Human Rights Center Memorial issued a statement on the complaint lodged by the relatives of the murdered human rights activist Natalya Estemirova to the ECHR.

Full Text of the Statement from Memorial

September 8, deputy head of the department of the Prosecutor General's Office Aleksey Vasilkov said that the murder of the human rights activist Natalya Estemirova, happened on July 15, 2009, is solved. HRC "Memorial" and Estemirova's relatives suppose that the prosecution doesn't have any grounds to state that.

September 9, lawyers from HRC "Memorial" (Moscow) and European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (London) and the lawyer of victim's family Roman Karpinskiy applied to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). They lodged a complaint against the failure to carry out an effective investigation of the case, which violates Art. 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Particularly the applicant's legal representatives (Estemirova's relatives, who were recognized as an aggrieved party) have been denied access to the criminal case files. This does not allow the applicant to influence the criminal investigation in order to raise its effectiveness.

Earlier HRC "Memorial", "Novaya Gazeta", and International Federation for Human Rights presented a report "Two Years after Natalya Estemirova's Murder: Investigation in the Wrong Direction" - in Russian) in which they criticized the official version of the murder.

September 16, 2011

Human Rights Center Memorial, 127051, Russia, Moscow, Maly Karetny, 12

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