Published on 30 September 2024
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 55713/19
Latef AREF
against Greece
lodged on 9 October 2019
communicated on 10 September 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applicant is an Afghan national detained in Corfu Prison.
In 2013, the Athens Assize Court convicted the applicant for murder by decision no. 838, 851, 852, 896, 897/2013, and sentenced him to fifteen years’ imprisonment. At the hearing, two out of ten prosecution witnesses were present: one stated that it was not the applicant who stabbed the victim with a knife, while the other did not provide any relevant information. As regards the eight absent witnesses, the court considered their pre-trial written statements, dismissing the respective applicant’s objection. Relying on four of these statements, which identified the applicant as the murderer, the court held that the applicant had stabbed the victim.
In 2018, following appeals by the prosecutor and the applicant, the Athens Appeals Assize Court, upheld the conviction and sentenced him to life imprisonment, by judgment no. 44/2018. The court relied on the evidence considered at first instance and a DNA expertise which found that the applicant’s DNA did not match that found on the murder weapon. The court maintained the first-instance reasoning and held that the expertise was not decisive, as the applicant must have covered the weapon with a rug to avoid leaving DNA on it.
The applicant lodged an appeal on points of law. Relying on Article 510 § 1 (H) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, he complained that the appeal court adopted a deficient reasoning and erroneously upheld the prosecutor’s appeal. He argued that the appeal court arbitrarily overlooked the DNA expertise by considering that the murder weapon was used while covered in a rug, although the relevant witness statements merely mentioned that it was brought to the murderer in a rug. The Court of Cassation, by judgment no. 775/2019, rejected the cassation appeal as unfounded and held that the appeal court did not err in declaring the prosecutor’s appeal admissible.
Under Article 6 § 1, the applicant complains that the criminal proceedings were unfair, notably because the domestic courts adopted deficient reasonings and erred in the establishment of the facts by relying on contradictory pre-trial written witness statements and overlooking decisive DNA evidence.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant exhausted all effective domestic remedies, as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, did the applicant invoke before the Court of Cassation, at least in substance, the rights under Article 6 § 1 on which he now wishes to rely before the Court?
2. Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of the criminal charges against him, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see, for instance, Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Türkiye [GC], no. 15669/20, §§ 302-5, 26 September 2023)?