THIRD SECTION
Application no. 69582/12
Alexandru MICLEA
against Romania
lodged on 11 October 2012
STATEMENT OF FACTS
FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Alexandru Miclea, is a Romanian national, who was born in 1989 and lives in Arad.
A. The circumstances of the case
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
1. The incident of 8 August 2010 and the applicant’s subsequent medical examination
3. On 8 August 2010, the applicant and three other persons accompanying him were escorted to the Arad Police for questioning following a dispute on the street with another group of persons. Once inside the police station, the applicant was taken into a back office where two police officers, D.C.I. and M.C.R., handcuffed him to the radiator and started hitting him with their fists and legs. Alerted by the applicant’s screaming another police officer came and put an end to the hitting. At this point, one of the officers who assaulted the applicant threatened him not say anything or he would find him and beat him again. The applicant and the other three persons were then taken home by car by another police officer.
4. On the same day, the applicant presented himself to the emergency unit of the Arad County Hospital where he was diagnosed with maxillofacial trauma with contusion on the lower lip and thorax contusion.
5. On 9 August 2010 a forensic medical certificate was issued by the Arad County Forensic Service at the request of the applicant. According to the certificate, the applicant had a sutured plague on the lower lip and ecchymosis on the upper lip, an ecchymosis on the left hemi thorax, excoriations and ecchymosis on the right elbow, right leg and the left knee which may have been caused by hitting with or by a hard object on 8 August 2010. It was also stated that the condition required nine days of medical care unless the applicant suffered complications.
2. The criminal investigation
6. On 15 September 2010 the applicant filed a complaint with the Arad County Police against the two officers who assaulted him invoking the crimes of abusive behaviour and bodily harm.
7. The applicant’s complaint was investigated together with other complaints filed by two other persons who claimed that they were assaulted by the same police officers at a previous date.
8. The investigative prosecutor from the Prosecutor’s Office of the Arad Court took statements from two of the persons who accompanied the applicant on the day of the incident. They both declared that after hearing the applicant screaming at the police station, on the way home he told them that he had been beaten by two police officers. The prosecutor also heard T.I., G.S.S. and B.I.M., the three police officers who escorted the applicant to the police station on the day of the incident. They declared that the applicant had bruises on his body before being brought to the police station.
9. By a resolution of 12 January 2012, the prosecutor decided not to bring charges against D.C.I. and M.C.R. for the three different crimes of abusive behaviour that they had been investigated for. With respect to the applicant’s complaint, the prosecutor held that the statements of the applicant and the two persons accompanying him on the day of the incident were contradicted by the statements of the officers under investigation as well as by the statements of the police officers who apprehended them on the street and, therefore, it could not be held with certainty that he was assaulted by the police officers.
10. The applicant complained against this decision invoking the lack of an effective investigation into his allegations of ill-treatment and requesting the hearing of the third person who accompanied him at the time of the incident and who had partially witnessed the alleged ill-treatment.
11. On 7 February 2012 the applicant’s complaint against the decision not to bring charges was rejected by the head prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Arad Court with the reasoning that “the statements of the victim Miclea Alexandru were not confirmed by the statements of the alleged perpetrators”.
3. The court proceedings
12. The applicant contested the prosecutor’s decision before the court requesting also moral damages for the injuries suffered. In his submission before the court, the applicant underlined that he was escorted to the police station only by two officers and therefore the statement of the third officer could not be taken into consideration. In addition, the applicant complained that the only evidence taken into account by the prosecutor were the statements of the two persons under investigation and the statements of their office colleagues who could not have been impartial. The applicant again mentioned that the third person who accompanied him on the day of the incident should have also been heard as he had partially witnessed the alleged ill-treatment.
13. The applicant’s complaint together with the other two complaints against the two police officers were analysed jointly and rejected with the same reasoning by the final decision of 18 April 2012 of the Arad Court.
14. The court held that, after analysing the evidence administered in the course of the criminal investigation conducted by the prosecutor, “it was not proved beyond any reasonable doubt that on 8 August 2010 the defendants had physically abused [the applicant]”.
B. Relevant domestic law and practice
15. Excerpts from the relevant provisions of the Criminal Code concerning the crimes of abusive behaviour and bodily harm, and from the Criminal Procedure Code with respect to the complaint against the prosecutor’s decisions, can be found in Toma v. Romania, no. 42716/02, §§ 25-27, 24 February 2009.
16. According to Law no. 202/2010, as from 25 November 2010 the first instance court decisions adopted following complaints against the prosecutor’s decisions are final and cannot be appealed.
COMPLAINTS
17. The applicant complains under Articles 3 and 6 § 1 of the Convention that on 8 August 2010 he was subjected to ill-treatment by two police officers at the Arad police station and that there had been no effective investigation thereof.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was the applicant subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention, as a result of his alleged ill-treatment by two police officers at Arad police station on 8 August 2010?
2. Having regard to the procedural protection from inhuman or degrading treatment (see paragraph 82 of Şercău v. Romania, no. 41775/06, 5 June 2012), was the investigation in the present case by the domestic authorities in breach of Article 3 of the Convention?
The Government are invited to submit a copy of the file concerning the criminal investigation and the trial before the domestic courts with respect to the applicant’s complaint against the police officers.
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