CEDH · CASELAW;JUDGMENTS;CHAMBER;ENG — 5 septembre 2024

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text-indent:14.2pt; text-align:justify; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s69DCC830 { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sC986E16F { font-family:Arial; color:#ffffff } .s9D025815 { width:20.21pt; display:inline-block } .s915ECF9D { width:130.43pt; display:inline-block } .s5A65B3DC { width:46.56pt; display:inline-block } .s44B8752F { width:177.11pt; display:inline-block } .sA6BC7FA7 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt; text-align:right } FIFTH SECTION CASE OF MUKHTARLI v. AZERBAIJAN AND GEORGIA (Application no. 39503/17)   JUDGMENT   Art 3 and Art 5 (procedural and substantive) • Failure by Georgia to carry out an effective investigation into Azerbaijani national’s plausible allegations of abduction, ill-treatment and unlawful transfer from Georgia to Azerbaijan and that they were related to his journalistic activities • In view of investigation shortcomings, impossible to establish with sufficient certainty events leading to applicant’s disappearance from Georgia and reappearance in Azerbaijan • Court unable to conclude “beyond reasonable doubt” that alleged acts occurred with the involvement (active or passive) or acquiescence of the Georgia authorities Art 5 § 1 • Deprivation of liberty • Court unable to establish unlawfulness of applicant’s arrest and initial detention prior to being brought before by a judge in Azerbaijan • Art   5 §   3 • Reasonableness of pre-trial detention • Azerbaijani courts’ failure to give “relevant” and “sufficient” reasons to justify need for applicant’s pre-trial detention Art 8 • Private life • Correspondence • Search of contents of applicant’s mobile phone by Azerbaijani investigating authorities without judicial authorisation and no judicial review not in “accordance with the law”   Prepared by the Registry. Does not bind the Court.   STRASBOURG 5 September 2024 FINAL   05/12/2024   This judgment has become final under Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Mukhtarli v. Azerbaijan and Georgia, The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:   Mattias Guyomar , President ,   Lado Chanturia,   Carlo Ranzoni,   Lətif Hüseynov,   María Elósegui,   Kateřina Šimáčková,   Mykola Gnatovskyy , judges , and Victor Soloveytchik, Section Registrar, Having regard to: the application (no.   39503/17) against Azerbaijan and Georgia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by an Azerbaijani national, Mr Afgan Sabir oglu Mukhtarli ( Əfqan Sabir oğlu Muxtarlı - “the applicant”), on 3 June 2017; the decision to give notice to the Azerbaijani and the Georgian Governments (“the Governments”) of the complaints under Articles 3, 5   §§   1   (c) and 4, 8, 10, 13 and 18 of the Convention and Article 2 of Protocol No. 4, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application; the observations submitted by the respondent Governments and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant; the comments submitted by three non-governmental organisations: Freedom Now; the International Partnership for Human Rights; and the Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center, who were granted leave to intervene by the President of the Section; Having deliberated in private on 4 June and 2 July 2024, Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date: INTRODUCTION 1.     The application concerns, as regards Georgia, the applicant’s alleged abduction, ill-treatment and forcible transfer to Azerbaijan, and the relevant authorities’ failure to conduct an effective investigation in that regard. As regards Azerbaijan, the applicant alleged that his arrest and detention there had been unlawful and unjustified. He also asserted that his abduction from Georgia and subsequent arrest in Azerbaijan had been intended to silence him and to punish him for his journalistic activities. The applicant relied on Articles 3, 5 §§ 1 (c), 3 and 4, 8, 10, 13 and 18 of the Convention, Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 7. THE FACTS 2 .     The applicant was born in 1974 and currently lives in Germany. He was represented by Mr N. Legashvili and Mr A. Chopikashvili, lawyers practising in Georgia, and by Mr E. Sadigov and Ms Z. Sadigova, lawyers practising in Azerbaijan. 3.     The Georgian Government were represented by their Agent, Mr   B.   Dzamashvili of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia. The Azerbaijani Government were represented by their Agent, Mr Ç. Əsgərov. 4.     The facts of the case may be summarised as follows. BACKGROUNG INFORMATION 5.     The applicant is an investigative freelance journalist who worked in Azerbaijan for several media outlets, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and was known for his critical journalistic coverage of the Azerbaijani Government. In 2009 he was allegedly beaten by police during the dispersal of a demonstration in Baku (see Haji and Others v. Azerbaijan [Committee], no. 3503/10, §§ 26-31 and 172, 177-180, 1 October 2020). In 2011 he was convicted for participation in another demonstration in the city (see Mukhtarli and Aslanli v. Azerbaijan [Committee], nos. 13509/12 and 64801/12, §§ 2-5 and 15-26, 2 March 2023). 6 .     In January 2015, because of alleged harassment and persecution from the Azerbaijani authorities, the applicant moved with his family to Georgia and applied for asylum. During his stay in Georgia, he continued working for various media outlets, reporting on high-level corruption in the Azerbaijani Government. THE APPLICANT’S ALLEGED ABDUCTION IN GEORGIA AND FORCIBLE TRANSFER TO AZERBAIJAN The applicant’s account 7 .     On 29 May 2017, at about 7.30 p.m., while the applicant was on his way home, walking towards his apartment at Niaghvari Street in Tbilisi, he was stopped by four unknown men who spoke the Georgian language and drove a silver Opel car; three of them wore uniforms allegedly belonging to the Georgian criminal police. The men forced the applicant into the car, handcuffed him and started beating him. According to the applicant, he was driven in the direction of Tbilisi International Airport; the car passed the airport and continued in the direction of Sagarejo (Kakheti Region in Eastern Georgia). Once the car had passed Tbilisi International Airport, the applicant was blindfolded. They had twice changed a vehicle. The radio in the last car was playing an Azerbaijani song and the applicant realised that he had been handed over to the Azerbaijanis across the State border. These men reported every five-seven minutes by telephone to a person to whom they referred as “Mr General”. 8 .     At about 10.40 p.m. on the same day, they arrived at an unknown destination and the applicant was taken to a room, where his blindfold was removed. He saw the insignia of the Azerbaijani State Border Service (“the SBS”) on the walls and realised that he was detained in the military unit of the Service in the Balakan District. The servicemen told the applicant that he had illegally crossed the border and that they had found 10,000 euros (EUR) in cash in his pocket. He asserted that the money did not belong to him. They also searched him and seized his mobile telephone, Georgian bank and transport cards and a few Georgian coins. The applicant did not have his international passport on him. The Georgian Government’s account 9.     Without providing any version of the alleged events, the Georgian Government submitted that the applicant’s allegations were unsubstantiated and unsupported by evidence. The Azerbaijani Government’s account 10 .     According to the Azerbaijani Government, on 29 May 2017 at around 10.40 p.m. officers from the sixth border-guard post of military unit no. 2007 of the SBS, which was stationed in the Balakan District, while patrolling the relevant border section adjacent to the border checkpoint, spotted the applicant moving from the territory of Georgia in the direction of the territory of Azerbaijan. The officers waited for the applicant to get closer and then ordered him to stop. The applicant tried to run away, but one of the officers pursued him. When the officer reached the applicant, the   latter punched the officer in the chest and, as a result, the officer fell and hit his head against a blunt object and lost consciousness. The applicant was then apprehended by another officer and brought to the border ‑ guard post, where he was subjected to administrative arrest on suspicion of having committed an administrative offence of breaching the regulations of the border regime. 11.     On the same day the applicant was transferred to Baku, where criminal proceedings were instituted against him on various charges (see paragraphs 81-95 below). Georgian authorities’ reaction to the applicant’s allegations 12.     The applicant’s allegations, which were first voiced by his lawyer already on 31 May 2017 (see paragraph 22 below) prompted public reactions from several high officials in Georgia. 13 .     On the same day the President of Georgia said in a brief comment regarding the applicant’s alleged abduction that the allegations needed to be analysed thoroughly, “since the disappearance of a person from the territory of Georgia – be it through the sea, air, or land routes, the Georgian capital or its border – is a serious challenge to our statehood and our sovereignty.” On the same day, the head of the State Security Service said that “we should not hurry to make any conclusions” and that the Azerbaijani official version of the applicant being arrested while crossing the “green border” needed to be verified. 14 .     On 1 June 2017, the Prime Minister of Georgia called on the law ‑ enforcement agencies “to do everything to investigate the case within the shortest time possible.” He further noted that “speculations” regarding the applicant’s alleged transfer by the Georgian security agencies to the Azerbaijani authorities were absolutely unacceptable and that he ruled out the involvement of Georgian State institutions in any such activity. The Minister of the Interior noted that “the probability of a person crossing [the State border] at any sector, bypassing border guards is low, although it still exists.” He further stated that “I declare with full responsibility that the Georgian law ‑ enforcement agencies have and can have nothing to do with [the applicant’s] version of the case.” Azerbaijani authorities’ reaction to the applicant’s allegations 15 .     On an unspecified date in June 2017, a member of the Azerbaijani Parliament, E.N., stated in an interview given to a media outlet that the arrest and transfer of the applicant had been the result of cooperation between the Georgian and Azerbaijani intelligence services. 16 .     On 13 June 2017 the Prosecutor General’s Office of Azerbaijan made a statement indicating that the allegation made by E.N. to the media about the alleged cooperation between the Azerbaijani and Georgian intelligence services in connection with the arrest of the applicant in Tbilisi and his subsequent transfer to Azerbaijan was false. The statement further noted that the Azerbaijani law-enforcement authorities had not cooperated with the Georgian law-enforcement authorities or intelligence services in connection with the applicant’s arrest and had not made such a request to the Georgian part. It further stated that at 10.40 p.m. on 29 May 2017 the applicant had been arrested by the agents of the SBS while the former had been unlawfully crossing the State border between Georgia and Azerbaijan. INVESTIGATION BY THE GEORGIAN AUTHORITIES INTO THE APPLICANT’S ALLEGED ABDUCTION, ill-treatment AND forcible TRANSFER TO AZERBAIJAN Criminal complaint concerning the alleged disappearance of the applicant 17.     On 30 May 2017 the applicant’s wife, L.M., informed the police by letter of her husband’s disappearance. In her letter she explained that he had spent the evening before with his Azerbaijani friend, D.A., in one of the cafés on Baratashvili Street in Tbilisi. At around 7 p.m. he had called her, using D.A.’s mobile telephone, to tell her that he was coming home. Since then, he had been missing. 18 .     On the same date a lawyer acting on behalf of L.M. wrote a letter to the police requesting that they establish the whereabouts of the applicant. He noted that the last time the applicant had talked to his wife had been on 29   May 2017 at about 7 p.m. He had called using his friend’s mobile telephone, as his own had been running out of battery. The lawyer also provided the number of the applicant’s mobile telephone, noting that the last time it had been on (according to WhatsApp) had been at 1.32 a.m. on 30   May 2017. In the same letter the lawyer alleged that in the period preceding his disappearance the applicant had been followed by unknown people and that he had even made a public post in this respect on his private Facebook account. Initiation of the investigation by the Tbilisi police department 19 .     On 30 May 2017 criminal proceedings were initiated in respect of the circumstances of the applicant’s disappearance under Article 143 § 1 of the Criminal Code (the criminal offence of unlawful deprivation of liberty) by the Old Tbilisi district police department. The applicant’s wife was immediately interviewed in the presence of her lawyer and an interpreter. She confirmed that the last time she had heard from her husband had been at around 7.00 p.m. on 29 May 2017. According to her statement, he had called her using his friend’s, D.A.’s mobile telephone and had told her that he was coming home. After some fifteen minutes she had tried to reach him on his own mobile telephone, but it had been switched off. The next morning, when she had realised that her husband was not at home, she had called D.A. to enquire about the applicant’s whereabouts. In reply, she had been told that he had not seen the applicant since their meeting at the café the previous day. 20.     During her interview L.M. also told the investigator that her husband had recently told her that he was being watched by some unknown people. 21.     On the same date the investigator interviewed D.A. and R.Sh., two friends of the applicant, with whom he had spent the evening of 29 May 2017, before his disappearance. They both said that they had met the applicant at around 4 p.m. in a café, Local Taste, on Baratashvili Street in Tbilisi. Having talked for a while, R.Sh. had left, while D.A. and the applicant had stayed until around 7 p.m. Then they had also left the café, walking away in different directions. The applicant, according to D.A.’s statement, had been planning to go home. 22 .     The following day L.M.’s lawyer additionally told the police that the applicant had apparently been abducted and forcibly transferred to Azerbaijan. 23 .     By a letter of 1 June 2017, the lawyer provided the police with further details concerning the alleged abduction of the applicant – information which, he said, he had received from Azerbaijan. As described in detail in the letter, on 29 May 2017 the applicant – having left the Local Taste café on Baratashvili Street – had taken a minibus in the direction of his home on Niaghvari Street in Tbilisi. He had got off the minibus in the area close to the Hotel Astoria and a branch of the Bank of Georgia. Having walked for a while he had turned right onto Niaghvari Street, where he had immediately been approached by two men speaking Georgian. They had forced him into an Opel-type car, tied his arms behind his back and put a bag over his head. He had been driven like this for some time, before being moved to another vehicle and eventually taken into Azerbaijan. According to the information that L.M. had received, the applicant had been beaten and subjected to other kinds of inhumane treatment during his abduction; as a result, his ribs were most likely broken. 24.     In this letter the lawyer requested the relevant authorities to (i) grant him access to the investigation file, (ii) seize closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage from the cameras installed outside the Hotel Astoria and the above ‑ mentioned branch of the Bank of Georgia, and (iii) interview the applicant’s wife. 25.     The main investigative actions that were subsequently undertaken by the Old Tbilisi district police department can be grouped in the following manner: Questioning of witnesses 26 .     On 31 May 2017 the lead investigator interviewed the owner of the Local Taste café, which the applicant had visited on 29 May 2017. According to the statement, the owner of the café knew the applicant, as the latter visited his establishment quite often. On the day in question, he had come to the café with two other persons at around 2 p.m. One of them, who had been in his late twenties, had been a stranger to the owner as on that occasion he had seen him for the first time. He had left the café after about an hour. As for the second person, who had been several years older than the applicant, the owner of the café had known him, as he had visited the café on previous occasions with the applicant. According to the owner, they had both left the café between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. In reply to a specific question, the owner explained that there were no CCTV cameras installed either inside or outside the café. On the same date the investigator conducted an inspection of the café and its surroundings and took various photographs. 27.     On 2 June 2017 the owner of the café was interviewed again. While confirming his initial statement, he added that the last time he had seen the applicant (in the company of the above-mentioned two other persons), on 29   May 2017, he had not noticed anything suspicious. All three of them had been quietly talking and drinking tea. No other person had entered the café during the period of time in question. The owner also stated that the applicant had left the place at around 7 p.m. but that he had not seen in which direction he had gone. The investigator also interviewed two employees of the café, who had confirmed that they had seen the applicant with two other persons on 29 May 2017. They noted that they had not noticed anything suspicious or unusual on that day, that the youngest of the three men had left the place earlier than the other two, and that the applicant had left at around 7 p.m. 28.     On the same date twenty-eight persons – including three taxi drivers, five employees of a nearby carpark, several shopkeepers and outdoor booksellers, and several employees of grocery stores and restaurants in the neighbourhood where the applicant had last been seen – were interviewed. They all stated that they had not seen or heard anything suspicious or unusual on 29 May 2017. 29.     The questioning of people from the area in question continued on 3, 6, and 7 June 2017. Twenty-five more witnesses were questioned in connection with the alleged abduction of the applicant. All of them stated that they had not witnessed any type of confrontation or anything suspicious or unusual happening on that day in the area. 30 .     On 3 June 2017, the investigator interviewed the applicant’s wife. While referring to her telephone conversation with O.K., the applicant’s defence lawyer in Azerbaijan, she reiterated her initial version of the events, furnishing the police with further details concerning the applicant’s alleged abduction. Notably, according to that statement, having left the café on 29   May 2017 the applicant had taken minibus no. 4 in the direction of Chonkadze Street. He had got off the minibus on that street, at the corner of a local park, and had continued in the same direction before turning right into Niaghvari Street. There he had been stopped by four men, three of whom had been wearing the uniform of the Georgian criminal police. All four had been speaking Georgian. He had tried to resist them and had as a result been physically assaulted. He had been forced into an Opel car, the colour and number plate of which he could not recall. He had been taken via Baratashvili Bridge, passing by 300 Aragveli metro station, and via the so-called “airport road”, outside Tbilisi, in the direction of the Kakheti Region (in eastern Georgia). According to the statement, after leaving Tbilisi, the applicant had had a bag put over his head. During the drive he had been able to hear the men making mobile telephone calls and apparently reporting to someone in the Georgian language. 31.     On various dates in June 2017 the investigators questioned twenty ‑ two drivers who worked on the no. 4 minibus route. They all noted, with the exception of one driver who had not been working on 29 May 2017, that they did not remember the applicant getting on their minibus and that they had not noticed anything unusual or suspicious happening that day. 32.     In the same period the investigation interviewed eighty-seven witnesses from the neighbourhood in which the applicant had been living with his family since 2015. With the exception of a few who had not been at home on the evening of 29 May 2017, all of them testified that they had not seen or heard anything unusual or suspicious happening in the neighbourhood on that day. 33.     On 12 June 2017 the investigator interviewed eight employees of the branch of Bank of Georgia located on Chitadze Street. They noted that their standard working hours were from 10 a.m. until 5.30 p.m. and that all of them had been working on 29 May 2017, with at least four of them staying in the office as late as 7 p.m. None of them could remember seeing or hearing anything strange or suspicious happening on that day. 34.     Between 11 and 18 July 2017 the investigator interviewed drivers of seven Opel cars that had been captured on various CCTV footage in the area where the applicant had been allegedly abducted in the evening hours of 29   May 2017. Four of them turned to be taxi drivers – one of them a heating engineer, and the last two a lawyer and a police officer. While some of them could not remember the exact reason they had been driving in the relevant area in the evening hours of 29 May 2017, all of them said that they did not know the applicant or have any link to his possible abduction. The police officer stated in his interview that on the evening in question he had been driving to pick his son up from kindergarten. His statement was subsequently confirmed by his wife and the director of the kindergarten in question, who were interviewed on 13 and 20 July 2017, respectively. 35 .     In parallel with the interviewing of potential witnesses in Tbilisi, information was requested from the head of the Border Police of Georgia (an agency under the Ministry of the Interior) regarding the border sections adjoining the Balakan District of Azerbaijan (the area where the applicant was arrested, according to the Azerbaijani authorities, see paragraph 10 above) and the border guards who had been on duty on the night of 29-30   May 2017 patrolling the relevant sections of the State border. Having received the information requested, in June-July 2017 seventy-three border guards from four different border sections, who had been patrolling the so-called “green border” (about 100 km long) between Georgia and Azerbaijan on the night concerned, were interviewed. According to their description, the stretch of green border under their responsibility had included a 5-km-wide border zone and a 500-metre-wide border line. The term “green” border indicated that there were no border crossing points at that section of the border and that, hence, it was impossible for people to legally exit Georgia and enter Azerbaijan via that stretch of territory. The border line was accessible only to local residents who had special authorisation issued for that purpose by the Border Police. A river marked a long section of the border at that section, which meant that it was possible to cross the State border on foot by wading through the water. There was no vehicle crossing point on the “green” border zone; thus, it was not possible to cross the “green” border in a vehicle. A wire was stretched along the land part of the border. 36 .     All the border guards who were interviewed in connection with the applicant’s alleged abduction stated that no incident had occurred on that date in the sections that they had been patrolling. They noted that no unknown vehicle other than locals’ vehicles had entered the border zone while they had been on duty and that no attempt to cross the border had been detected. Seizure and examination of CCTV footage 37 .     On 1 and 2 June 2017 the investigator in charge of the applicant’s case interviewed representatives of six businesses/properties that were located on Baratashvili Street (where the café was located) and several adjacent streets and were equipped with external CCTV cameras – among them, Georgian State Electro Systems (“GSES”), a computer shop (Alta), a pharmacy, the V.   Chabukiani Ballet School, and two small shops. They all agreed to provide the investigation with a copy of their footage covering the period of time in question. On 6 June 2017 the investigator, having obtained a court’s authorisation, took possession of footage from three businesses. It appeared impossible to obtain CCTV footage from the two small shops and V.   Chabukiani Ballet School, as for technical reasons unknown to their respective heads of security, the footage covering the relevant period of time had not been saved on their respective digital video systems. 38 .     Having analysed the footage obtained from GSES, on 8 June 2017 the investigator noted in the relevant examination report that he had identified a man in a white shirt, who at 7.24 p.m. had taken a yellow minibus no. 4 heading in the direction of Freedom Square. On 14 June 2017 he tried to watch the footage again in the presence of the applicant’s lawyer, but, as subsequently noted in a report, they could not open the relevant DVD file for technical reasons. On 16 June 2017, the applicant’s lawyer – having finally watched the very same footage – confirmed that most probably the man in the video was the applicant. On this footage the lawyer also noted a person in black suit who was allegedly watching the applicant boarding the minibus; the lawyer requested the investigator to establish his identity. On 12 July 2017 there was an attempt to examine the above-noted footage again with the participation of L.M. and the applicant’s lawyer; however, the DVD file did not open. According to the relevant examination report “it proved impossible to open the file saved on the DVD for a technical reason; namely, in the absence of required software, the file could not be examined.” 39 .     Meanwhile, the investigator had also examined the footage obtained from the Alta computer shop and the pharmacy (see paragraph 37 above). The CCTV footage from the pharmacy did not reveal any information of interest for the investigation. As for the computer shop, in the relevant examination report of the footage, the investigator noted a man in a white shirt taking a yellow minibus at 7.22 p.m. On 12 July 2017 L.M. having watched the above footage, confirmed that most probably the man in the white shirt was her husband. 40 .     Subsequently CCTV footage was obtained from five more businesses located in the area where the applicant had last been seen. An examination of that footage, according to the relevant reports in the case file, did not provide any new information. 41 .     The investigator also sought to obtain footage from three road-traffic cameras situated on Orbeliani Square, in the immediate vicinity of Baratashvili Street (where the applicant had last been seen). On 2 June 2017 the investigator was told by the employee in charge of such matters at the Tbilisi car-patrol police that the relevant cameras had not been working on 29 May 2017. According to the interview report, in reply to a specific question the police officer simply stated that to his knowledge the cameras on Orbeliani Square had been out of order for technical reasons since 21 May 2017.   On 24 June 2017 another police officer was interviewed in connection with other road-traffic cameras located along the road supposedly taken by the applicant and his abductors in Tbilisi. According to that officer’s statement, around forty road-traffic cameras installed along that road either had been turned off or had not been recording during the period in question, among them four cameras on Baratashvili Bridge, three cameras on Baratashvili Slope, and eight cameras in the area adjacent to Avlabari metro station. Other traffic cameras had, according to the police officer’s statement, been streaming live, but had not been recording. 42 .     On 14 June 2017 the investigator wrote to the director of the Joint Operations Centre at the Ministry of the Interior, requesting a copy of the footage from the surveillance cameras on the outside perimeter of the Tsodna border crossing point (the closest to Balakan District of Azerbaijan, where the applicant was allegedly arrested and the only one in the Lagodekhi Region of Georgia) for the period between 6 p.m. on 29 May 2017 and 6 a.m. on 30   May 2017. On 16 June 2017 the director of the responsible department replied that the footage could not be retrieved owing to the fact that the “recording system of the video surveillance system” was not functioning. On 20 June 2017 an identical request was sent this time to the State Security Service. The latter produced the requested footage on 2 July 2017. Subsequently, the investigative authorities interviewed the employee of the Joint Operations Centre at the Ministry of the Interior who had unsuccessfully tried to retrieve the requested footage in June 2017 (interview dated 3 October 2017). In his statement he explained that by noting that “the recording system of the video surveillance system was not functioning”, he had not implied that the recordings as such had not existed, but simply that he had failed to retrieve those recordings. He further noted that the State Security Service had a direct access to the video surveillance system of all border crossing points and that they had better equipment, which had allowed them to retrieve the recordings concerned. 43 .     In June and July 2017, the investigator obtained and examined footage from various CCTV cameras situated in the area surrounding the applicant’s home, from where the applicant had allegedly been abducted. Accordingly, footage from the period in question had been seized, with the authorisation of a court, from the Hotel Astoria, the branch of the Bank of Georgia (mentioned in the lawyer’s letter of 1 June 2017 – see paragraph 23 above), the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia. The examination of the footage from the Hotel Astoria did not reveal any information of interest to the investigation, except for the fact that on some of the recordings Opel cars could be seen. In the relevant examination report, however, the investigator noted that it was impossible to identify the registration numbers of those vehicles. The CCTV footage obtained from the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, located at 3a Chitadze Street, did not yield any relevant information either. As for the voluminous footage obtained from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, located at 4 Chitadze Street, only on one of the recordings did the investigator identify eight Opel-type vehicles, together with their respective registration numbers. The investigator also sought to obtain CCTV footage from the branch of the Bank of Georgia (see ibid.). By a letter of 13 June 2017, the director of the security department at the Bank of Georgia informed the investigation that, for technical reasons, that footage could not be provided. 44 .     In June-July 2017 the investigators additionally approached owners of around fifty private properties or businesses located in the area where the applicant had last been seen, in the area from where he had been allegedly abducted, and along the road via which he had been allegedly transported after his abduction, requesting access to their CCTV footage. According to the relevant interview reports, it appeared that during the relevant period of time some of the cameras had been switched off, some had been broken, while the footage from most of the rest of the cameras had already been deleted. Interaction with the applicant’s lawyer throughout the investigation and various complaints lodged on behalf of the applicant 45 .     On 5 June 2017 the applicant’s lawyer requested the Chief Prosecutor of Georgia to relieve the Old Tbilisi district police department of the case owing to the alleged involvement of police officers in the applicant’s abduction and to entrust the investigation to the Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia. In his request the lawyer provided further details concerning the applicant’s alleged abduction, including an allegation that he had been transferred to the territory of Azerbaijan via border crossing point in Lagodekhi. In the absence of a reply, on 9 June 2017 the lawyer reiterated his request to the Chief Prosecutor of Georgia for the case to be investigated by the Chief Prosecutor’s Office. In support of his request he submitted a clip from a radio interview with one of the members of the Parliament of Azerbaijan, in which the latter had stated that the arrest of the applicant had been the result of joint efforts and steps undertaken by the Georgian and the Azerbaijani intelligence services (see in this connection paragraphs 15-16 above). The applicant’s lawyer also requested the district prosecutor supervising the police investigation to grant the applicant and his wife victim status in the proceedings and to allow them access to the investigation file. The requests went unanswered. 46.     On 9 June 2017 the lawyer complained to the Tbilisi prosecutor of the district prosecutor’s failure to respond to his requests. He reiterated his requests for access to the case file and the granting of the victim status to the applicant and his wife. His letter was forwarded on 14 June 2014 to the district prosecutor’s office, but no reply followed. 47.     On 13 June 2017 the applicant’s lawyer was given access to the investigation file. The file contained the testimony of about 200 witnesses and several CCTV recordings. Having gone through the case file, the lawyer complained to the investigator of the inadequacy of the investigation. He asserted that instead of interviewing hundreds of witnesses who had not seen or heard anything, it would have been more efficient to analyse the seized CCTV footage with a view to identifying the vehicle involved in the applicant’s abduction and establishing the identity of its passengers. On the same date the applicant’s lawyer lodged an application with the Tbilisi City Court. He requested that the court recognise as unlawful the tacit refusal of the district prosecutor’s office to grant the applicant and his wife victim status within the scope of the ongoing investigation. The Tbilisi City Court rejected the above-noted application on 28 June 2017. The court concluded that the request was unfounded, and that in any event it had no jurisdiction to entertain it, as victim status-related issues within the scope of ongoing criminal proceedings fell within the discretion of the prosecutor. There was no possibility to appeal against the above-noted court decision. 48.     On 16 June 2017 the applicant’s lawyer requested a copy of the entire investigation file. He maintained that the amount of material was voluminous and that without a proper copy it was impossible to study the file within just a few hours or even a day. In addition, the lawyer alleged that he had not been afforded the possibility to watch some of the CCTV footage. 49.     On the same date the lawyer was allowed to watch one item of CCTV footage on which the applicant had been identified. The latter was seen boarding a yellow no. 4 minibus on Baratashvili Street no. 2. The time shown on the video recording at the relevant period of time was 7.24 p.m. On this footage the lawyer noted a person in black suit who was allegedly watching the applicant boarding the minibus; the lawyer requested the investigator to establish his identity. He further requested that the following investigative measures be taken: -             seizure of CCTV footage from a number of addresses along the route of the no. 4 minibus; -             seizure of CCTV footage from the area around Niaghvari Street; -             seizure of CCTV footage along the route via which the applicant was allegedly driven by his abductors, including around the 300 Aragveli metro station and along the so-called “airport route”; and -             seizure of CCTV footage from the Georgia-Azerbaijan border crossing point for the relevant period of time. 50.     On 3 July 2017 the applicant’s lawyer reiterated his request for access to a copy of the investigation file. On 20 July 2017 a district prosecutor of the Old Tbilisi district prosecutor’s office refused the request. He ruled that given the fact that the lawyer lacked any status in the ongoing investigation, he was procedurally not entitled to have a copy of the file. In the meantime, however, on 12 July 2017, the applicant’s wife and the lawyer were allowed access to the case material for several hours. 51.     Throughout June-July 2017 the investigator also attempted on a number of occasions to make contact with the applicant’s two Azerbaijani lawyers, however, unsuccessfully, as they were not answering their mobile telephones. Eventually, on 17 July 2017 the investigator got in touch with both of them. The first of them refused to appear before the Georgian police to undergo an interview. The second lawyer stated that he would inform them of his position after consulting the applicant. As can be seen from the case file, neither of the Azerbaijani lawyers were ever interviewed by a Georgian investigator. Other steps taken in the course of the police investigation 52.     On 3 June 2017 the Tbilisi City Court, acting at the request of a prosecutor, authorised the seizure of (i) records from the MagtiCom mobile telephone company of all the incoming and outgoing calls made from the mobile telephone of the applicant in the period between 10 a.m. on 25 May 2017 and midday on 1 June 2017, (ii) records of the message texts either sent or received by the applicant during that period, and (iii) the relevant international mobile equipment identity (IMEI) codes, with a list of the antennae that had transmitted the signals from the applicant’s telephone. According to the information provided by MagtiCom, the last time the applicant had used his mobile telephone had been on 29 May 2017 at 4.49   p.m. in Tbilisi. Cooperation with the Azerbaijani authorities 53 .     On 31 May 2017 the head of the Old Tbilisi police department wrote a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia (“the MFA”) asking it to obtain information regarding the circumstances of the arrest of the applicant in Azerbaijan and the initiation of criminal proceedings against him. In reply to the MFA’s request for information, the Azerbaijani authorities informed the Georgian authorities that the applicant had been arrested on 29   May 2017 in the Balakan Region when trying to illegally cross the Georgian-Azerbaijani State border. 54 .     On 8 June 2017 the Old Tbilisi district prosecutor’s office – via the Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia – lodged a request for assistance with the