Information Note on the Court’s case-law 35
October 2001
Indelicato v. Italy - 31143/96
Judgment 18.10.2001 [Section II]
Article 3
Inhuman treatment
Alleged ill-treatment in prison and effectiveness of the investigation: no violation, violation
Facts: The applicant was arrested and imprisoned in 1992 in the course of an investigation into drug-trafficking activities by the Mafia. After being convicted and sentenced at first instance he was acquitted of drug trafficking in 1998. In 1995 he was sentenced to four years and six months’ imprisonment for membership of a Mafia-type organisation; that decision was upheld on appeal in 1996. He was transferred to Pianosa Prison in July 1992 and detained in the “Agrippa” high-security wing, where he was subject to a special regime until September 1997. He alleged that he had been ill-treated there: the warders had beaten him on several occasions, sometimes using truncheons, and subjected him to abuse, harassment and various forms of physical and psychological ill-treatment, with the result that he had, among other things, lost four teeth. Those allegations were set out in a complaint which the applicant’s wife lodged with the public prosecutor in September 1992, accusing the governor and warders of Pianosa Prison of ill-treatment, assault and verbal abuse. In 1994 the photographs of 262 warders who had worked at the prison were shown to the applicant, who recognised two of them as having been responsible for the ill-treatment of which he complained. The warders in question were committed for trial before the Livorno magistrate. In a judgment delivered in 1999 the magistrate convicted the two warders of abuse of authority over arrested or detained persons. He took it as established that between July and September 1992 the defendants had subjected the applicant to ill-treatment – for which there had been no justification on disciplinary grounds – by insulting him, punching him, beating him with truncheons and harassing him. In February 2000 the Florence Court of Appeal, on an appeal by the two warders, reclassified the offence, quashed the judgment appealed against and forwarded the file to the public prosecutor, before whom proceedings are still pending. In a report covering the year 1992 Amnesty International indicated that some fifty prisoners detained under the special regime had made allegations of ill-treatment; attention was also drawn to acts of ill-treatment in the “Agrippa” special wing in a 1992 report by the Livorno judge responsible for the execution of sentences.
Law: Article 3 – The applicant had not produced to the Court any medical certificate confirming the injuries sustained as a result of the blows he had allegedly received. The report by the judge responsible for the execution of sentences admittedly referred to acts of ill-treatment in the “Agrippa” wing, but since it did not contain any information about the applicant’s own situation it could not be regarded as decisive by the Court; the same was true of the Amnesty International report. Furthermore, the conviction in 1999 of the two warders implicated by the applicant had subsequently been quashed. Consequently, the facts complained of by the applicant had not been established “beyond reasonable doubt”.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
Article 3 – The applicant’s allegations of ill-treatment gave rise to plausible suspicion that he had been subjected to questionable treatment while in prison. Such treatment had also been reported by other prisoners and condemned by the State authorities. However, the trial of the two warders had not begun until five years and eight months after the criminal complaint had been lodged, and attempts to identify the suspects had been confined to displaying the photographs of 262 warders a long time after the alleged events. Furthermore, the proceedings were still pending following the reclassification of the offence. Regard being had to the very lengthy delay in conducting the first investigation, the negligent approach to the identification of the suspects, and the length of both the first investigation and the second one, which was still in progress, the Italian authorities had not adopted the positive measures made necessary by the existence of an arguable complaint.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41 – The Court awarded the applicant 70,000,000 Italian lire in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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