submit not only the case documents, but also a detailed account of the relevant events. In these circumstances and drawing inferences from the Government's failure to submit information on the course of the proceedings, it concludes that a number of essential investigative measures were either delayed or not taken at all.
86. Most notably, it does not appear from the materials in the Court's possession that the investigators ever tried to find out whether an identity check was carried out at the bus stop near the dam on 25 June 2002 and, if so, which State agency was in charge of it. According to the Government, the investigators demanded information on special operations from various law-enforcement agencies and established that no such operations had taken place in the area at the material time (see paragraph 40 above). However, the Government have not clarified whether a standard identity checkpoint is to be regarded as a "special operation" or not. In the absence of an unequivocal answer the Court is inclined to assume that not every identity check constitutes a "special operation". Given that a number of witnesses confirmed that they had seen the identity check at the bus stop, it considers that the investigators should have been more specific and precise when formulating their requests to the law-enforcement agencies. Moreover, the investigators have taken no steps to verify, on the basis of Mr Yu.'s submissions (see paragraph 37 above), whether any motorcades composed of APCs were circulating near the village of Chernorechye on 25 June 2002.
87. The Court also notes that even though the first applicant was granted victim status in case No. 50115, the city prosecutor's office only informed her of one of its decisions (the decision of 6 November 2002 to suspend the investigation), while it is clear from the Government's submissions that the investigation was suspended and subsequently resumed a number of times. In such circumstances, and the Court considers that the investigators clearly and blatantly failed to ensure that the investigation received the required level of public scrutiny, or to safeguard the legitimate interests of the next of kin of the victim in the proceedings (see {Ogur} v. Turkey [GC], No. 21594/93, § 92, ECHR 1999-III).
88. Finally, the Court notes that the investigation was suspended and resumed an unspecified number of times. In such circumstances it is plausible to assume that there were lengthy periods of inactivity on the part of the city prosecutor's office when no proceedings were pending.
89. The Court will now examine the limb of the Government's objection that was joined to the merits of the complaint (see paragraph 55 above). Inasmuch as it concerns the fact that the domestic investigation is still pending, the Court notes that the authorities' failure to take necessary and urgent investigative measures undermined the effectiveness of the investigation in its early stages. Moreover, although the Government mentioned the applicants' right to apply for judicial review of the decisions of the investigating authorities in the context of the exhaustion of domestic remedies, without access to the case file or proper information on the progress of the investigation, the applicants could not have effectively challenged acts or omissions of the investigating authorities before a court. Furthermore, given that the effectiveness of the investigation had already been undermined, it is highly doubtful that the remedy relied on would have had any prospects of success. Accordingly, the Court finds that the criminal-law remedies relied on by the Government were ineffective in the circumstances and rejects their objection as regards the applicants' failure to exhaust domestic remedies within the context of the criminal investigation.
90. In the light of the foregoing, the Court holds that the authorities fai
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