y the perpetrators.
45. On 21 March 2005 the Gudermes district acting prosecutor overruled the decision of 24 January 2004 and the investigation was resumed. The applicants were informed about this decision.
46. On 22 August 2007 the investigators questioned the eighth and fourth applicants as well as Salman Bantayev's neighbour, Mrs M.M. The eighth applicant testified that on an unspecified date in January 2003 he had woken up and had seen a group of armed masked men in camouflage uniforms in the house. They had demanded money and gold; having spent about twenty minutes in the house, they had left with his father Salman Bantayev. They had also taken away some of their family's valuables. The fourth applicant testified that on an unspecified date in January 2003 she had woken up and had seen a group of armed masked men in camouflage uniforms. They had demanded money and gold; having spent about twenty minutes in the house, they had left with her father Abubakar Bantayev. They had also taken away their family's TV set. Mrs M.M. testified that about 3 a.m. on 2 January 2003 she had seen from her window two UAZ cars next to the Bantayevs' house. A group of seven or eight men in masks and camouflage uniforms had got out of the cars, entered Salman Bantayev's house and had left about fifteen minutes later.
47. On the same day, i.e. on 22 August 2007, the investigators refused to open criminal proceedings in connection with the unlawful entry into the home and the theft of documents from the houses of Abubakar and Salman Bantayev due to the expiration of the statutory time-limits, but the district prosecutor's office instituted an investigation into the theft from the houses of Abubakar and Salman Bantayev on the night of their abduction under Article 162 of the Criminal Code (aggravated robbery). The criminal case file was assigned number 15086. The investigators also granted Shamil Bantayev the status of civil plaintiff in criminal case No. 32000. On 23 August 2007 Madina Bantayeva was granted the same status in the criminal proceedings.
48. On an unspecified date the investigators requested information from the Gudermes ROVD about the passage of military vehicles through the checkpoints in the village of Komsomolskoye on the night of the abduction of the Bantayev brothers. According to the response from the ROVD, no passage of military vehicles had been registered that night.
49. According to the Government, the investigators also requested information from various law enforcement agencies in Chechnya concerning the disappearance of the Bantayev brothers. The Temporary Operational Troops of the Ministry of the Interior in Chechnya (временная оперативная группировка МВД РФ в Чечне), the Chechnya FSB and the Northern-Caucasus Operational Headquarters of Ministry of the Interior (Северокавказское оперативное управление МВД РФ) and other agencies submitted that they had no information concerning the whereabouts of the Bantayev brothers. Law enforcement agencies in Chechnya informed the investigators that their agents had not detained Abubakar Bantayev and Salman Bantayev and had not carried out any investigation in respect of them. The brothers had not been detained on administrative or criminal charges. No special operations had been carried out in respect of the disappeared men.
50. The investigation in the criminal case failed to establish the whereabouts of Abubakar and Salman Bantayev. However, it found no evidence to support the involvement of servicemen of federal forces in the abduction of the applicants' relatives.
51. The Government further submitted that the investigation into the abduction of the Bantayev brothers had been suspended and resumed on several occasions, and so far it had failed to identify the perpetrators. The applicants had been duly informed of all decisions taken during the investigation.
52.
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