o be brought subsequently before the Court should have been made to the appropriate domestic body, at least in substance and in compliance with the formal requirements and time-limits laid down in domestic law and, further, that any procedural means that might prevent a breach of the Convention should have been used. However, there is no obligation to have recourse to remedies which are inadequate or ineffective (see Aksoy v. Turkey, 18 December 1996, §§ 51 - 52, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996-VI; and, most recently, Cennet Ayhan and Mehmet Salih Ayhan v. Turkey, No. 41964/98, § 64, 27 June 2006).
70. It is incumbent on the respondent Government claiming non-exhaustion to indicate to the Court with sufficient clarity the remedies to which the applicants have not had recourse and to satisfy the Court that the remedies were effective and available in theory and in practice at the relevant time, that is to say that they were accessible, were capable of providing redress in respect of the applicant's complaints and offered reasonable prospects of success (see Cennet Ayhan and Mehmet Salih Ayhan, cited above, § 65).
71. The Court notes that the Russian legal system provides, in principle, two avenues of recourse for the victims of illegal and criminal acts attributable to the State or its agents, namely civil and criminal remedies.
72. As regards a civil action to obtain redress for damage sustained through the alleged illegal acts or unlawful conduct of State agents, the Court has already found in a number of similar cases that this procedure alone cannot be regarded as an effective remedy in the context of claims brought under Article 2 of the Convention. A civil court is unable to pursue any independent investigation and is incapable, without the benefit of the conclusions of a criminal investigation, of making any meaningful findings regarding the identity of the perpetrators of fatal assaults or disappearances, still less of establishing their responsibility (see Khashiyev and Akayeva v. Russia, Nos. 57942/00 and 57945/00, §§ 119 - 21, 24 February 2005; and Estamirov and Others v. Russia, No. 60272/00, § 77, 12 October 2006). In the light of the above, the Court confirms that the applicants were not obliged to pursue civil remedies.
73. As regards the criminal-law remedies provided for by the Russian legal system, the Court observes that the applicants complained of Marvan Idalov's kidnapping to the law-enforcement authorities and that an investigation into the incident has been pending since 5 August 2004. The applicants and the Government dispute the effectiveness of this investigation.
74. The Court considers that the Government's objection regarding the criminal-law remedies raises issues concerning the effectiveness of the investigation which are closely linked to the merits of the applicants' complaints. Thus it considers that this objection should be joined to the merits and falls to be examined below.
IV. The Court's assessment of the evidence
and the establishment of the facts
A. The parties' arguments
75. The applicants maintained that it was beyond reasonable doubt that the men who had taken away Marvan Idalov had been State agents. In support of their complaint they referred to the following facts. The kidnappers had travelled in heavy military vehicles, such as the APC and IBV. They would have had to pass through a military checkpoint to get to the Idalovs' house. The military vehicles had moved in the direction of military unit No. 24. The armed men had Slavic features and spoke unaccented Russian. The applicants asserted that there was no proof that Marvan Idalov had ever been involved in illegal activities.
76. The Government submitted that there was no evidence that Marvan Idalov had been kidnapped by State agents and that there were th
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