acknowledged detention by State servicemen. Noting that the authorities do not rely on any ground of justification in respect of the use of lethal force by their agents, or otherwise accounting for his death, it follows that liability for his presumed death is attributable to the respondent Government.
85. Accordingly, the Court finds that there has been a violation of Article 2 in respect of Mr Magomed Dokuyev.
B. The alleged inadequacy of the investigation
into the abduction
1. Arguments of the parties
86. The applicants argued that the investigation had not been effective and adequate, as required by the Court's case-law on Article 2. In particular, it had been opened six months after Mr Magomed Dokuyev's disappearance and had been pending for over seven years without any tangible results so far, having been repeatedly suspended and reopened.
87. The Government claimed that the investigation into the disappearance of the applicants' relative met the Convention requirement of effectiveness, as all measures envisaged in national law were being taken to identify the perpetrators.
2. The Court's assessment
88. 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, mutatis mutandis, McCann and Others, cited above, p. 49, § 161, and Kaya v. Turkey, judgment of 19 February 1998, § 86, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998-I). The essential purpose of such 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 - 109, 4 May 2001, and Douglas-Williams v. the United Kingdom (dec.), No. 56413/00, 8 January 2002).
89. The Court notes at the outset that the documents from the investigation 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.
90. Turning to the facts of the case, the Court notes that, according to the applicants, they applied to the authorities asking for assistance in establishing the whereabouts of Mr Magomed Dokuyev two days after his detention, that is on 16 February 2001. The Government did not contest this information. However, the investigation was not opened until 12 August 2001, that is almost six months later. This delay, for which no explanation was provided, was in itself liable to affect the investigation of a crime such as abduction in life-threatening circumstances, where crucial action must be taken in first days after the event.
91. The Court observes that on 20 August 2001 the first applicant was granted victim status and questioned. However, it appears that after that a number of crucial steps were delayed and were eventually taken only after the communication of the complaint to the respondent Gove
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