Religion – Weltanschauung – Recht [ RWR ]

All four cases concern the Russian authorities’ refusal to hand over to their relatives the bodies of presumed terrorists, who were killed in Russia’s North Caucasus region. The cases Arkhestov and Others v. Russia and Zalov and Khakulova v. Russia also concern the conditions in which the bodies of the applicants’ deceased relatives were stored during the identification process.

The applicant in the first case, Tamara Abdulayeva, is a Russian national who was born in 1951 and lives in the village of Goyty of the Urus-Martan District of the Chechen Republic (Russia). She is the mother of Sultan Shotovich Vagapov, who was killed during a military operation in the Itum-Kalinskiy District of Chechnya in January 2005. The authorities informed Ms Abdulayeva of her son’s death, showing her a copy of his identity card and a photo of a dead body, and told her that he was a rebel whose body would be kept at a military base. Her subsequent requests to see the body and to have it returned to her were refused by the authorities, relying on the Russian legislation on the fight against terrorism.

The applicants in the case Kushtova and Others v. Russia are seven Russian nationals who live in the village of Troitskaya, the Republic of Ingushetiya (Russia). They are the mother and the siblings of Isa Kushtov, who died in a military operation carried out by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) on 10 July 2006 in the village of Ekazhevo in the Nazran District of the Ingushetia Republic. According to FSB statements, several “guerilla fighters” were killed during the operation, among them Isa Kushtov. Four of the applicants, who went to the Nazran morgue on the following day, identified his body, but his mother’s request to have her son’s body returned to her for burial in accordance with the traditions of her family members, who are practicing Muslims, was refused.

The seven applicants in the case Arkhestov and Others v. Russia and one of the two applicants in the case Zalov and Khakulova v. Russia live in the Republic of Kabardino-Balkariya and the second applicant in the latter case lives in the Stavropol Region (both in Russia). All applicants are Russian nationals and relatives of insurgents who were killed in October 2005 during an attack on lawenforcement agencies in Nalchik, the Republic of Kabardino-Balkariya, and the ensuing fight between Government forces and the insurgents. The applicants requested various officials, including the prosecutors in a criminal investigation that had been opened into the attack, to return their relatives bodies to them for burial, but their requests either remained unanswered or were eventually refused. The bodies of most of the people killed during the attack and the fights were cremated in June 2006.

Relying on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), the applicants in the cases Arkhestov and Others v. Russia and Zalov and Khakulova v. Russia complain about the conditions in which the bodies of their deceased relatives were stored for identification in the town morgue. They state in particular that the bodies were chaotically piled on top of one another. Five of the applicants in the case Arkhestov and Others v. Russia also complain that they were not able to adequately participate in the identification process.

Relying on Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life), the applicants in all four cases complain about the authorities’ refusal to hand over the bodies of their deceased relatives. All applicants further rely, in particular, on Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) in conjunction with Article 8, complaining that they did not have an effective remedy in respect of that decision, and on Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) in conjunction with Article 8, complaining that the authorities’ refusal to return to them their relatives’ bodies under the terrorism legislation was discriminatory, as this legislation was aimed exclusively at followers of the Islamic faith.

Press release ECHR 002 (2014) 08/01/2014