FIRST SECTION
Application no. 37777/12
Elizabeta SCHUBERT TEPŠIĆ and others
against Croatia
lodged on 29 May 2012
STATEMENT OF FACTS
1. The applicants, Ms Elizabeta Schubert Tepšić, Ms Vesna Tepšić and Mr Aleksandar Tepšić, are Croatian nationals who were born in 1940, 1975 and 1967 respectively and live in Vinkovci and Zagreb. They are represented before the Court by Ms J. Mandić, a lawyer practising in Vinkovci.
The circumstances of the case
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
1. Background to the case
3. The applicants’ respective husband and father, A.T., was employed as a gynaecologist in the Vinkovci General Hospital. During the Homeland war in Croatia, on 18 September 1991, he was arrested at his workplace by three persons dressed in the uniforms of the Croatian Army, forced to leave at gunpoint and taken in an unknown direction.
4. The next day A.T.’s dead body was brought to the Unit for Pathology in the Vinkovci General Hospital. The autopsy showed that he had been killed by a bullet shot to his neck.
2. Investigation
5. On 12 October 1991 the Vinkovci police lodged a criminal complaint against unknown perpetrators with the Vukovar County State Attorney’s Office in connection with the killing of A.T.
6. In the spring of 2010 the Vukovar County State Attorney’s Office asked for the investigation to be opened in the Vukovar County Court.
7. On 16 June 2010 the investigating judge of the Vukovar County Court heard evidence from witness T.Č., a doctor employed in the same hospital as A.T. He said that after the arrest of A.T he and another doctor I.Š., had gone together to the Headquarters of the Croatian Army (Sjedište samostalne satnije) in Vinkovci, held in the “Old Hospital”. The commander of that Unit at the time was Ž.M. There they had seen A.T. alive. He was about to be taken away by armed soldiers from the building. His colleagues were not able to obtain any information as to where he was to be taken.
8. On 19 August 2010 the first applicant gave her evidence to the investigating judge of the Vukovar County Court. She said that prior to the arrest and killing of her husband he had been receiving threatening telephone calls from unidentified persons. In July 1991 two police officers and two Croatian soldiers carried out a search of their house. They had taken A.T.’s hunting gun and gear. The next day A.T. had reported that incident to the police. After that a Croatian solder, D.B., known to the first applicant, had visited her husband and talked to him between 8 p.m. and 3.30 a.m. Later on her husband had told her that he had asked him whether he had had a radio station and had asked for money to protect him. On 14 September 1991 her husband had told her that he had been followed by a “white Mercedes”. On 15 September 1991 S.Š. had come to their house and told them that he had seen a “list for liquidation” in a bar and that A.T. had been on that list.
9. The case was transferred to the Osijek County State Attorney’s Office on 6 October 2010.
10. On 13 February the applicants’ asked the Zagreb County State Attorney’s Office about the state of the investigation. On 17 February 2012 they received a reply that the investigation in the criminal offence of war crime against civilian population against the unknown perpetrators was ongoing.
3. Civil proceedings
11. On 13 July 2011 the applicants brought a civil action against the State in the Vinkovci Court, seeking compensation in connection with the death of Ž.P. The proceedings are still pending.
COMPLAINTS
The applicants complain under the substantive and procedural aspects of Article 2 of the Convention, about the killing of A.T., and about the lack of an effective investigation in that connection.
They also complain under Article 5 that the arrest of their close relative was illegal and that there was no effective investigation into the circumstances of his arrest.
They complain that M.S. was arrested and killed solely because of his Serbian origin and that, contrary to their procedural obligations under Article 14 of the Convention, the relevant authorities have failed to investigate the possibility of such a motive for his arrest and death.
Lastly, they complain under Article 13 of the Convention that they have no effective domestic remedy at their disposal by which to submit their Convention complaints.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Having regard to the procedural protection of the right to life (see paragraph 104 of Salman v. Turkey [GC], no. 21986/93, ECHR 2000-VII), was the investigation in the present case by the domestic authorities in breach of Article 2 of the Convention?
2. Has there been a violation of Article 5 of the Convention by virtue of the failure of the authorities of the respondent State to conduct an effective investigation into the arrest and detention of A.T. (see Cyprus v. Turkey [GC], no. 25781/94, § 147, ECHR 2001‑IV)?
3. Have the relevant authorities complied with their procedural obligation under Article 14 of the Convention to investigate whether there was any motive behind A.T.’s arrest and killing that might be related to his Serbian origin (see Šečić v. Croatia, no. 40116/02, § 66, ECHR 2007‑VI)?
4. Do the applicants have at their disposal an effective domestic remedy for their Convention complaints, as required by Article 13 of the Convention?
The Government are invited to submit copies of all case files and other documents concerning the arrest and killing of A.T.
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