rce 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).
109. The Court notes at the outset that no documents from the investigation file were 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 brief information about its progress presented by the Government.
110. Turning to the facts of the present case, the Court notes that from the information available it appears that the applicants first applied in writing on 18 June 2002 to have an investigation launched into their relatives' abduction. The investigation was instituted on that date. Accordingly, the Court is satisfied that the authorities' reaction was sufficiently prompt.
111. It observes, however, that a number of crucial investigative steps were delayed or not taken at all. In particular, A. and V., servicemen with the OMON unit of Buryatiya who had been on duty at the checkpoint at the relevant time, were not questioned until more than six months after the institution of the proceedings. No explanation was provided for this delay. Although they both confirmed that on 9 June 2002 servicemen at the checkpoint had stopped a white VAZ 21061 car and apprehended five persons in the car, the Court has no information as to the investigative actions taken in order to establish which military units and which individual servicemen were involved in the apprehension.
112. The Court further notes that, although in the early stages of the investigation the applicants indicated the names of servicemen who, according to the results of their private search, had been involved in their relatives' apprehension, it took the investigating authorities several years to identify and question some of them. In particular, D., whom the applicants alleged to have taken part in the apprehension of their relatives, was not questioned until more than a year following the institution of the investigation. It appears that he provided rather general information concerning his service in Chechnya and there is no indication that any questions concerning the specific events at issue were even put to him. As regards L., after having received conflicting replies as to whether he had served with the Interior Ministry troops at all (see paragraphs 39 - 40 above), the applicants were informed that he had been finally identified and questioned only in a letter of 15 January 2004, that is, one and a half years after the institution of the investigation. No explanation was provided for this delay.
113. Furthermore, it appears that a number of the most elementary investigative steps were never taken. In particular, there is no information to suggest that the applicants, including those who witnessed the apprehension of Mr Suliman Malikov, Mr Adlan Khatuyev, Mr Aslan Khatuyev, Mr Sayd-Salu Akhmatov and Mr Mansur Ismailov, or other residents of Duba-Yurt who witnessed the events, were ever questioned. No information was made available to the Court concerning the efforts, if any, to establish to which units the vehicles in which the applicants' relatives were taken away belonged. Nor is any information available on any efforts, such as checking detention facilities' records, aimed at establishing the whereabouts of the applicants' relatives. Likewise, it appears that none of the servicemen in charge of the special operation was questioned, apart from D. and L., who were identified by the applicants themselves and questioned with a substantial delay. Finally, the Court notes that for several years the authorities consistently denied that the applica
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