Communicated on 19 January 2016
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 12224/09
Sergey Vladimirovich ALAKHVERDYAN
against Ukraine
lodged on 11 February 2009
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Sergey Vladimirovich Alakhverdyan, is a Ukrainian national who was born in 1984 and is detained in Vinnytsya Prison no. 1.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 10 December 2004 the bodies of two women, T.D. and N.S., were found in T.D.’s house with numerous stab wounds.
On 12 December 2004 the applicant and I.G., an acquaintance of his, confessed to having murdered T.D. and N.S. on the orders of T.Dor., a resident of the same village, who wished to take revenge on these women because she believed that one of them had been having an affair with her partner and the other one had arranged for the affair to start.
On an unspecified date in December 2004 the applicant was appointed a legal-aid lawyer, D., who was subsequently replaced by S., another lawyer. It is not clear whether S. was a legal-aid lawyer or was engaged privately.
On 13 December 2004 the applicant confirmed his statements during a reconstruction of the crime scene.
On an unspecified date the applicant, I.G. and T.Dor. were committed to stand trial on charges of murder before the Odessa Regional Court of Appeal (“the Regional Court”), to act as a first-instance court.
At trial, the applicant and I.G. retracted their confessions and all three defendants pleaded not guilty.
On 25 July 2005 the Regional Court convicted all three defendants of the murder and sentenced the applicant to fifteen years’ imprisonment; I.G. and T.Dor. were sentenced to shorter terms of imprisonment.
The defendants appealed, alleging, primarily, that they were innocent and that the investigation had contained numerous procedural flaws and had been in breach of their basic rights.
The prosecution also appealed, alleging that the gravity of the offence called for the imposition of penalties stricter than those imposed by the first-instance court.
On 21 March 2006 the Supreme Court of Ukraine allowed the appeal brought by the prosecution (having found that the gravity of the crime imputed to the defendants called for the imposition of more severe penalties) and remitted the case for fresh consideration (also instructing the Regional Court to verify the allegations made by the defendants).
On 15 January 2008 the Regional Court again found the three defendants guilty of the murder and sentenced them to various terms of imprisonment. The applicant, for his part, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
The applicant lodged two cassation appeals: one prepared by him personally (a copy of which was not retained by the applicant and has not been provided to the Court) and the other one prepared by S. on the applicant’s behalf (a copy of which is included in the case file). Both appeals were accepted by the Supreme Court for examination. According to the applicant’s submissions, both appeals stated, in particular, that the applicant’s initial confessions had been obtained in a manner that breached his rights of defence. More specifically, the applicant had initially been questioned as a witness and had not had explained to him his right to remain silent and his right to legal counsel until the police had already obtained detailed confessions from him.
On 12 August 2008 the Supreme Court upheld the judgment of the Regional Court of 15 January 2008, with some amendments introduced at the request of the prosecution. As regards the applicant’s complaint concerning the purported breach of his rights of defence, the Supreme Court noted, in particular, that the applicant had maintained the veracity of his self-incriminating statements until the beginning of the trial, in spite of the fact that he had had the benefit of legal representation by D. from the beginning of the pre-trial investigation stage.
On numerous occasions after the proceedings were completed the applicant asked the Regional Court to provide him with a copy of his cassation appeal and several other documents from the case file, as he needed them in connection with his intention to lodge an application with the European Court of Human Rights. The Regional Court refused those requests, citing the absence of any legal obligation for it to provide such copies.
The applicant’s numerous further complaints about the Regional Court’s refusal to provide him with copies of documents, which had been lodged by him with various authorities, were either ignored or rejected as not being based on applicable law.
COMPLAINTS
1. The applicant complains under Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (c) of the Convention that his rights of defence in criminal proceedings were breached, as his initial confessions – which formed the basis of his criminal conviction – were obtained in breach of his right not to incriminate himself and his right to legal representation.
2. The applicant also complains under Article 34 of the Convention that there was no way for him to obtain copies of documents from his case-file with which to support his application to the Court.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of the criminal charges against him, in accordance with Article 6 of the Convention?
In particular, were the applicant’s defence rights and the principle of fair proceedings (as enshrined in Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (c) of the Convention) respected in the present case, given his submissions that the domestic courts convicted him, inter alia, on the basis of confessions he had made in the absence of a legal representative? Were the applicant’s rights not to incriminate himself and to be legally represented respected?
The Government are requested, in particular, to provide records of the applicant’s initial questioning by the police and copies of the case-file material indicating the timing of his first confessional statement given to the police, his arrest, his being notified that he had a right to be legally represented, the appointment of his lawyer and other relevant documents.
2. Has there been any hindrance on the part of the State of the effective exercise of the applicant’s right of application, as guaranteed by Article 34 of the Convention? In particular, did the applicant have any opportunity to obtain copies of the documents from his case-file and send them to the Court in order to pursue his present application (see, for example, Naydyon v. Ukraine, no. 16474/03, §§ 64-69, 14 October 2010, and Vasiliy Ivashchenko v. Ukraine, no. 760/03, §§ 103-109, 26 July 2012)?
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