Published on 3 November 2025
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 51010/22
Ivan STEKO
against Greece
lodged on 21 October 2022
communicated on 17 October 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the fairness of criminal proceedings in which the applicant was convicted based on statements of his two co-accused without having the possibility to examine them.
By judgment no. 65/2020 of the Single-Member Thessaloniki Criminal Court, the applicant was convicted of two robberies. The applicant appealed against the judgment. By judgement no. 351/2021 of the three-member Thessaloniki Criminal Court, the first-instance judgment was upheld. The appellate court held that the applicant was the mastermind and co-perpetrator of the robberies, considering notably the statements made by his co-accused, D.D. and V.M., to the police after their arrest and during their respective criminal trials in proceedings preceding those of the applicant’s. The co-accused were never called by the prosecution or the court, nor were their statements submitted to the court, according to the documents attached to the judgment («αναγνωστέα έγγραφα»). Instead, these statements, along with other information regarding the cooperation with the Serbian Interpol, were indirectly conveyed by D.T., a prosecution witness and also police officer. No other witness identified the applicant as perpetrator of the crimes (the perpetrators had their faces covered by masks).
The applicant lodged an appeal on points of law against the judgment with the Court of Cassation, arguing that the statements of the co-accused were never submitted before the appellate court to be taken into account, nor should they have been taken into account according to Article 211 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, since they were the only ones incriminating him. By judgment no. 920/2022, the Court of Cassation held that the conviction was based on multiple pieces of evidence and that the co-accused’s statements were not crucial, dismissing the cassation appeal.
Relying on Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d), the applicant complains that the prosecution never called his co-accused as witnesses and failed to produce all the evidence against him (including their statements), thus depriving him of a fair trial.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have a fair trial satisfying the combined requirements of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d), given that he had no opportunity to examine his co-accused D.D. and V.M. at the hearings before the criminal courts (see the relevant principles in Al-Khawaja and Tahery v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 26766/05 and 22228/06, §§ 118-47, 15 December 2011, as refined in Schatschaschwili v. Germany [GC], no. 9154/10, §§ 110-31, ECHR 2015)?
2. In particular, did the domestic courts uphold the principle that all evidence must be produced in the defendant’s presence at a public hearing in accordance with Article 6 § 3 (d) (see Al-Khawaja and Tahery v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 26766/05 and 22228/06, § 118, ECHR 2011, and Keskin v. the Netherlands, no. 2205/16, §§ 44-45, 19 January 2021)? Was the prosecution and the domestic criminal courts under an obligation to call the co-accused D.D. and V.M. as witnesses, given the use of their statements for the applicant’s conviction to comply with the requirements of Article 6 § 3 (d) (ibid.; and see Nikolitsas v. Greece, no. 63117/09, § 35, 3 July 2014)?