abducted men; identification and questioning of the staff of the military commander's office and of the ROVD who could have been involved in the abduction of Ruslan Askhabov, Isa Dubayev and Isa Dokayev. It is obvious that if these investigative measures were to produce any meaningful results they should have been taken immediately after the crime was reported to the authorities, and as soon as the investigation commenced. The failure to undertake these basic investigative measures not only demonstrates the authorities' failure to act of their own motion but also constitutes a breach of the obligation to exercise exemplary diligence and promptness in dealing with such a serious crime (see Paul and Audrey Edwards v. the United Kingdom, No. 46477/99, § 86, ECHR 2002-II).
90. The Court also notes that even though the applicants or their relatives were granted victim status in case No. 52158, they were only informed of the suspensions and the resumptions of the proceedings, and not of any other significant developments. Accordingly, the investigators failed to ensure that the investigation received the required level of public scrutiny, or to safeguard the interests of the next of kin in the proceedings.
91. Finally, the Court notes that the investigation in case No. 52158 was suspended and resumed several times and that there were lengthy periods of inactivity on the part of the prosecutor's office when no proceedings were pending.
92. Having regard to the limb of the Government's objection that was joined to the merits of the complaint, inasmuch as it concerns the fact that the domestic investigation is still pending, the Court notes that the investigation, having being repeatedly suspended and resumed and plagued by inexplicable delays, has
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