Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 22
September 2000
Mastromatteo v. Italy (dec.) - 37703/97
Decision 14.9.2000 [Section II]
Article 2
Article 2-1
Life
Murder of applicant's son by prisoners on home leave: admissible
The applicant’s son was killed by three bank robbers who were making their getaway. It was later established that the three had final convictions for offences ranging from complicity in armed robbery to complicity in murder and were serving prison sentences for those offences. At the material time two members of the gang were on prison leave, while the third, the applicant’s killer, had been on a regime of semi-imprisonment and had failed to return to prison at the end of forty-eight hours’ leave. The judges responsible for supervising the execution of the prison sentences had granted the three persons concerned prison leave as, relying on reports by the prison authorities on their behaviour in prison, the judges considered that they did not represent a danger to society. However, no psychological report had been prepared on the prisoner on the semi-imprisonment regime, despite there being a statutory requirement for such a report before acceptance on that regime. Furthermore, the judges responsible for the execution of sentences had not made use of their power to request additional information from the police in order to establish whether the three had maintained contact with criminal gangs operating outside the prison. That information could have led to prison leave being refused. Lastly, although the grant of prison leave had been made subject to conditions, the police did not appear on this occasion to have exercised any supervision over the three persons concerned. The three offenders received long prison sentences for the offences.
Admissible under Article 2.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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