On April 16, 2012 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Russia was guilty of violating international law by its treatment of the Katyn Massacre victim’s relatives. In 1940, the Soviet secret police murdered over 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals – oftentimes using brutal methods. Initially, the Katyn Massacre was blamed on Nazi occupiers; however, in 1990 Russia took responsibility for the murders. This caused the ECHR to launch an investigation into the war crimes that was later abandoned in 2004. Recently, 15 descendants of 12 victims of the Katyn massacre filed a complaint with the ECHR after the Russian government failed to provide adequate information about their deceased family members’ deaths. This failure violates Article 3 of the ECHR, which prohibits inhumane treatment, because it deprived the family members of the deceased the details of their deaths.