Communicated on 29 October 2015
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 50067/13
Viktor Petrovych SVYSTORUK
against Ukraine
lodged on 26 July 2013
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Viktor Petrovych Svystoruk, is a Ukrainian national who was born in 1944 and lives in Kremenchuk.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 11 August 2007 the body of Inna, the applicant’s daughter ‒ who was born in 1974 ‒ was found with numerous stab-wounds and evidence of blunt trauma in the bushes close to the Omelnyk village near the Ivushka resort complex.
On the same date the Poltava Regional Police instituted criminal proceedings on suspicion of Inna’s murder. According to statements made by R.P. ‒ Inna’s husband ‒ and several of Inna’s acquaintances, on 10 August 2007 the group had been partying together at a discotheque in a bar in the Ivushka resort complex and had not noticed when Inna disappeared. Subsequently, they had started looking for her and had eventually found her body in bushes not far from the resort complex at about 5 a.m. on 11 August 2007.
On an unspecified date the applicant’s request to be admitted into the proceedings as an injured party was refused, as he had earlier been questioned as a witness in connection with these proceedings.
On 18 August 2007 V.K., Inna’s sister, was admitted into the proceedings as injured party.
On 25 August 2007 O.T., a resident of Omelnyk village, was arrested and questioned on suspicion of having killed Inna. During questioning, O.T. confessed to having committed the murder.
On an unspecified date O.T. retracted his confession, stating it had been false and given as a result of ill-treatment.
On 31 August 2007 the Kremenchuk District Prosecutor refused to institute proceedings concerning O.T.’s alleged ill-treatment, having found the allegations unsubstantiated. On an unspecified date the criminal proceedings against O.T. were discontinued as no evidence had been collected to corroborate his confessional statements and statements were inconsistent with other evidence on file.
On 7 September 2007 V.K. complained to the Chief of the local police department that the investigation into the case had been ineffective. She also complained that she had not been able to participate in it in a meaningful way, as she had not been allowed to consult the case-file and had been very poorly informed about the measures undertaken by the authorities with a view to identifying her sister’s murderer.
On 12 September 2007 the Acting Chief of the Poltava Regional Police informed V.K. that he had detected no irregularities in the manner in which the investigation had been conducted and that ‒ according to the applicable law ‒ injured parties were not entitled to consult case-files until completion of the pre-trial investigation, that is to say, after identification of the likely perpetrators and their committal for trial.
On 10 October 2007 the investigation was suspended as no leads had been identified.
On 30 October 2007 the District Prosecutor’s Office quashed the decision to suspend the proceedings and ordered a further inquiry, noting that the investigation had been carried out in a perfunctory manner.
On 20 November 2007 V.K. complained to the Kremenchuk Prosecutor’s Office that the investigation had, in her view, been perfunctory and ineffective. She submitted that she suspected R.P., her sister’s husband, of having murdered her and referred to numerous delays in carrying out the investigative activities, which ‒ in her view ‒ resulted in the loss of important evidence.
On 21 December 2007 the Deputy Chief of the investigative department of the Poltava Regional Police, to whom V.K.’s complaint had been redirected, informed her that an internal inquiry had been carried out and no irregularities had been detected in the manner in which the investigation of her sister’s murder had been conducted.
On 23 January 2008 the Chief of the Poltava Regional Department of the Interior acknowledged to V.K. that there had been many inadequacies in the investigation of her sister’s violent death and notified her that the chief and deputy chief of the investigative department had been reprimanded for poor planning of their department’s work and supervision of their subordinates. Investigator S.Y., who had worked on the case, had been replaced by V.N., who had extensive expertise in investigating homicide and other violent crimes.
On 22 February 2008 V.N. informed V.K. that a number of inquiries had been conducted in order to try to identify potential perpetrators from amongst Inna’s possible admirers, persons with whom she might have been in conflict prior to her death, and former offenders who resided in the vicinity and might have been in the bar at the Ivyshka resort complex on 10 August 2007. However, no new leads had been uncovered.
On 5 March 2008 R.P. was arrested and confessed to having killed his wife because she had refused to give him a divorce.
On 6 March 2008 a reconstruction of the crime scene was organised, at which R.P. demonstrated how he had committed the murder.
On an unspecified date R.P. retracted his confession as having been given under duress from the police.
On 2 May 2008 an expert assessment by a psychologist was ordered in respect of R.P. On an unspecified date the expert concluded that R.P. had been lying concerning his involvement in his wife’s murder.
On 15 August 2008 the proceedings in respect of R.P. were discontinued in the light of the aforementioned expert assessment and a number of irreconcilable discrepancies between R.P.’s retracted confessional statements and other evidence on file. As there were no further leads pointing to a potential perpetrator, the proceedings were suspended.
On 26 September 2008 a further complaint by V.K. concerning inadequacies in the investigation and lack of access to the case-file was dismissed by the Deputy Chief of the Poltava Regional Department of Interior.
On 26 March 2009 the Poltava Regional Prosecutor’s Office notified V.K. ‒ in response to an enquiry from her concerning progress in the case ‒ that unspecified operative and inquisitorial activities had been underway, but that no leads had been uncovered.
On an unspecified date V.K. complained to the Minister of Interior that the investigation of her sister’s murder had been stalled.
On 20 May 2009 the Deputy Minister of Interior ordered a renewal of proceedings. After consulting the case-file, he identified two persons as possible perpetrators and issued approximately thirty instructions as to further steps to be taken. He also stated that, in his view, virtually no action aimed at identifying the murderer had been taken in 2008, that the operative officers had carried out the instructions received from the investigative officers in a purely formal and superficial manner, and that the investigative and operative departments needed to streamline their methods of communication.
On an unspecified date the case was again assigned to the investigator S.Y., who suspended the proceedings on 28 December 2009 following completion of all possible inquiries, no new leads having been uncovered.
The proceedings were renewed and then suspended on several further occasions (specifically, on 11 May 2010, 2 April and 22 October 2011).
On 15 April 2013, following the entry into force of the new Code of Criminal Procedure, the applicant was finally admitted into the proceedings as an injured party and given an opportunity to consult the case-file.
On 12 June 2013 the applicant complained to the General Prosecutor’s Office that, having studied the case-file, he found that the entire investigation had been marred by prohibitive delays and inactivity. In his view, the competent authorities had focused almost entirely on investigating the probability that his daughter had been stabbed by her husband rather than organising a prompt and comprehensive examination of the objective evidence with a view to uncovering leads to the real perpetrator. A lot of time had been lost. The applicant also gave several suggestions as to the type of the knife to be searched for and the circle of persons who might be in possession of it.
According to the case-file, there was no further progress in the case.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 2 of the Convention that the State authorities have failed to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances of his daughter’s violent death.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
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?
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy