The case was launched by five relatives of Apti Isigov and Zelimkhan Umkhanov, who say the pair were abducted by Russian servicemen on July 2, 2001, and have not been heard from since.
In the ruling the court said that "the Russian government had not submitted any explanation as to what had happened to [the missing Chechens] after their detention" and that they had been held in "unacknowledged detention," which "constituted a particularly grave violation of the right to liberty and security."
The Russian authorities were also found guilty of failing "to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances in which the applicants' relatives had disappeared."
The court ruled that the two people "had to be presumed dead following their unacknowledged detention by State servicemen" and that their relatives are to jointly receive 122,737 euros for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage, as well as to cover costs.
