CEDH · PRESS;GENERAL;ENG — 13 décembre 2005

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s6B505E72 { margin:0pt; padding-left:0pt } .s1C7BEF1E { margin-left:28.52pt; padding-left:7.48pt; font-family:serif } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .s9F8EB0C0 { width:18.63pt; display:inline-block } .s9E97F54A { width:85.05pt; display:inline-block } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   686 13.12.2005   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT BEKOS AND KOUTROPOULOS v. GREECE   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Bekos and Koutropoulos v. Greece (application no. 15250/02).   The Court held, unanimously, that there had been: a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights concerning the ill-treatment of the applicants by Greek police officers; a violation of Article 3 concerning the failure to conduct an effective investigation into the incident; no violation of Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) concerning the allegation that the treatment inflicted on the applicants by the police had been racially motivated; and, a violation of Article 14 in that the authorities failed to investigate possible racist motives behind the incident.   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction), the Court awarded each applicant 10,000 euros (EUR) for non-pecuniary damage. (The judgment is available only in English.)   1.     Principal facts   The applicants, Lazaros Bekos and Eleftherios Koutropoulos, are Greek nationals belonging to the Roma ethnic group. They were born in 1980 and live in Mesolonghi (Western Greece).   In the early hours of 8 May 1998 police were called out to deal with the attempted burglary of a kiosk. The owner of the kiosk claimed to have found Mr Bekos attempting to break into the kiosk with an iron bar with Mr Koutropoulos apparently acting as a lookout.   The applicants were arrested and taken to Mesolonghi police station. Mr Bekos alleged that he was ill-treated both at the time of his arrest and while being taken to his cell.   During questioning, Mr Bekos claimed three police officers punched him in the stomach and the back and that police officers took turns beating him, slapping him and hitting him. One beat him with an iron bar and threatened to sexually assault him. Mr Koutropoulos claimed that during questioning he was beaten with a truncheon on his back and kicked in the stomach by an officer (who he identified as Mr Tsikrikas) who later returned to beat him again. He also testified that the police officers “inserted a truncheon in [his] bottom and then raised it to [his] face, asking [him] whether it smelled”. Both applicants stated that they could hear each other’s screams and that they were verbally abused about their Roma origins.   The Greek Government disputed that the applicants had been assaulted or subjected to racial abuse while in police detention.   The applicants remained in detention until the morning of 9 May 1998, when Mr Bekos was charged with attempted theft and Mr Koutropoulos with being an accomplice. They were ultimately (November 1999) sentenced to 30 days’ and 20 days’ imprisonment respectively, in each case suspended for three years.   On being released from detention, the applicants consulted a forensic doctor in Patras about their injuries, who issued a medical certificate dated 9   May 1998, in which he stated, among other things, that the applicants bore “moderate bodily injuries caused in the past 24 hours by a heavy blunt instrument...”.   On 11 May 1998 the Greek Helsinki Monitor and the Greek Minority Rights Group sent a joint open letter to the Ministry of Public Order about the incident, which stated that they had collected approximately 30 statements concerning similar incidents of ill-treatment against Roma. They called for a prompt investigation and for precise and detailed instructions to be issued to all police stations in the country regarding the treatment of Roma by the police.   On 12 May 1998 the Ministry of Public Order launched an informal inquiry into the matter and the Greek police headquarters requested that the internal investigation be upgraded to an administrative inquiry. The inquiry found that two police officers, Mr Tsikrikas and Mr   Avgeris had treated the applicants “with particular cruelty during their detention”. It also established that Mr Tsikrikas had physically abused the applicants by beating them with a truncheon and/or kicking them in the stomach and that neither of the two officers was able to account for the applicants’ injuries. As a result, it was recommended that Mr   Tsikrikas and Mr Avgeris be temporarily suspended from service. However, neither officer was ever suspended.   On 14 July 1999 the Chief of the Greek Police fined Mr Tsikrikas 20,000   drachmas (less than 59 euros) for failing to “take the necessary measures to avert the occurrence of cruel treatment of the detainees by his subordinates”. The Chief of the Greek Police acknowledged that the applicants had been ill-treated. He stated that “the detainees were beaten by police officers during their detention ... and were subjected to bodily injuries”.   On 1 July 1998 the applicants and the first applicant’s father filed a criminal complaint against the Deputy Commander in Chief of the Mesolonghi police station and “all other” officers of the police station “responsible”.   On 31 August 2000 the Mesolonghi Public Prosecutor recommended that three police officers, Mr Tsikrikas, Mr Kaminatos and Mr Skoutas, be tried for physical abuse during interrogation. Criminal charges against Mr   Kaminatos and Mr Skoutas were droped, however, on the ground that it had not been established that they were present when the events took place and Mr Tsikrikas was found not guilty, on the ground that there was no evidence implicating him in any abuse.   Under Greek law, the applicants, who had joined the proceedings as civil parties, could not appeal against that decision.     2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 4 April 2002 and declared admissible on 23 November 2004.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Nicolas Bratza (British), President , Josep Casadevall (Andorran), Christos Rozakis (Greek), Giovanni Bonello (Maltese), Rait Maruste (Estonian), Stanislav Pavlovschi (Moldovan), Javier Borrego Borrego (Spanish), judges , and also Michael O’Boyle , Section Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaints The applicants alleged that they had been subjected to acts of police brutality in breach of Article 3 and that the authorities had failed to carry out an adequate investigation into the incident, in breach of Articles 3 and 13. They further alleged that the impugned events had been motivated by racial prejudice, in breach of Article 14.   Decision of the Court   Article 3   Alleged acts of police brutality The Court recalled that, where an individual was taken into police custody in good health but found to be injured at the time of release, it was incumbent on the State concerned to provide a plausible explanation for those injuries. In the applicants’ case, the domestic authorities had failed to do so.   The Court concluded that the serious physical harm suffered by the applicants at the hands of the police, as well as the feelings of fear, anguish and inferiority which the impugned treatment had produced in them, must have caused them suffering of sufficient severity for the acts of the police to be categorised as inhuman and degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 3.     The Court therefore concluded that there had been a breach of Article 3. Investigation into allegations of ill-treatment The Court noted that, on several occasions, during both the administrative inquiry and the ensuing judicial proceedings, it had been acknowledged that the applicants were ill-treated while in custody. However, no police officer was ever punished, either within the criminal proceedings or the internal police disciplinary procedure for ill-treating the applicants. The fine of less than 59 euros imposed on Mr   Tsikrikas was imposed not on the grounds of his own ill-treatment of the applicants but for his failure to prevent the occurrence of ill-treatment by his subordinates. Neither Mr   Tsikrikas nor Mr Avgeris were at any time suspended from service, despite the recommendation of the report on the findings of the administrative inquiry. The investigation did not appear to have produced any tangible results, therefore, and the applicants received no redress for their complaints.     Having regard to the lack of an effective investigation into the credible allegation made by the applicants that they were ill-treated while in custody, the Court held that there had been a violation of Article 3.   Article 13 The Court considered that there was no need to examine separately the applicants’ complaint under Article 13.   Article 14 in conjunction with Article 3   State liability for ill-treatment based on discrimination The Court considered that, while the police officers’ conduct during the applicants’ detention called for serious criticism, that behaviour was of itself an insufficient basis for concluding that the treatment inflicted on the applicants by the police was racially motivated. The Court therefore found that there had been no violation of Article 14 taken together with Article 3 concerning the allegation that racist attitudes played a role in the applicants’ treatment by the police.   Investigation into racist motives However, the Court considered that, when investigating violent incidents, State authorities had the additional duty to take all reasonable steps to unmask any racist motive and to establish whether or not ethnic hatred or prejudice might have played a role in the events. Admittedly, proving racial motivation would often be extremely difficult in practice. The   authorities had to do what was reasonable in the circumstances to collect and secure the evidence, explore all practical means of discovering the truth and deliver fully-reasoned, impartial and objective decisions, without omitting suspicious facts that might indicate racist motives.   The authorities investigating the alleged ill-treatment of the applicants had before them the sworn testimonies of Mr Bekos that, in addition to being the victims of serious assaults, they had been subjected to racial abuse by the police who were responsible for the ill-treatment. In addition, they had before them the joint open letter of the Greek Helsinki Monitor and the Greek Minority Rights Group referring to some 30 oral testimonies concerning similar incidents of ill-treatment of members of the Roma community. The Court considered that those statements, when combined with the reports of international organisations on alleged discrimination by the police in Greece against Roma and similar groups, including physical abuse and the excessive use of force, called for verification. In the view of the Court, where evidence came to light of racist verbal abuse being uttered by law enforcement agents in connection with the alleged ill-treatment of detained persons from an ethnic or other minority, a thorough examination of all the facts should be undertaken in order to discover any possible racial motives.   In the applicants’ case, despite the plausible information available to the authorities that the alleged assaults had been racially motivated, there was no evidence that they carried out any examination into the question. In particular, nothing was done to verify the statements of Mr Bekos that they had been racially verbally abused or the other statements referred to in the open letter alleging similar ill-treatment of Roma; nor did any inquiries appear to have been made as to whether Mr Tsikrakas had previously been involved in similar incidents or whether he had ever been accused in the past of displaying anti-Roma sentiment; nor, further, did any investigation appear to have been conducted into how the other officers of the Mesolonghi police station were carrying out their duties when dealing with ethnic minority groups. Moreover, the Court noted that, even though the Greek Helsinki Monitor gave evidence before the trial court in the applicants’ case and that the possible racial motives for the incident could not therefore have escaped the attention of the court, no specific regard appeared to have been paid to that question.   The Court therefore found a violation of Article 14 taken together with Article 3 in that the authorities failed in their duty to take all possible steps to investigate whether or not discrimination might have played a role in the events at issue.     Judge Bratza expressed a concurring opinion and Judge Casadevall expressed a separate opinion, both of which are annexed to the judgment.   ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Registry of the European Court of Human Rights F – 67075 Strasbourg Cedex Press contacts:   Roderick Liddell (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 24 92)   Emma Hellyer (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15)   Stéphanie Klein (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54)   Beverley Jacobs (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 90 21 54 21) Fax: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 27 91   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. Since 1 November 1998 it has sat as a full-time Court composed of an equal number of judges to that of the States party to the Convention. The Court examines the admissibility and merits of applications submitted to it. It sits in Chambers of 7 judges or, in exceptional cases, as a Grand Chamber of 17 judges. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe supervises the execution of the Court’s judgments. [1] Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17 ‑ member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer. [2] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.