G4 v Russia

Facts

The applicant is the father of G, who was killed on 16 July 2004. He is a Russia national who lives in the Almetevsky in the Republic of Tartarstan. On 4 August 2004 G’s partially decomposed body was found in a forest clearing north of Almetevsky with two bullet wounds to the head and dislocated ribs. A spent cartridge was found near the corpse.

On 10 August 2004, suspect N gave himself up to the police, was taken into custody and questioned. According to N, he and G occasionally engaged in money laundering. They had a good relationship. On the day of G’s death, they met in order for G to return 123,000 roubles to N, owed from a previous transaction. G then invited N to a barbecue being held in the countryside where G’s body was later found. N accepted the invitation.

According to N, on arrival at the site of the ‘barbecue,’ G produced a gun and told him to get out of the car. In order to defend himself, N seized the barrel of the gun and the two started fighting. In the course of the fight, G was shot once in the ear and once in the head, the latter shot being the cause of death. The suspect left the money near the corpse and threw the gun into a river.

Following various forensic and ballistic investigations, the senior investigator decided to terminate the investigation, finding that N had acted in self-defence.

In April 2005, the Supreme Court of Tatarstan annulled the decision to terminate the investigation and remitted the case to the Alemtevsky District Court for new consideration. The latter court ordered a supplementary investigation of the case.

On 21 July 2005, the supplementary case was terminated, claiming that all possible investigative actions had been taken. However, seven days later, the Prosecutor annulled this decision, ordering that further investigations be conducted. In both supplementary investigations, the applicant had asked to attend certain investigative experiments. These requests were refused by the investigators and on appeal to the courts. In October 2005, the second supplementary investigation was terminated for the same reasons as the original investigation.

A few days later, the applicant requested exhumation of G’s body in order to examine injuries not addressed by the post-mortem examination. This application was refused by the Prosecutor and on appeal. The appeal court concluded that the three investigations had conducted all possible measures to ascertain the circumstances of G’s death.

In March 2006, the Supreme Court of Tatarstan rejected an appeal against the termination of the case and for a supervisory review.

The applicant claims violations of Articles 2 (right to life) and 13 (right to an effective remedy). In this case, the two articles are related in that the complaint under Article 2 refers to the state’s unwillingness or inability to either prevent offences likely to violate the right to life or to punish such offences. Similarly, the investigation conducted with respect to the violation of the right to life should be effective in terms of assessing whether or not the use of force was justified and to identify and, if necessary, punish those responsible. The applicant claims that the investigation in this case was undertaken late, if at all, or in a manner unlikely to lead to the identification, trial and punishment of those responsible.

An application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 10 August 2006.