Russians' Appeals to Court Bring Intimidation, Death

Applicants appeal to the European Court as a last resort, after they have exhausted their opportunities in their home country. The court first decides whether to communicate the complaint to the Russian government. After the government replies, the court then rules whether it will admit the case for a full hearing and a decision. The whole process can take years.

The court is facing a huge backlog of cases. Last August, it formally gave priority to all cases related to the conflict in Chechnya, a decision that appeared to have been motivated, in part, by reports of pressure on applicants, according to the Justice Initiative.

In addition, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, whose member states set up the court in 1959, passed a resolution last year expressing "outrage" about a number of cases in which applicants had been killed or had disappeared.

Marzet Imakayeva and her husband, Said-Magomed Imakayev, applied to the court in February 2002, about 14 months after their 23-year-old son disappeared in Chechnya. That June, the Imakayevs' home was raided by men in uniform, and Said-Magomed Imakayev was detained. He hasn't been seen since.

Military and prosecution officials continued to harass Imakayeva and have accused her of financing terrorism, according to court records. Imakayeva, her son, daughter and grandson moved to the United States as refugees in 2004.

"I was constantly followed by military vehicles," Imakayeva said in a telephone interview. "The lawyers who worked with me warned me to be careful. To save my remaining children, I had to leave."

In submissions to the court, the Russian state at first denied any involvement in Said-Magomed's disappearance, saying he was kidnapped "by members of one of the terrorist organizations acting in Chechen Republic" who used Russian military uniforms as a disguise. The Russian authorities later revised that statement to say her husband "had been detained by soldiers in accordance with the law" but was later released.

In another case, Zura Bitieva, a human rights activist in Chechnya, appealed to the court, saying she was tortured while in custody in January and February 2000. On May 2003, Bitieva, her husband, Ramzan, her son Idris and her brother were shot and killed at their home in the early morning.

In April 2004, yet another applicant, Yakub Magomadov, vanished. Magomadov, who lived in Moscow, had petitioned the court over the disappearance of his brother, Ayubkhan, in Chechnya in 2000.

"All he did was search for Ayubkhan," said Eliza Magomadova, a sister of the two missing men. "That's why they took him."

In a letter to the court, Laptev said investigators, after various checks, had found no trace of Magomadov.

The most recent killing and disappearance of applicants stemmed from an incident in early 2004 when eight people were detained in a Chechen village by unidentified men whom residents described as "military men," according to Memorial. The bodies of the eight and another person were found in a shallow grave nearly two weeks later.

Two relatives of one of the dead men appealed to the European Court. In April of this year, armed men broke into their home and took them away. Human rights workers asked that the two not be identified to protect the remaining family members.

The body of one of the men was found in a river in Chechnya in May. The other man is still missing.