The European Court of Human Rights ruled simultaneously on five cases concerning people who have disappeared in Chechnya yesterday. The complaints were filed by their relatives. The Russian Federation has been ordered to pay them a total of €400,000. The complaints were all filed in 2003 and involved people who disappeared in 2002 or 2003. Roemer Lemaitre, director of the NGO Russian Justice Initiative, which provided legal support for some of the claimants, told Kommersant that, in all of the cases, residents of Chechnya were taken into custody by representatives of the federal forces and never returned home.