THIRD SECTION
Application no. 37847/13
Ana LARI
against the Republic of Moldova
lodged on 26 April 2013
STATEMENT OF FACTS
1. The applicant, Ms Ana Lari, is a Moldovan national, who was born in 1961 and lives in Chişinău. She is represented before the Court by Mr A. Briceac and Mr B. Malachi, lawyers practising in Chişinău.
A. The circumstances of the case
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
3. On 13 June 1999 the applicant’s seventeen year old daughter (C.) was found dead of medication overdose in the office of a company.
4. On 14 June 1999 a forensic medical report concluded that C.’s death resulted from intoxication with medication. On the victim’s body were also found: an ecchymosis on her left leg, haemorrhage on the anal mucous membrane and on the vestibule of vagina, caused at least several but not more than 30-40 minutes before death with a blunt and hard object.
5. On 26 October 1999 criminal proceedings were instituted to investigate the crime of incitement to commit suicide under Article 94 (1) of the Criminal Code.
6. Six persons were heard as witnesses. Three of them confirmed that C. had spent the night from 12 to 13 June 1999 at a party and that she feared punishment by her parents because she had not informed them about going to that party. They confirmed that in the morning of 13 June 1999 C. came together with P. and M. to the company’s office and decided to wait for a friend before going home. P. and M. left the company’s premises soon after. The security employee of the company, I., stated that C. looked tired and that she went to sleep after P. and M. left. He also stated that he entered the office two times to see how C. was doing, the first time he could hear her breath but after another thirty minutes when he came again, C. was already not breathing and without pulse. He then called upon V., an unqualified worker in the company’s premises, to assist him and to call the ambulance. All witnesses denied having had sexual intercourse with C. and stated that there was no one else in the company’s premises who could have had intercourse.
7. On 24 December 1999 the Centru District prosecutor closed the criminal investigation finding as follows:
“Having investigated the suicide and also the version that C. committed suicide after having been raped, it was found that:
- according to witness statements, from 8.30 to 11.00 on 13 June 1999 no one else than C. was in the company’s premises;
- according to the medical forensic report no. 881 of 14 June 1999, no traces of semen were found in C.’s cavities;
- according to the same forensic report there are no injuries on C.’s body or face.
... It was impossible to establish when C. obtained and used the medication. The investigation did not reveal any reasons or causes which would determine C.’s death as violent; it concludes that this was a fatal accident: that C. being very worried about her unmotivated absence from home on the night from 12 to 13 June 1999, tried to avoid punishment by her parents by getting hospitalized with "poisoning" but due to negligent use of medication, died of overdose.
Therefore ... there are no elements of crime under article 94 (1) of the Criminal Code. ”
8. In 2005 the applicant complained to the Prosecutor General’s Office that she had never been informed about the prosecutor’s decision of 24 December 1999 and found out about it only in December 2004. She argued that the investigation was superficial and inefficient, requesting the reopening of the investigation. She noticed in particular that the investigation pursued essentially the version of suicide and failed to verify the circumstances which determined the injuries on her daughter’s body and to reveal the time when the medication could have been ingested.
9. On 17 March 2005 the Prosecutor General’s deputy annulled the prosecutor’s decision of 24 December 1999 and ordered the reopening of the criminal investigation, finding, inter alia:
“...proceedings were closed after a superficial and incomplete investigation... A forensic medical examination of the body was not ordered, the active substance with which [C.] was poisoned or overdosed herself was not established, the investigation did not answer how [C.] obtained the medication and in what circumstances 30-40 minutes before her death were caused the injuries on her left leg, anal mucous membrane and vestibule of vagina; the investigation did not check the complicity of P., M., I, and V. in committing the crime.”
10. On 4 May 2005 the applicant was acknowledged as successor of her deceased daughter and as injured party in criminal proceedings.
11. On 22 September 2005 the Prosecutor General’s deputy transferred the criminal file from the Centru police to Chisinau prosecutor’s office, referring to the undue delay and the unprofessional conduct of the investigation.
12. The forensic examination of the body was finished on 17 October 2005 and found that death from a 40-pill overdose could have occurred at most within two hours after ingestion.
13. On 20 February 2006 the applicant obtained an answer to her complaint about the ineffective investigation into C.’s death, stating as follows:
“...the investigation is delayed because certain persons who need to be interviewed are out of the country.”
14. On 12 June 2012 the applicant complained to the Prosecutor General about the inefficient investigation and about not being informed on the course of that investigation. On 10 July 2012 the applicant obtained the following answer:
“...the investigation is still pending... you will be additionally informed once a decision is taken on the case; you will be summoned if any need in your participation in the investigation appears.”
15. The applicant submitted on 22 October 2012 and 1 March 2013 repeated complaints about the inefficient investigation, about not being informed on the course of the investigation and thus being unable to exercise her procedural rights under the Code of Criminal Procedure. According to the applicant, those complaints remained unanswered.
B. Relevant domestic law
16. The relevant domestic law concerning the procedural rights of the injured party are described in Anusca v. Moldova (no. 24034/07, § 25, 18 May 2010).
COMPLAINT
17. The applicant complains under Article 2 of the Convention that there has been no effective investigation into her daughter’s death and that the investigation conducted by the authorities was not prompt, while her rights as an injured party were not observed.
ITMarkFactsComplaintsEND
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Did the investigation in respect of the applicant’s daughter’s death comply with the requirements under Article 2 of the Convention? In particular, was that investigation conducted promptly and free of deficiencies capable of undermining the authorities’ ability to establish the cause of the victim’s death and to identify the perpetrator or perpetrators, if any (see Hasan Çalışkan and Others v. Turkey, no. 13094/02, § 51 et seq., 27 May 2008 and Anusca v. Moldova, no. 24034/07, 18 May 2010)?
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