Global Security and Sustainability

In a case brought by MacArthur grantee the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre, the European Court of Human Rights recently held the Russian government responsible for the presumed death of two brothers who were taken from their home in 2003. Lecha and Ibragim Betayev were arrested by state servicemen following an unlawful search of their family home based on allegations that one of the brothers had a machine gun. The government had denied that the men who searched the house worked for the state, but the Court found otherwise. The Court also ordered the government to pay the brothers’ parents 70,000 EUR for the unlawful search of their home and their suffering because of the loss of their sons. Russian NGO Memorial worked with the London-based Centre on the case.