o the Government's refusal to submit any documents from the file of the criminal investigation into her husband's death and suggested that the burden should be shifted to the Government to prove that State agents had not been responsible for Mr Lecha Khazhmuradov's murder. The applicant further argued that no evidence had been submitted that the deprivation of her husband of his life had been justified under Article 2 § 2 of the Convention.
48. The Government argued that the investigation had not obtained sufficient evidence that representatives of the federal forces had been involved in the murder of the applicant's husband. According to the Government, that possibility had been thoroughly checked, but was not proved so far; the motor vehicles the perpetrators had been driving were yet to be identified. They submitted that some procedural documents indeed stated that the applicant's husband had been killed "by servicemen of an unidentified military unit", however, that wording was based on the witness statements of Mr E., Mr Lit. and Mr A., who had taken the perpetrators for soldiers. According to the Government, the criminal case file contained no other evidence to corroborate those witness statements.
49. The Government further argued that whilst Mr E., Mr Lit. and Mr A. had claimed that the incident had occurred at around 4 p.m. and that immediately thereafter the servicemen had left in two armoured personnel carriers in the direction of Urus-Martan, serviceman L., who had been on duty at the check-point, had indicated that two armoured personnel carriers had passed through at around 6 p.m. The Government thus argued that the former and the latter might have been different armoured personnel carriers.
50. The Government also noted that the events under examination had occurred in 2000, when violent confrontation had taken place between the federal forces and the rebel fighters and numerous murders had been committed by members of illegal armed groups, using firearms and military vehicles. The Government argued therefore that there were no grounds to claim that the right to life of the applicant's husband secured by Article 2 of the Convention had been breached by the State.
(b) The Court's assessment
51. The Court reiterates that Article 2, which safeguards the right to life and sets out the circumstances where deprivation of life may be justified, ranks as one of the most fundamental provisions in the Convention, to which in peacetime no derogation is permitted under Article 15. The situations where deprivation of life may be justified are exhaustive and must be narrowly interpreted. The use of force which may result in the deprivation of life must be no more than "absolutely necessary" for the achievement of one of the purposes set out in Article 2 § 2 (a), (b) and (c). This term indicates that a stricter and more compelling test of necessity must be employed than that normally applicable when determining whether State action is "necessary in a democratic society" under paragraphs 2 of Articles 8 to 11 of the Convention. Consequently, the force used must be strictly proportionate to the achievement of the permitted aims. In the light of the importance of the protection afforded by Article 2, the Court must subject deprivations of life to the most careful scrutiny, particularly where deliberate lethal force is used, taking into consideration not only the actions of State agents who actually administer the force but also all the surrounding circumstances including such matters as the planning and control of the actions under examination (see McCann and Others v. the United Kingdom, 27 September 1995, §§ 146 - 50, Series A No. 324; Andronicou and Constantinou v. Cyprus, 9 October 1997, § 171, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997-VI; and {Ogur} v. Turkey [GC], No. 21594/93, § 78, ECHR 1999-III).
52. In cases where there are conf
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