CEDH · CASELAW;COMMUNICATEDCASES;ENG — 9 mai 2016

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .sA6BC7FA7 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt; text-align:right } .s9793A85B { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt } .s5E1364CA { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s8229ABDD { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center } .s68C46B95 { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center } .s3F59B822 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-transform:uppercase } .s1CBBD6E0 { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s39A7D870 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid }   Communicated on 9 May 2016   FIFTH SECTION Application no. 67976/11 Muzzafer DEMIR against Germany lodged on 28 October 2011 SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE The applicant, a German national of Turkish origin residing in Germany, claims that the criminal proceedings conducted against him before the Darmstadt Regional Court on charges of murder, allegedly committed in Kovancılar, Turkey, on 12 June 2006, violated his right to a fair trial under Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) of the Convention. He complains that he was not able, at any stage of the proceedings, to question the main witnesses to the crime allegedly committed by him, G.B., V.T. and E.A., on whose testimonies the Regional Court had based his conviction. QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES Having regard to the Court’s case-law as established, in particular, in the cases of Al-Khawaja and Tahery v. the United Kingdom ([GC], nos.   26766/05 and 22228/06, ECHR 2011) and Schatschaschwili v.   Germany ([GC], no. 9154/10, 15 December 2015), was the applicant’s right to a fair trial, as guaranteed by Article 6 §§ 1 and 3(d) of the Convention, infringed by the fact that neither the applicant nor his counsel had been given the opportunity, at any stage of the proceedings, to examine the only direct witnesses G.B. (the owner of the shop in which the offence was committed), V.T. (a customer present in G.B.’s shop at the time of the offence) and E.A. (the owner of a shop close to the crime scene) to the crime committed in Kovancılar on 12 June 2006? In this connection, did the domestic authorities make all reasonable efforts to secure the witnesses’ attendance before finally considering them to be unreachable? Was the applicant’s conviction based solely or to a decisive or significant extent on the evidence provided by witnesses G.B., V.T. and E.A.? Furthermore, were there sufficient counterbalancing factors to compensate for the handicaps under which the defence laboured as a result of the fact that it had been unable to cross-examine the only direct witnesses to the offence in question?