Communicated on 25 April 2016
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 25406/08
Muittin TOPAL-OGLU
against Georgia
lodged on 22 April 2008
STATEMENT OF FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Muittin Topal-Oglu, is a Turkish national who was born in 1966 and lives in Hopa. He is represented before the Court by Mr G. Zirakishvili and Ms M. Pkhaladze, lawyers practising in Tbilisi. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
2. On 23 June 2005, on the basis of operational information, Z.M. was arrested on suspicion of the unlawful possession of drugs. During his personal search about 1 kg of heroin was found in the bag he was carrying. Some additional heroin was also found on his person and in his apartment. On the same date Z.M. gave a self-incriminating statement, naming the applicant as his supplier.
3. On the next day the applicant was arrested at the Sarpi border crossing and taken to Tbilisi.
4. On 25 June 2005 Z.M. was questioned again. This time, he dismissed his initial statement as untrue and protected his innocence. On the same date both he and the applicant were charged with various drug-related offences under Articles 260 and 262 of the Criminal Code.
5. By a decision of 1 December 2005 the applicant was found guilty as charged by the Tbilisi City Court and sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment. The first-instance court accepted the prosecution’s version of events, according to which the applicant had bought the drugs in Turkey from an unidentified person on an unidentified date and transported them to Batumi, Georgia via the Sarpi border checkpoint on 13 June 2005. On the next day he had met Z.M. in Batumi and both of them had transported the drugs to Tbilisi to be sold subsequently. The applicant’s conviction was primarily based on Z.M.’s incriminating statement, which the latter confirmed during the trial.
6. The applicant appealed. He claimed that Z.M. had implicated him in the drug trafficking offence in return for a more lenient sentence. Z.M. entered into a plea agreement with the prosecution and was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment. In this connection, the applicant further submitted that Z.M. had tried to retract his pre-trial incriminating statement when he was questioned in court, but the prosecutor in charge had threatened him.
7. On 29 May 2007 the Tbilisi Court of Appeal upheld the applicant’s conviction in full. On 10 March 2008 the Supreme Court of Georgia rejected an appeal on points of law by the applicant as inadmissible.
COMPLAINTS
8. The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the criminal proceedings against him were unfair and that his conviction, which was primarily based on the incriminating statement of a co-accused, is unsubstantiated.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of the criminal charges against him, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
2. Was the use of Z.M.’s evidence against the applicant compatible with the guarantees of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
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