{"id":1837,"date":"2018-10-17T20:31:49","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T19:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rcstaging.co.uk\/ehrac\/?p=1837"},"modified":"2021-06-03T01:52:55","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T00:52:55","slug":"abduction-ingushetia-state-agents","status":"publish","type":[30],"link":"http:\/\/ehrac.org.uk\/en_gb\/abduction-ingushetia-state-agents\/","title":{"rendered":"Abduction and disappearance of Ingushetia man in 2009 carried out by State agents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t
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At 3:30am one October night in 2009, Khamutkhan Makhloyev and his wife awoke to armed men in masks and camouflage uniforms breaking into their home. They were ordered at gunpoint to stand against a wall in their courtyard, before being forced into another room with their two daughters, while the armed men roamed their house. Once they had left, they went upstairs and found one of their sons, Ibragim, beaten and tied up with tape over his mouth, and their other son, Maskhud, missing.<\/p>\n

Ibragim told his parents that seven or eight men had beaten him and 27-year-old Maskhud, before taking his brother away. He has not been seen since. Today, nine years after these events, the European Court of Human Rights found that\u00a0Maskhud\u2019s abduction was carried out by Russian State agents, that he could be presumed dead and that his death could be attributed to the State<\/a>. EHRAC and Memorial Human Rights Centre (Moscow) represented Maskhud\u2019s father before the European Court.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe facts of this tragic case are sadly all too familiar. A young man disappears. His family waits for news of what happened to him. For more than 13 years,\u00a0<\/em>the Court has held Russia responsible in similar cases<\/a><\/em>, and yet reports of abductions and disappearances from the North Caucasus persist to this day.\u00a0<\/em>Russia must accept responsibility<\/a><\/em>\u00a0for \u2013 and cease \u2013this systemic practice, and effectively investigate the hundreds of cases already decided by the Court.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Joanne Sawyer, EHRAC Lawyer<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Who abducted Maskhud?<\/h3>\n

Twelve days after his abduction, the authorities initiated a criminal investigation but failed to establish who was responsible. His parents stated that he did not have any enemies, nor did the family have a \u2018blood feud\u2019 with anyone else. However, Maskhud had been targeted by the State authorities several times before his disappearance. In December 2006 he was arrested and detained for four months on suspicion of involvement in an attack on local policemen, but criminal proceedings were terminated for lack of evidence of his guilt. Law enforcement agents searched his house, which he shared with his parents and siblings, three times before he was abducted. In August 2009, four months before he disappeared, Maskhud was wounded by an unidentified person and, while in hospital, was visited by police officers who threatened to kill him and his family.<\/p>\n

Maskhud\u2019s abduction and disappearance is\u00a0not an isolated incident<\/a>. Since 2005, the Court has established\u00a0State responsibility for disappearances in hundreds of cases from the North Caucasus<\/a>, particularly in Chechnya, but also in Ingushetia, Dagestan and North Ossetia-Alania.<\/p>\n

What did the Court find?<\/h3>\n

Most significantly, the Court found that, given the context of widespread disappearances in the North Caucasus, the circumstances of Maskhud\u2019s case followed a pattern indicating that the unidentified men who broke into his family home were State agents:<\/p>\n