ation had not been effective and adequate, as required by the Court's case-law on Article 2. They noted that it had been adjourned and reopened a number of times and that the taking of the most basic steps had thus been protracted, and that the applicants had not been informed properly of the most important investigative steps. They argued that the fact that the investigation had been pending for such a long period of time without producing any known results had been further proof of its ineffectiveness. The applicants invited the Court to draw conclusions from the Government's unjustified failure to submit the documents from the case file to them or to the Court.
164. The Government claimed that the investigation into the disappearance of the applicants' relatives met the Convention requirement of effectiveness, as all measures envisaged in national law were being taken to identify the perpetrators. They argued that the decisions to adjourn and to reopen the investigation signified that the authorities had continued to take steps in order to resolve the crime. They also noted that the investigation had been opened on the same day as the kidnapping, and that on that day a large number of witnesses had been questioned, that the prosecutor's office had forwarded numerous information requests to various bodies, trying to check the applicants' version of the events. The absence of results could not be treated as a breach of the positive obligations under Article 2, which entailed an obligation to use particular means.
165. The Court 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).
166. 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.
167. 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 produced by the Government.
168. Turning to the facts of the case, the Court notes that the authorities were immediately aware of the crime through the applicants' submissions. The investigation was opened on 23 October 2002. It also appears that on that day and within the following days some applicants, members of the detained men's families and their neighbours were questioned and the scene of the crime inspected. On 25 October 2002 the local military commander's office informed the investigation that none of its servicemen had been involved in the special operation in question. Following the discovery and identification of the five bodies on 8 November 2002, a new investigation was opened. Within the following days the site of the crime was examined, two witnesses were questioned and forensic and ballistic expert examinations were carried out. Members of the kidnapped men's families were granted victim status between October and December 2002. 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.
169. In particular, the Court notes that, as appears from the documents and information provided by the Government, many eyewitnesses and other victims of the events were questioned in 2006 (see paragraphs 96, 99 and 100 above).
170. A number of essential steps were never taken. First, it does not appear that the investigation attempted to find out whether any special operations had been carried out in Chechen-Aul on the night in question, or identified and questioned any of the servicemen who had
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