Did Russian justice properly investigate the murder case of Natalia Estemirova?

This Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), seized by the sister of the victim, condemned Russia for "lack of proper investigation" into the assassination of this activist who had denounced crimes allegedly was committed by members of the security forces in Chechnya.

The young woman, engaged with the Russian NGO Memorial and contributor to the newspaper Novaïa Gazeta, had been kidnapped and then found shot dead in the head and another in the chest, on July 15, 2009. To date, no one has been tried for the murder of Natalia Estemirova.

The main suspect according to Russian authorities, Chechen activist Alkhazur Bashaev, has never been arrested.

The Russian government did not provide the documents in the file

The ECHR considers that the Russian authorities "opened the investigation quickly and carried out the investigative acts in the days which followed the crime". "A suspect has been identified and charged", also notes the Court. However, European magistrates indicate that "certain contradictions in expert testimony have not been resolved", and stress that "investigators have not explained why no trace of the DNA of the person accused of the murder (or ) persons belonging to his illegal armed group have not been found ”.

They also reveal that the Russian government "did not provide most of the documents in the case".

The ECHR therefore condemned Russia for “lack of an appropriate investigation” and for violating its “obligation to provide the necessary facilities for the examination of a case”.

She imposed the payment of 20,000 euros to the sister of the victim for "moral damage".

No evidence of Russian authorities' complicity in the murder

At the same time, the Court also considered that the evidence provided to it by the victim's sister did not allow a conclusion to be drawn that the Russian state was involved in the assassination. In a statement from the European Human Rights Advocacy Center, Lana Estemirova, the victim's daughter, said she was "happy that the court concluded that there had not been a proper investigation", but pointed out an "extremely disappointing judgment".

“It was an inextricable situation, because the court concluded that there was not enough evidence of the complicity of the Russian authorities in the murder of my mother, but the Russian authorities themselves did not submit enough elements to the Court, ”she lamented.

"This is not a way to develop a fair judgment".

On its website, the Russian human rights organization Memorial regretted that the ECHR "did not recognize the authorities' responsibility in the death of Natalia Estemirova".

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  • Human rights

  • Assassination

  • Investigation

  • Russia

  • Tchetchenie

  • Justice