here 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, an investigation of the abduction was carried out. The Court must assess whether that investigation met the requirements of Article 2 of the Convention.
88. The Court notes at the outset that most of 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 parties and the information about its progress presented by the Government.
89. Turning to the facts of the case, the Court notes that the applicants submit that they had immediately approached the authorities after the arrest of their family member, though they did not submit a formal complaint to the district prosecutor's office until two weeks after the event. Although the exact date of their application is unclear, on 10 November 2002 the second applicant wrote to a number of authorities and complained of inaction on the part of the district prosecutor's office. The investigation was opened on 1 January 2003 (some documents contained the date of 6 December 2002). Thus, the criminal proceedings into the alleged kidnapping started almost five months after the event occurred. Even though some of the initial delay can be attributed to the applicants, such a slow response from the law-enforcement bodies once the news of Aslanbek Astamirov's detention had become known to them remains without any explanation. This delay in itself was liable to affect the investigation of a crime such as abduction in life-threatening circumstances. It also appears that once the investigation was commenced, the first and fourth applicants as well as another female relative were questioned. The first applicant was granted victim status. 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 Government, or not at all.
90. In particular, the Court notes that, as it appears from the information submitted by the Government, other relatives and witnesses of the events were only questioned in July 2005 and then in 2006. An official from the Urus-Martan district administration was questioned in April 2006. Information from military and law-enforcement bodies was collected in December 2003 and then in 2006.
91. It is obvious that these measures, if they were to produce any meaningful results, should have been taken immediately after the crime was reported to the authorities, and as soon as the investigation commenced. These delays, for which there has been no explanation in the instant case, not only demonstrate the authorities' failure to act of their own motion but also constitute 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).
92. A number of essential steps were never taken. Most notably, it does not appear that the investigation tried to identify and question the servicemen who had manned the roadblocks controlling the entry and exit to the village, or that they had tried to contact the military authorities in order to find out whether any special operations had been carried out in Gekhi.
93. The Court also notes that even though the first and second applicants were granted victim status, they were only informed of the adjournment and reopening of the proceedings, and not of any other significant developments. Accordingly, the investigators failed to ensure that the
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