5.  The applicant was born in 1978 and lives in Tbilisi.
6.  On 23 January 1998 he was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.
7.  On 24 October 2000 the Tbilisi Court of Appeal convicted the applicant of murder and sentenced him to nine years’ imprisonment.
8.  Subsequently, the applicant was further convicted, by virtue of the judgment of the Krtsanisi-Mtatsminda District Court of 24 December 2004, of refusal to comply with an order of a prison officer at the prison where he was serving his murder sentence. His initial term of imprisonment was consequently extended by one year.
9.  On 6 January 2006 the applicant was placed in Tbilisi prison no. 7(“prison no. 7”) to serve the sentences referred to in paragraphs 7-8 above.
10.  On 8 August 2006, at approximately 7.30 p.m., prison officers entered the applicant’s cell (no. 2) to conduct a surprise search. All the inmates, including the applicant, were ordered to vacate the cell and wait in the adjacent corridor for the search to finish.
11.  The search was filmed by a cameraman from the Prison Service (“the video recording”). Upon completion of the search, a prison officer drew up a written report, according to which a penknife had been discovered “under the mattress on a bed in the cell”; the knife was seized as evidence. It later became apparent that the bed in question belonged to the applicant. The applicant was never presented with the written record on the discovery of the knife and thus did not sign the document.
12.  On 11 August 2006 the applicant was charged with possessing an item prohibited under the prison regulations (the offence proscribed by Article 378 § 2 of the Criminal Code), and on 4 September 2006 the prosecutor sent the case to the Tbilisi City Court for trial.
13.  The trial started on 12 February 2007. The prison officers who had conducted the search on 8 August 2006 were summonsed by the trial court as witnesses for the prosecution.
14.  On the same day, 12 February 2007, the applicant applied to have the Tbilisi City Court examine the seven inmates who had been sharing cell no. 2 with him at the material time. He explained that the cellmates could describe the exact circumstances in which the search of the cell had been conducted. That information was essential for the purposes of assessing whether or not the search had been conducted in a manner involving an abuse of his rights. He brought the court’s attention to the fact that the charge against him was based only on the statements of the prison officers who had conducted the search in question, and who had already been summonsed as witnesses for the prosecution, and that the cellmates had never been interviewed at the pre-trial stage. The applicant referred in that regard to the principle of the equality of arms and his right to have witnesses on his behalf give testimony under the same conditions as those against him, within the meaning of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) of the Convention. He also cited Article 18 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, pursuant to which the trial court was obliged to take all necessary procedural measures aimed at the establishment of the relevant circumstances of the case in a comprehensive and objective manner.
15.  In reply to the applicant’s application, the prosecutor argued that examining the cellmates would not be justified, given that all of them were serving criminal sentences. However, the prosecutor reaffirmed the importance of examining the prison officers who had conducted the search of the cell on 8 August 2006.
16.  Having heard the parties’ pleadings, the Tbilisi City Court decided by its ruling of 12 February 2007 to refuse the applicant’s application for the cellmates to be examined as unsubstantiated. The court stated that the accused had not sufficiently demonstrated the necessity for summonsing those witnesses who, it should be noted, were not trustworthy people as they had criminal convictions.
17.  As is apparent from the transcript of the trial, when questioned in the period between 12 and 21 February 2007 by the trial court as witnesses for the prosecution, the prison officers gave statements concerning the exact circumstances in which the knife had been discovered that were somewhat different. In particular, one of the officers submitted that the knife had been found “in the bed, between the mattress and the blanket, closer to the footboard” while another stated that it had been hidden “in [the applicant’s] bed, between the mattress and the sheet, closer to the headboard, near the pillow”; yet another officer stated that “the knife fell onto the floor the moment we took the mattress off the bed”. That inconsistency was seized upon by the applicant before the trial court. The prison officers also submitted that, in so far as the door of the cell had been left open during the search, the cellmates could have observed the process from the adjacent corridor (see paragraph 10 above).
18.  The video recording was shown during the trial on 23 February 2007. The applicant objected that the recording did not necessarily establish that the knife had fallen from his mattress (the recording is described in more detail in paragraphs 25-26 below). As is apparent from the transcript of the trial, the public prosecutor conceded that the video recording of the search did not establish with certainty where exactly the knife had been found. However, the prosecutor argued again that the prison officers’ statements before the trial court confirmed that the knife had been discovered in the applicant’s possession.
19.  The applicant further complained during his last pleading before the trial court on 23 February 2007 of the inability to have the witnesses on his behalf, the seven cellmates, examined under the same conditions as those for the prosecution. Notably, he argued that, even assuming that the knife had indeed been found in his bed by the prison officers, that fact did not necessarily mean that he had owned it; the prohibited item could have been discreetly planted in his bed by a cellmate or cellmates the moment the prison officers entered the cell with the intention of conducting a search. Therefore, in order for the trial court to obtain the fullest possible picture of the situation, it was essential to examine all of his cellmates. He also reiterated that his cellmates might have been a source of information about any possible abuses committed by the prison officers during the search.
20.  By a judgment of 1 March 2007 the Tbilisi City Court convicted the applicant of possessing a prohibited item in prison (the offence proscribed by Article 378 § 2 of the Criminal Code). He was sentenced to three years in prison. The court confirmed that the prison officers’ statements, the video recording and the written record of the search of the cell and the seizure of the knife constituted the incriminating evidence.
21.  On 30 March 2007 the applicant lodged an appeal against the judgment of 1 March 2007, reiterating all the arguments that he had made during the trial. In particular, in his complaint about the lower court’s refusal to examine his cellmates, he asked the Tbilisi Court of Appeal to do so. Reiterating his previous arguments as to why he considered the cellmates to be important witnesses (see paragraph 19 above), he argued that, without examining them, it would not be possible for the appellate court to establish objectively the real circumstances surrounding the search of 8 August 2006. The applicant also requested that the video recording be reviewed by the appellate court as it did not necessarily establish that the knife had been found in his bed.
22.  The public prosecutor’s office also appealed against the sentence imposed by the judgment of 1 March 2007, requesting that, given the applicant’s previous criminal record, a more severe punishment be imposed.
23.  By a judgment of 3 October 2007 the Tbilisi Court of Appeal dismissed the applicant’s appeal and upheld that of the public prosecutor. As regards the applicant’s procedural application for summonsing his cellmates as witnesses, the appellate court rejected it as unsubstantiated. It further confirmed that the criminal case file contained sufficient incriminating evidence against him. The court, informed by the consideration of the applicant’s previous criminal record, decided to increase the sentence from three to four years.
24.  The applicant lodged an appeal on points of law, reiterating all his above-mentioned complaints and arguments, was rejected as inadmissible by the Supreme Court of Georgia on 11 February 2008. The cassation court dispensed with an oral hearing and delivered its final decision on the basis of the written procedure only.
25. The recording showed how several plain-clothes individuals, identifiable as prison officers by their manner, conducted a search of a prison cell.
26.  In one of the scenes, the officers took the mattress, whose cover seemed to be intact, from the metal bed frame in the cell. Holding it approximately 1 metre above the floor, the officers started examining the mattress with their hands and a metal detector. Suddenly, there was a sound of metal hitting the floor, and an officer picked up an object, which resembled a small penknife. It was not clear from the recording whether or not that object had fallen from the mattress.
27.  According to the medical documents available in the case file, on 7 November 2007 the applicant complained for the first time to the prison administration of a high fever and a dry cough. On 10 November he was transferred to the prison hospital.
28.  Between 10 and 13 November 2007 the applicant was subjected to a number of laboratory tests, including a full biochemical analysis of his blood samples, and consultations with various medical specialists. The resulting opinion, dated 13 November 2007, diagnosed the applicant with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB), with the upper part of his left lung already seriously affected by the disease (in an advanced stage of disaggregation). The applicant was occasionally coughing up blood. The opinion further diagnosed the applicant with viral hepatitis C (HCV), with the disease in its early stage at that time.
29.  Having regard to the medical opinion of 13 November 2007, a panel of doctors of the prison hospital elaborated a treatment plan for the applicant’s TB and HCV. Notably, given the stages of the two diseases at that time and the known side-effects of the anti-TB and anti-HCV drugs, the doctors recommended that the applicant firstly be provided with anti-TB medication under the DOTS programme (Directly Observed Treatment, Short-course – the treatment strategy for detection and cure of TB recommended by the World Health Organisation). He was prescribed daily doses of conventional antibiotics such as isoniazid (300 mg), ethambutol (1,100 mg), rifampicin, pyrazinamide (1,600 mg) and streptomycin (1,000 mg). Only upon completion of the anti-TB treatment, could the applicant start receiving, in the doctors’ view, antiviral drugs for his HCV, such as interferon alpha-2b and ribavirin; the exact dosage of the intake of the latter drugs were to be determined in due course.
30.  According to his medical file, the applicant started receiving the anti-TB medication under the DOTS programme from 13 November 2007. During the intensive period of the treatment, which lasted three months, the applicant was kept in the prison hospital under the close supervision of medical personnel with the appropriate training. Upon completion of the intensive phase of the treatment, the applicant was transferred on 12 February 2008 back to prison no. 7, where he continued his course of antibiotics under the supervision of a doctor of that prison for an additional five months.
31.  Throughout his treatment, both at the prison hospital and in prison no. 7, the Prison Service arranged regular tests of the applicant’s sputum culture and bacterial sensitivity to be carried out by the National Centre for Tubercular and Lung Diseases. The results of those tests showed that the sputum culture was already negative and also established that the applicant’s TB bacteria were still sensitive to the administered antibiotic drugs, which confirmed the suitability of the ongoing treatment.
32.  Upon completion of the DOTS programme on 13 January 2008, the applicant’s sputum culture was subjected to another set of comprehensive laboratory tests, the results of which confirmed that TB bacilli were no longer present in the applicant’s organism. The results of an X-ray examination of the applicant’s thorax further confirmed that there were no new tubercular signs in the applicant’s lungs.
33.  Subsequently, on 5 December 2008 and 11 February 2010, the applicant repeatedly underwent additional medical check-ups, which included the relevant laboratory tests and X-ray examinations, the results of which excluded any signs of a recurrence of the tuberculosis.
34.  In May 2010, in line with the medical opinion of 13 November 2007 (see paragraph 28 above), the Prison Service arranged for a full biochemical analysis of the applicant’s blood for the purpose of elaboration of a specific treatment plan for his HCV. The results of the blood analysis, dated 17 May 2007, showed that the viral activity in the applicant’s organism was low.
35.  Based on the above-mentioned blood test, an infectologist and a hepatologist called in by the Prison Service from civilian hospitals prescribed the applicant on 2 June 2010 a specific dosage of the relevant anti-HCV drugs. He was extensively informed by the doctors of the possible strong neurological side-effects of the prescribed drugs. Having regard to those side-effects, as well as the fact that the viral activity of the HCV was still low at that time, the applicant decided to postpone the treatment. He wrote a note to that effect, which was dated 2 June 2010.
36.  The case file does not contain any other information on the applicant’s state of health as of June 2010.