Europe and Central Asia Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Region, January-June 2007 Court concluded that the deaths of Zura Bitieva and her three relatives could be attributed to the State. The Russian authorities had also failed in their obligation to conduct an effective, prompt and thorough investigation into the killings (see AI Index: EUR 46/027/2007). During the period under review, the European Court of Human Rights issued another three judgments in which they found serious human rights violations committed during the second conflict in Chechnya. The judgments were Chitayev and Chitayev v. Russia (concerning torture in Chernokozovo detention centre), Baysayeva v. Russia (concerning the enforced disappearance of Shakhid Baysaev), and Akhmadov and Sadulaeva v. Russia (concerning the illegal detention, enforced disappearance and killing of Shamil Akhmadov). Supreme Court rules that the case against Sergei Lapin should be re-tried (update to AI Indexes: EUR 46/027/2002, EUR 01/005/2004, EUR 01/002/2005, EUR 01/012/2005, EUR 01/007/2006 and EUR 01/017/2006) On 17 January the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, in response to a supervisory-review appeal by Sergei Lapin, ruled to return the case against Sergei Lapin for re-trial in Chechnya with a different panel of judges. His appeal for the case to be heard in another region of Russia and to be released pending trial was turned down. Sergei Lapin was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment for crimes relating to the torture and enforced disappearance of Zelimkhan Murdalov, who was detained and subsequently disappeared from police custody in January 2001 in Grozny. The trial was due to begin in July. Sergei Lapin is the only individual known to AI who has been convicted in connection with an enforced disappearance in Chechnya. In May, AI published a report on enforced disappearances in Chechnya. “Russian Federation: What justice for Chechnya’s Amnesty International 103 disappeared?” (AI Index: EUR 46/015/2007) highlighted the huge number of enforced disappearances and abductions during the second Chechen conflict and the almost total impunity for the violations, due to ineffective investigations by the authorities. Dagestan Young men go missing in Dagestan According to reports, around 16 young men, between 20 and 31 years old, went missing in Dagestan during the period under review. The families feared that they had been arbitrarily detained by police officers and were being held in incommunicado detention in Dagestan or in Chechnya, where they would be at a high risk of torture or extra-judicial execution. For example, Isa Alimpashaevich Isaev, born in 1982, reportedly went missing on 26 April. According to information available to AI, at 2pm he went out into the yard from the block of flats of his home in Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala, at the same time that police officers were carrying out a raid on a flat in the next door building. His family reported him going missing on 30 April to the Sovetskii District prosecutor’s office, and the Sovetskii District Department of Internal Affairs, but a criminal investigation into his disappearance was only opened on 29 June. The investigation has yet to yield any results. Kabardino-Balkaria Cremation of bodies of those killed during armed raid on Nalchik, October 2005 (update to AI Index: EUR 01/017/2006) On 29 June the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation ruled that a Russian federal law that allows the authorities not to return to the families the bodies of individuals killed while committing terrorist acts was constitutional. However, the court added that due process had to be followed – it had to be a court that established that AI Index: EUR 01/010/2007