CEDH · CASELAW;JUDGMENTS;CHAMBER;ENG — 29 avril 2025

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display:inline-block } THIRD SECTION CASE OF JAUPI v. ALBANIA (Application no. 23369/16)   JUDGMENT   Art 6 § 1 (criminal) and Art 6 § 3 (c) • Fair hearing • Defence in person • Applicant’s trial and conviction in absentia for murder and attempted murder for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment • Applicant’s failure to attend appeal hearing himself, after reopening of the appeal time, albeit having the opportunity to do so, and to thus make full use of all the means provided under domestic law • Applicant responsible for situation he complained of Art 6 § 1 (criminal) and Art 6 § 3 (d) • Fair hearing • Examination of witnesses • Applicant’s inability to examine prosecution witnesses • Good reasons for the witnesses’ non-attendance • Evidence of prosecution witness without significant weight and neither the sole nor the decisive evidence in respect of the applicant’s murder conviction • Defence rights not restricted to an extent incompatible with Art   6 guarantees in relation to the murder conviction • Insufficient counterbalancing factors for the disadvantages of the defence stemming from the non-attendance of prosecution witnesses whose evidence was decisive for the applicant’s attempted murder conviction   Prepared by the Registry. Does not bind the Court.   STRASBOURG 29 April 2025 FINAL   29/07/2025   This judgment has become final under Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Jaupi v. Albania, The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:   Ioannis Ktistakis , President ,   Lətif Hüseynov,   Darian Pavli,   Oddný Mjöll Arnardóttir,   Diana Kovatcheva,   Úna Ní Raifeartaigh,   Mateja Đurović , judges , and Olga Chernishova, Deputy Section Registrar, Having regard to: the application (no.   23369/16) against the Republic of Albania lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by an Albanian national, Mr Kastriot Jaupi (“the applicant”), on 22 April 2016; the decision to give notice to the Albanian Government (“the   Government”) of the complaints concerning the applicant’s right to participate in criminal proceedings against him, to cross-examine prosecution witnesses, to be tried within a reasonable time, and to be given adequate reasons for their decisions by the domestic courts, and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible; the parties’ observations; Having deliberated in private on 18 March 2025, Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date: INTRODUCTION 1.     The case concerns the applicant’s trial in absentia for attempted murder and murder for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. THE FACTS 2.     The applicant was born in 1975 and is serving a prison sentence. He was represented by Mr Sh. Syri, a lawyer practising in Berat. 3.     The Government were represented by their Agent, Ms. A. Hicka, and subsequently by Mr O. Moçka, General State Advocate. 4.     The facts of the case may be summarised as follows. Background to the case 5 .     In 1997 the applicant’s brother, I.J., was wounded in the course of a police intervention in Berat District, during the period of civil unrest which followed the collapse of widespread pyramid schemes. He was taken to a hospital where he died from his injuries shortly afterwards. 6.     On 7 September 2000 at about 6.30 a.m. an attempt was made to assassinate I.N., the Chief of the Berat Criminal Police, and his driver, A.J., in Qafa e Koshovicës, in Fier District. 7.     On 30 December 2000 at about 11 a.m. I.N. was assassinated in a bar near his house in Vlora. Investigation 8.     On 7 September 2000 the Fier District Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation against the applicant on suspicion of the attempted murders of I.N. and A.J., which had occurred earlier the same day in Qafa e Koshovicës, in Fier District (see paragraph 6 above). 9 .     On the same day I.N. made a statement to a judicial police officer of the Fier Prosecution Office. He said that on the morning of that day he had been in a car being driven by his driver A.J. He was sitting in the front passenger seat and was asleep. A shot to his left shoulder woke him and he realised that he had been wounded. He heard machine-gun fire lasting about ten to fifteen seconds. He told the driver to continue driving. After some time, they stopped in Fier and I.N. called the police. I.N. said that he had not seen the attacker because he had been asleep, and when he woke up everything had happened very fast. He had seen neither any parked vehicles at the place of the shooting nor any vehicles following them or overtaking them. I.N. also said that about twenty days earlier he had been driving his car and had approached another car parked in the middle of the road, and had honked at the driver to move away and had then noticed that the driver had been the applicant. The applicant had driven past him and left the area. I.N. had informed the Police Commissariat about that incident, but the applicant had not been caught. The next day, while I.N. was in his office, he had been informed that the applicant’s mother, L.J., wanted to see him. He had not received her, and she had come back the next day, when he had seen her in his office. She had told I.N. that he had killed her son (see paragraph 5 above), and that he had wanted to kill her other son as well. She had also told I.N. “we will kill you”. After that I.N. had sent her out of his office. Two days after that a police inspector, E.Ll., had told I.N. that he had learned from a trusted informer that the applicant had been preparing an attack on I.N. and had been enquiring about his daily routine. I.N. had passed that information to the Chief of Police at the Commissariat and the Head of the District Prosecutor’s Office. I.N. said that on the basis of these facts, in his opinion the person who had organised the attempt to assassinate him was the applicant. 10.     On 23 November 2000 B.H. was interviewed by the judicial police. He said that in September 2000 he had been in Greece. One day, possibly 20   September 2000, at about 12.30 p.m., he had met the applicant, whom he knew, at the “Akademi” bus station in Athens, where he was sitting waiting for the bus. B.H. had told the applicant that he knew his brother, I.J., and that they [the applicant’s family] had a lot of enemies in Albania. The applicant had replied that he had made one more enemy, because some days earlier he had shot a police officer, the Chief of Berat Criminal Commissariat, I.N., in Qafa e Koshovicës, because I.N. had killed his [the applicant’s] brother. The applicant had initially thought that he had shot I.N. dead, but had later learned that I.N. had survived. The applicant also told B.H. that he knew that the police had been looking for him. B.H. also told the police that he knew I.N. very well because he had worked for the police. After his conversation with the applicant, B.H. had telephoned I.N. and had told him that the person who had shot him was in Greece. 11.     On 30 December 2000 the Vlora District Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation against the applicant on suspicion of the murder of I.N. earlier that same day in Vlora (see paragraph 7 above). 12.     During the investigation the following evidence was collected: the scene of crime report, the record of the examination of the victim’s body, the autopsy report, and the forensic reports on the weapon and cartridge used, all accompanied by photographs. 13.     On 30 December 2000 the police interviewed A.L. and A.Ç. 14.     A.L. said that on that same day at about 11 a.m. he had seen a man running along a street of houses which lay parallel to Vlorë-Skelë Street in Vlora. He had had a black pistol in his hand. He had been running toward the school “Ismail Qemali”, and passed A.L. at a distance of 3-4 metres from him. The man was dark-skinned, of medium height, overweight, with short black hair. The man stopped to speak to a certain A.Ç., and asked him how he had been doing, and A.Ç. answered “Good”. A.L. had also seen a policeman, B.T., running, but he had lost track of the dark-skinned man. A.L. had also seen three other civilians running after the policeman. A.L. said that he had seen the man who had been running with a pistol in his hand only from the back, and would not be able to recognise him. 15 .     A.Ç. said that on that day between 10.30 a.m. and 11 a.m. he had also seen, at a distance of about five metres, a man coming from Kinoteatri Street. He had been walking quickly and was carrying a gun with white handle and black barrel. When he saw the gun, A.Ç. went into a building. From there he saw the man leaving in the direction of the Ismail Qemali school on the main road. A.Ç. described the man as being 175 cm in height, of a robust build, with a somewhat dark complexion, clean-shaven and with dark, straight hair combed to one side. A.Ç. said that he would recognise that man. The police showed A.Ç. photographs of eight persons. He identified the applicant, Kastriot Jaupi, as the person he had met on the street. 16.     On 31 December 2000 the police interviewed R.B. and I.Zh. 17.     R.B. said that he lived in Vlora, and that in August that year he had been in Tirana with A.K., who was from Fier. While they were sitting in a restaurant in Tirana, A.K. called someone “Joti”. That Joti came to their table with another person. After that encounter R.B. had met Joti in the Mercedez bar in Fier. They had become friends and spent a lot of time together. R.B. had learned from Joti that his real name was Kastriot Jaupi, that he had spent a lot of time in Italy, that he had been accused of murders which had taken place in Berat but had been released “because he had a lot of friends”. Kastriot had told R.B. that his brother had been killed and that he had learned from his policemen friends who had participated in the operation in which his brother had been killed that I.N. had killed him. Kastriot had told R.B. that he would avenge his brother and kill I.N. irrespective of the consequences. About a week after the attempted murder of I.N. in Qafa e Koshovicës on 7   September   2000, Kastriot had told R.B. that he had done it, described the ambush and firing at the car in detail and expressed frustration that he had not succeeded. Kastriot had spoken about these events with ease. In mid-November 2000 Kastriot had introduced R.B. to one Shuaip, presenting him as a close friend of his from childhood. Shuaip was a man of a darker complexion, dark-haired, shorter than Kastriot, but of a stronger build. On the early morning of 30 December 2000 Kastriot had called R.B. on the telephone and asked him to meet him at Halim Xhelo high school. When R.B. arrived, he saw that Shuaip was also there with Kastriot. Kastriot asked R.B. to lend them his car to “finish some business” and R.B. agreed. R.B. saw Kastriot sitting in the driver’s seat and Shuaip in the front passenger seat. They had both been wearing sports clothes. Kastriot was wearing a grey and black tracksuit with a black t-shirt underneath and white trainers, and Shuaip was wearing a blue tracksuit with a white t-shirt underneath and white trainers. Kastriot told R.B. that he would leave the car at R.B.’s house. When R.B. returned home at about 11 a.m. he saw his car parked there. He had then gone shopping with his wife and when they returned the police had come to their home and had told R.B. not to touch his car because it had been used for a murder. The police took R.B. with them to the police station and there he learned that I.N. had been killed.   18.     I.Zh., who had a brother called D.Zh., said that D.Zh.’s nickname was Shuaip. He said that two months ago D.Zh. had called their other brother, Z.Zh., who lived together with I.Zh. and other family members. After having spoken with D.Zh., Z.Zh. told I.Zh. that D.Zh. had told him that at the time of the killing, he had been in Fier with the applicant. 19.     On 8 January 2001 S.M., Sh.O. and Shp.O. were interviewed by the judicial police as part of their investigation. 20.     S.M. said that on 30 December 2000 he had seen two persons, one white and one of Roma origin, standing in the courtyard of B.M.’s house in Levan , Fier, together with B.M.’s sons. The person of Roma origin addressed S.M. and asked him where he was from, and told him that he was called Shuaip. S.M. also said that he would be able to recognise those two persons. The police presented photographs of eight persons to S.M. He recognised D.Zh. and the applicant as the persons he had seen on 30 December 2000 at B.M.’s house in a village near Qafa e Koshovicës. 21.     Sh.O. said that he lived in the village of Levan in the Fier district. B.M. was his father’s sister and lived in the same village. On 5 January 2001 Sh.O. had gone to her home, where he had seen two men he did not know. B.M. told Sh.O. that they were from Berat, but had not told him their names. The next day, on 6 January 2001, Sh.O. had seen them again in the courtyard of B.M.’s home. One of the men was of Roma ethnicity, of medium build, with black hair combed backwards. The other man was white, also of medium build but slimmer than the other man. Sh.O.’s brother, Xh.O., told Sh.O. that the man of Roma ethnicity was a brother of one Zamir from Berat, who was married to Sh.O.’s aunt, S. The other man was a friend of Zamir’s brother. Sh.O. said that the two men had been staying at B.M.’s house for several days. He had not seen them after 7 January 2001. He said that B.M. must have known them since they had stayed at her house. 22.     Shp.O., son of B.M., said that on 1 January 2001 he had seen two men at his mother’s house. She had told him that they were from Berat. Shp.O. had recognised one of the men, a man of Roma ethnicity, as Shuaip, a brother-in-law of S. from Berat. The other man, unknown to Shp.O., was white. Shp.O. had seen them again when he visited his mother’s house on 3   January   2001. He had spoken to them, and they had said that they had been in Italy and would like to go there again. 23.     On 9 January 2001 the police showed Sh.O. photographs of eight persons. He identified both D.Zh. and the applicant as persons he had seen at the house of B.M. on 5 and 6 January 2001. 24.     On 11 January 2001 the police interviewed B.M. She said that she lived in the village of Levan in the Fier district. On the evening of 31   December 2000 two men, who were unknown to her, had come to her house. B.M. said that at the time her husband Q., her daughters So. and Sa., her son Shp., with his wife D., and her other son, F., had also been at her house. One of the men, of Roma ethnicity, had told her that he was the brother-in-law of her sister S., who lived in Berat, which meant that he was a brother of Zamir, B.M.’s sister’s husband. He said that they had just arrived in Vlora, having come by speedboat from Italy, hired a car and found themselves in Levan at night, so they had asked to spend the night at her house. The other man was white. B.M. said that she had not seen that they had mobile telephones or any weapons. The men had left her house on foot on 1 January 2001 and headed in the direction of the village of Levan. 25 .     On 15 January 2001 the police showed B.T., an eyewitness of the shooting (see paragraph 35 below), photographs of eight persons. He identified D.Zh. as the person who had shot I.N. dead. 26 .     On 15 February 2001 Th.N., the father of I.N., was interviewed by the prosecutor. He said that his son, I.N., had been warned that he would be killed. The assassins were the Jaupi brothers from Berat, whether working alone or with other persons. He knew about the assassination of his son near his house from what his son had told him previously. The motive for the killing of his son was linked to his performance of his duties as a policeman, and was related to the killing of the applicant’s brother in 1997 in the course of a police intervention (see paragraph 5 above). After that I.N. had started to receive threats from the Jaupi family. In 1998 the Jaupi brothers had invited I.N. to lunch in Ura Vajgurore, near the airport, but he had declined the invitation. After I.N. was assigned to the Berat Police, he told Th.N. that the Jaupi brothers, E. and Kastriot, had plans to murder him, and that they had paid certain people to follow him when he went from Vlora to Berat. Th.N. said that I.N. had known that they would ambush and kill him somewhere outside Berat. His concerns had been increasing daily in the days before his death. As regards the attempt on his son’s life that occurred on 7 September 2000 at about 6.30 a.m. in Qafa e Koshovicës, it had been publicly commented that the Jaupi brothers had been behind it. After that his son had sought a transfer, telling the Minister of Interior about his concerns. For a while I.N. had been posted to the Delvina Police Commissariat as its Chief of Police. I.N. had soon learned that the applicant had been organising his assassination somewhere along the Coastal Road [ Rruga e Bregut ]. Th.N. also said that his son had told him that he had been taken off duty by an order of the Minister of the Interior, and thus left without any protection. At the beginning of December 2000 an unknown person had rung I.N.’s home and told I.N.’s wife, who had answered the telephone, that I.N. would be killed “as soon as he leaves his house”. On 26 December 2000 I.N. had met with Bi.M., the Head of the State Police, who had told him that he could not be posted elsewhere because he had been taken off duty, and that the Minister of Interior had previously been considering sending him to Italy. On 29 December 2000 I.N. had been seriously concerned for his life, and had thought that he would be killed near his house. In the opinion of Th.N., his son had been threatened. 27.     On 28 November 2001 the applicant was arrested in Spain under an international arrest warrant issued on 27 October 2000 by the Berat District Court in connection with charges of murder of one Sh.T. in 1997, and illegal possession of firearms, and another international arrest warrant issued on 12   January 2001 by the Vlora District Court in connection with the killing of I.N. The applicant was served with the arrest warrant which contained the charges brought against him. The applicant challenged the request for his extradition to Albania in the Spanish courts (see paragraph 43 below). The Spanish Constitutional Court quashed the lower courts’ decision to extradite the applicant, on procedural grounds. In these proceedings the applicant’s lawyer presented as evidence a translated copy of the judgment of the Vlora District Court of 4 July 2003, convicting the applicant in absentia of the murder of I.N. It appears that while these proceedings were ongoing, there was also a pending request for the applicant’s extradition to Italy on suspicion of attempted murder committed in that country. 28.     On 27 July 2002 the investigation into the attempted murder of I.N. and A.J. was joined to that of the murder of I.N. Proceedings on indictment 29.     On 24 September 2002 the applicant was indicted by the Vlora Prosecutor’s Office in the Vlora District Court on charges of the attempted murder of I.N. and A.J. on 7 September 2000 in Qafa e Koshovicës and the murder of I.N. on 30 December 2000 in Vlora, under Article 79 (c) in conjunction with Article 25 of the Criminal Code. 30.     The trial started on 27 December 2002, and was held in the Vlora District Court in the applicant’s absence because he was in detention in Spain, having been arrested at the request of the Albanian authorities in connection with the criminal proceedings. He was represented by a lawyer appointed by his family. The lawyer asked for the trial to be adjourned until the applicant had been informed of the trial, but the trial court declined. 31.     During the trial, the witnesses E.Ll., B.T., A.L., E.B. and L.J. gave evidence. The witnesses A.J., A.Ç, B.M., Sh.O. and S.M. did not appear at the trial. The statements they had given to the police were read out to the trial court. At a hearing on 26 May 2003 A.L. gave his statement (see paragraph   14 above). 32 .     At a hearing on 18 June 2003 the applicant’s mother, L.J., said that the police, namely officer I.N., had killed her son I.J. She stressed that not only had I.N. killed her son, but he had harassed her family, and had “entered a blood feud” with them. Because of that he had to die, because “blood can be washed only with blood” and for that reason her son, the applicant, had started to “mess” with I.N. 33.     At a hearing held on 25 February 2003 the witnesses E.B. and B.T. gave their evidence. 34.     E.B., a waiter at the bar where I.N. was killed, said that on 30   December 2000 at about 10 a.m. I.N. had been in the bar drinking coffee when a man appeared behind him and fired several shots at him from the distance of about four to five metres. I.N. had slumped over and fallen. The gunman had held a pistol with both hands. He had worn a tracksuit with the hood up, was overweight and of medium height. E.B. had not had a good look at his face and said that he would not recognise him again. After the shooting, the gunman had left in the direction of the shopping district. 35 .     B.T., a policeman who was then off duty and wearing civilian clothes, said that on 30 December 2000 he had been drinking coffee with I.N. in the Bar Shelgu in Skelë street in Vlora. I.N. had been seated with his back turned to the road. After some moments, B.T. had heard a noise and thought it was fireworks. I.N. had stood up, reached for his belt, bent over, and fallen down. B.T. had heard three to four shots. He had seen a man wearing black clothes, somewhat overweight, with a dark face, who had shot at I.N. from a distance of about three to four metres. B.T. had started to run after that man. B.T. had called the police by radio and reported the killing of I.N. while he was chasing the perpetrator. He had also seen another man running away with the perpetrator. B.T. had seen both of them in profile from the right. The District Court gave B.T. a copy of the statement he had given to the police. The applicant’s lawyer objected. After reading the statement he had previously made, B.T. said that the gunman had been wearing a black sweatshirt and had short and somewhat curly hair. He said that he would recognise the gunman and the person who had been with him. In answer to a question by the presiding judge B.T. said that the gunman was 1.70 to 1.75 metres tall. 36 .     At a hearing on 12 March 2003 the prosecutor reported that several attempts to serve summonses on the witness R.B. at his home address had been unsuccessful, and that the only available information on his whereabouts was that he was abroad. The applicant’s lawyer requested that R.B. be summoned again. The District Court ordered that he be brought to the trial by the judicial police, but he could not be found. 37 .     At a hearing held on 27 March 2003 the witnesses R.B., A.J., B.H., A.Ç., Sh.O., B.M. and Sh.M. did not appear. The prosecutor reported that according to the information from the judicial police, they were all abroad in unknown places, and attempts to summon them had been unsuccessful. The District Court therefore decided to read out the statements they had given to the police during the investigation. The applicant’s lawyer objected. He said that pressure had been put on the witness B.M. by the police. After the witness statements had been read out, the applicant’s lawyer said that they were contradictory and not true, and that those witnesses were illiterate. 38 .     The Court sent summonses to the witnesses B.H., S.M., I.Zh. and Z.Zh., but they were not served. The District Court ordered that they be brought to court by the police, but they could not be found. They did not appear at a hearing held on 8 May 2003. The prosecutor said that the judicial police had reported on 23 April 2003 that the police had checked the addresses of all the witnesses and learned that B.H. had emigrated to Greece and that the other witnesses had gone abroad, without further details. The District Court therefore decided to read out the statements B.H. and I.Zh. had given to the police during the investigation (see paragraphs 10 and 18 above). After the witness statements had been read out, the applicant’s lawyer said that B.H.’s statement had been fabricated and those of I.Zh. and Z.Zh. were invalid because they had not been made in accordance with the law, given that I.Zh. and Z.Zh. were illiterate and had not signed their statements. 39.     At a hearing on 26 May 2003 the Vlora District Court established that the witness Th.N. was in Russia undergoing medical treatment, and therefore the statement he had made to the prosecutor during the investigation (see   paragraph 26 above) was read out. 40.     At a hearing on 4 June 2003 the witness E.Ll., a policeman, gave his evidence. He said he had been in the Berat Police Commissariat between 2   May 1999 and 20 June 2001. I.N. had been there as the Chief of the Criminal Police. An unknown person had telephoned E.Ll. in August 2000 and warned him not to be too close to I.N. because I.N. was going to be assassinated. E.Ll. had asked who had been speaking, and the answer had been that E.Ll. had done him a favour and that the warning had been given to return the favour to E.Ll. After E.Ll. insisted that he reveal his identity, the speaker had said that the Jaupi family were planning to assassinate I.N. because of an “old problem”. After a couple of days E.Ll. had informed I.N. of that conversation. I.N. had told E.Ll. that he had been at the applicant’s house, where he had encountered the applicant’s mother and sister and his sister’s husband and had told them: “If you want to kill me, do it now. I am at your house and unarmed.” After a couple of days, the same man had called E.Ll. again and said that I.N.’s visit to the applicant’s house had been a wrong move. E.Ll. said that one Sunday I.N. had left for Vlora. The next day E.Ll. had been ordered to go to Fier because an attack had been carried out on I.N. in Qafa e Koshovicës. That same evening the same man had again called E.Ll. and told him to be careful. After that attack, everyone in the Berat Police Commissariat had told I.N. to move out of Berat. In answer to a question by the prosecutor, E.Ll. explained that the “old problem” he had referred to was the murder of the applicant’s brother in 1997. To a further question from the prosecutor, E.Ll. replied that I.N. had told him that he had not seen the person who had shot at him on 7 September 2000. 41.     On 4 July 2003 the Vlora District Court convicted the applicant as charged and sentenced him to life imprisonment. As to the applicant’s motive, the District Court found that the applicant’s brother I.J. had been seriously injured and died in 1997 as result of an exchange of gunfire with the police in the Berat District during the period of civil unrest that followed the collapse of the pyramid schemes. Criminal proceedings for the killing of the applicant’s brother had been discontinued on 10 May 2000. The District Court found that the applicant and his parents had held I.N. responsible as a member of the police forces which had been involved in the events of 1997. The District Court saw the killing of I.N. by the applicant as an act of revenge for the death of the applicant’s brother. In support of that conclusion, it also referred to the evidence given by the applicant’s mother during the trial (see paragraph 32 above). The District Court established that the applicant had devised a plan to kill I.N. The Vlora District Court relied on circumstantial evidence in dealing with the criminal offence of the attempted murder of I.N. and A.J., which included allegations that the applicant had held I.N. responsible for the death of his brother, I.J. The Vlora District Court established that on 7 September 2000 in Qafa e Koshovicës in Fier, the applicant and other unidentified persons had ambushed I.N. and A.J. as they passed by in a car. I.N. had been injured by one projectile but survived. The District Court referred to the statement B.H. had given to the police in which he said that he had met the applicant in Athens and that he had told him that he had shot I.N. As to the murder of I.N. on 30 December 2000, the District Court established that the applicant and his friend D.Zh. had travelled together by a coach from Fier to Vlora that morning. When they arrived at the coach terminal in Vlora, they met R.B. and the applicant had asked him to lend him his car so he could drive to the centre of Vlora to “run some errands”. R.B. consented. While the applicant and D.Zh. were travelling in the car along the Vlora-Skelë road, they had seen I.N. sitting in a bar with B.T. near I.N.’s house. After they parked the car, they approached I.N. from behind. The applicant stayed behind a corner of the bar, while D.Zh. approached I.N. from the back at a distance of about two metres, pulled out his gun and shot at I.N. several times. I.N. made an attempt to pull out the pistol he carried on him but did not succeed. He fell to the ground and died almost immediately. The applicant grabbed D.Zh. and they left the crime scene in haste and drove to B.M.’s house in the village of Levan in the Fier District, where they hid, avoiding the police chase. The Vlora District Court concluded that the above course of events had been fully proved by all the evidence. It found that there had been an agreement between the applicant and D.Zh. The applicant had organised the assassination of I.N. and ensured the collaboration of his close friend D.Zh. The Vlora District Court relied on a variety of direct, circumstantial and forensic evidence, namely reports from the crime scene, the autopsy report, ballistic reports, the results of identification parades, photographs, and the witness statements of A.J., R.B., E.Ll., B.H., B.T., A.L., E.B., A.Ç, B.M., Sh.O., S.M., Th.N., and L.J. In particular, it stressed that the applicant’s mother, L.J., had stated before the court that the killing of her son I.J., had been carried out by the police, and that the victim, I.N., had not only had killed her son, but had also harassed her family, and had to die, and that the applicant had therefore started to “mess” with him. 42.     No appeal was lodged against the District Court’s judgment within the prescribed time-limit, and the judgment became final. Proceedings on appeal 43 .     The applicant was released from detention in Spain on 24 May 2004. After the applicant’s extradition to Albania had been ordered by two levels of courts in Spain, on 13 February 2006 the Constitutional Court refused the extradition request. 44.     On 20 October 2008 the applicant was arrested in Italy and extradited to Albania. The applicant contended that he had only then learned of his conviction and sentence. Accordingly, on 24 October 2008 he applied for leave to appeal out of time under Article 147 § 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP). 45.     On 20 November 2008 and 16 February 2009, the Vlora District Court and Vlora Court of Appeal respectively rejected the applicant’s application on the basis that the applicant had been represented at the trial by a lawyer appointed by his family, who could have brought an appeal on his behalf. In addition, both courts found that the applicant should be presumed to have been aware of the criminal proceedings against him and that he had not presented any evidence to rebut that presumption. Under Article 147 § 2 of the CCP, the burden of proving that he was unaware of the proceedings against him was on the applicant. 46 .     On 2 July 2009 the Supreme Court granted the applicant’s application for leave to appeal out of time, quashing the previous decisions of the Vlora District Court and the Vlora Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court found no conclusive evidence that the applicant had been aware of the trial proceedings and his conviction, and that the burden of proof that the applicant had been aware of the proceedings and conviction was on the State. 47 .     On 8 July 2009 the applicant brought an appeal in the Vlora Court of Appeal requesting a partial reopening of trial proceedings ( “përsëritjen pjesërisht të shqyrtimit gjyqësor” ) under Article 427 of the CCP because of his absence from the trial. In relation to his conviction for the attempted murder of I.N. and A.J. on 7 September 2000, the applicant contended that the witness statements of R.B. and B.H. had been fabricated. According to those statements, the applicant had confessed to witness B.H. at a bus stop in Athens that he had organised and carried out the ambush of I.N. and A.J. at Qafa e Koshovicës. Furthermore, he contested the statements of witness R.B. according to which the applicant had also confessed to having committed the criminal offence in question. Lastly, the applicant submitted that neither B.H. nor R.B. was an eyewitness and as they had been absent from the trial their evidence had to be rejected. In relation to his conviction for the murder of I.N., the applicant submitted that according to their evidence, the witnesses B.T., E.B. and A.B. (all of whom had been present at the crime scene) had only seen one person shoot the victim, I.N., contrary to the conclusions of the Vlora District Court. That person, the applicant contended, was D.Zh., and there was no evidence that the murder had been ordered or organised by the applicant. The applicant also contested the finding of the trial court that he had threatened I.N. and asserted that there was no evidence of that. He submitted that there had been procedural irregularities as to some of the evidence presented. 48.     The Vlora Court of Appeal listed a hearing for 12 February 2010 and summoned the applicant and his lawyer. It dismissed the request that the evidence of all the witnesses be reheard, holding that it sufficed that the evidence had been presented before the first-instance court. 49 .     A hearing was held in the Vlora Court of Appeal on 12 February 2010. The applicant, who was in pre-trial detention at the time was notified of the hearing, and offered the opportunity of being taken to the hearing. However, he decided not to attend, and to be represented by his lawyer, the same one chosen by his family to represent him at the trial in the Vlora District Court. The applicant’s lawyer read out the appeal application. He argued that the applicant had been detained in Spain and had not been able to attend his trial for that reason. He asked for all the witnesses to be called again but that request was rejected on the grounds that no procedural rules had been breached during the trial at first instance that would have made the presentation of the prosecution evidence invalid. 50 .     On 12 April 2010 the Vlora Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and confirmed the applicant’s conviction. It found that the applicant’s conviction at first instance had been the result of a fair trial without any procedural irregularities, in which a great deal of evidence had been presented by the prosecution that had been conclusive as to the applicant’s guilt for organising the murder and D.Zh.’s guilt for carrying it out. In particular, it refused the applicant’s request for the proceedings to be reopened under Article 427 of the CCP, finding that all the evidence had already been assessed at first instance in the presence of the applicant’s lawyer, who had been appointed by his family, albeit not in the presence of the applicant. The Vlora Court of Appeal noted that the applicant was in detention but had chosen not to take part in the proceedings before it, and that his interests were sufficiently protected by his appointed lawyer. 51 .     On 4 May 2010 the applicant lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court and presented the same arguments as in his appeal to the Vlora Court of Appeal (see paragraph 47 above). On 4 July 2013 the Supreme Court summarily dismissed the appeal as not raising any of the grounds of appeal listed in Article 432 of the CCP. 52 .     On 25 February 2014 the applicant lodged a constitutional complaint. He challenged the manner in which the evidence had been gathered, and argued, inter alia , that he had not been properly notified of the charges against him and that the lower courts had not given adequate reasons for their decisions. 53 .     On 29 September 2014 the Constitutional Court accepted the applicant’s constitutional complaint in part and remitted the case to the Supreme Court. The Constitutional Court dismissed the applicant’s complaints concerning the manner in which the witnesses’ evidence had been obtained and the reasons given by the lower courts. It acknowledged that there had been some irregularities in the way some of the evidence had been gathered by the prosecution but found that this had been insufficient to render the proceedings unfair, in view of the corroborating evidence against the applicant. Furthermore, the Constitutional Court dismissed the applicant’s complaint about the trial court’s alleged failure to notify the applicant of the trial proceedings on the basis that the trial court had previously found that the applicant was a fugitive. It also dismissed the complaint about his right to be heard, holding that the Supreme Court had granted his request for leave to appeal and that, even though he had been tried in absentia , he had had an opportunity to appeal against his conviction. However, the Constitutional Court accepted the applicant’s constitutional complaint about the fairness of the proceedings in the Supreme Court. It held that the Supreme Court ought to have given reasons for its decision as to whether the applicant’s request for the reopening of the proceedings was well-founded or not. It accordingly quashed the Supreme Court’s decision and sent the matter back for re-examination. 54 .     On 5 November 2015 the Supreme Court again dismissed the applicant’s appeal, upholding the decision of the Vlora Court of Appeal of 12   April 2010. It observed that the thrust of the applicant’s complaints concerned the taking and interpretation of evidence by the lower courts, which was out of the scope of its jurisdiction. As to the alleged procedural violation of the right to a fair trial, the Supreme Court considered that there was nothing in the file to support that conclusion. It found that the courts had followed all the appropriate procedural steps in giving notice of the criminal proceedings against him to the applicant and that his interests had been represented by a lawyer, who had initially been appointed by his family and subsequently also chosen by the applicant himself. In addition, the Supreme Court observed that the applicant had waived his defence rights through his absence, which it found he had done voluntarily, both at the first-instance trial and, importantly, in the Vlora Court of Appeal when it was deciding on his application for a partial reopening of proceedings (see paragraphs 49 above). The Supreme Court found that the applicant had voluntarily chosen not to benefit from the guarantees provided for by Article 427 § 4 of the CCP. 55 .     On 27 February 2017 the applicant lodged a fresh constitutional complaint. He argued, inter alia , that he had been tried in his absence and that in the renewed proceedings the adversarial principle had been violated because his request that all the evidence be called again had been rejected, and therefore he had had no practical opportunity to challenge the evidence against him. 56.     On 22 May 2017 the Constitutional Court dismissed all the applicant’s renewed constitutional complaints, noting that it had already adjudicated on them and that in respect of the disputed decision the Supreme Court had complied with the instructions of the Constitutional Court in its decision of 29 September 2014. RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW The Criminal Code 57.     Article 79-c provides that a murder of, inter alia , a police officer is punishable by imprisonment for not less than twenty years or by life imprisonment. THE Code oF Criminal Procedure 58.     The relevant provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure (as in force at the relevant time) read as follows: Article 147 – Leave to appeal out of time “1. The prosecutor, the defendant, private parties and defence counsel may request an extension of time if they establish that they had no opportunity to comply with a time-limit because of unforeseen events or force majeure. 2. In the event of conviction in absentia , the accused may request an extension of the time allowed for appeal against the judgment where he can establish that he had no effective knowledge of the proceedings. 3. A request for an extension of time