Published on 14 October 2024
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 14725/22
Muhamed AVDIĆ and Abdurahman MALKIC
against Serbia
lodged on 10 March 2022
communicated on 25 September 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the arrest of the father of the first applicant (Mr Avdić) and the arrest and alleged torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of the second applicant (Mr Malkić) personally, by the Serbian authorities and their deportation to the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina in July of 1995, where the father of the first applicant disappeared and the second applicant was detained as a prisoner in a war camp.
The applicants’ criminal complaint regarding the above was dismissed in 2018 by the Serbian Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor, and the Constitutional Court rejected their constitutional appeal in a decision dated 27 January 2022.
The applicants complain, respectively, under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention of the lack of an effective investigation into the events in question.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. With respect to the first applicant and having regard to the procedural protection of the right to life (see, mutatis mutandis, Salman v. Turkey [GC], no. 21986/93, § 104, ECHR 2000-VII, and Krdžalija and Others v. Montenegro (dec.) no. 79065/13, §§ 119-122, 13 March 2023), was the investigation in the present case, as carried out by the Serbian authorities, in breach of Article 2 of the Convention?
2. With respect to the second applicant and having regard to the procedural protection from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (see paragraph 131 of Labita v. Italy [GC], no. 26772/95, ECHR 2000-IV), specifically his alleged torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in Serbia and his subsequent deportation to Bosnia and Herzegovina, was the investigation in the present case, as carried out by the Serbian authorities, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention?
3. The Government are invited to submit a copy of the entire case file concerning the applicants’ criminal complaint lodged with the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor of Serbia.