NAZRAN, Russia -- Russians who appeal to the European Court of Human Rights after their relatives disappear or are killed in Chechnya or neighboring Ingushetia face constant threats to force them to drop the cases. In at least five instances, applicants to the court were themselves killed or had disappeared, according to lawyers, human rights groups, court records and relatives.
In April, two men were taken from their homes by armed men after filing a case about the abduction of eight people in a Chechen village in 2004, according to Memorial, a Russian human rights group. The body of one of the petitioners was found in May. Members of his family are now living in fear and considering withdrawing the case, according to Memorial.
Human rights activists say the incidents amount to a campaign of intimidation against the approximately 120 Russians from the North Caucasus who have sought the intervention of the court. The activists stop short of blaming the central government, suggesting that local officials may be acting on their own. The Russian government has denied any connection with the incidents.
Last year, a coalition of human rights groups sent a letter to the court, which sits in Strasbourg, France, and hears claims of violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights, which Russia signed effective in 1998. The letter detailed the killing and disappearance of two Russians from Chechnya who had appealed to the European Court as well as 12 examples of alleged beatings and threats.
In an interview, Zalina Medova said she has received both death threats and offers of payoffs to press her to withdraw a filing with the court seeking action about her husband, Adam Medov, a taxi driver who disappeared in June 2004. "My answer was always the same," said Medova, the mother of two young children, one of whom was born after her husband disappeared. "Give me my husband and I'll drop the case."
Jane Buchanan, until recently the executive director of the Russian Justice Initiative, calls the intimidation "a really disturbing and shocking problem." That group has filed close to 80 applications before the court. But Isa Gandarov, a lawyer at Memorial's office in the southern republic of Ingushetia, said two-thirds of potential applicants he sees decline to go forward with their cases when warned about the dangers of appealing to the court.
Russian officials did not respond to last year's letter to the court. "If such a letter really exists, it is the European Court that is supposed to give a response to it in line with the procedures of the Court," Pavel Laptev, the Russian representative to the court, said in a written response to questions. Laptev declined to be interviewed in person.
In submissions to the court, Russian officials have denied any involvement by state agencies or the military in specific cases of the killing, disappearance or intimidation of applicants. In his response to questions, Laptev wrote that these allegations "have not been confirmed after checking."
One of the cases involves Medov, the taxi driver. In 2004, he was picked up while on the job in Ingushetia. He became one of at least 3,000 people who have disappeared in the region in the last five years since a second war broke out in Chechnya, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch.
The group said Russian or Chechen security forces were responsible for most of the abductions. The conflict has spread to neighboring republics, including Ingushetia and North Ossetia, where last year Chechen separatists seized a school in which 330 people, most of them children, were killed.
On the evening of June 17, 2004, road police in Ingushetia stopped two cars headed for the nearby Chechen border. Six armed men were in the vehicles.
After noise was heard from the trunk of one of the cars, it was opened for inspection. Inside, the officers found Medov, his hands bound, according to a statement of facts written by the European Court in April. A second man was in the trunk of the other car.
