4.  The applicant was born in 1971 and serves his life sentence in a correctional colony in the Yamalo-Nenetskiy Region of Russia. 5.  The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 6.  On 27 March 2003 the applicant was arrested on charges of illegal possession of firearms, two armed robberies of local post offices, murder of three Russian Post Service cash messengers and attempted murder of the fourth one. On 14 October 2003 the case was sent to the Supreme Court of the Buryatia Republic (“the Regional Court”) for trial. 7.  Twice, on 20 April 2004 and 22 May 2007, the applicant was convicted as charged. Both convictions were set aside by the Supreme Court of Russia. On 12 September 2008, in the course of the third round of jury trial, the Regional Court decided, upon a request by a representative of the Russian Post, to close proceedings to the public. It dismissed the applicant’s objections made with reference to Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. In doing so the Presiding judge referred to the case-file documents containing information about security measures and equipment in post offices, weaponry, schedules and routes of cash messengers, etc. Under the relevant Russian Post regulations that information was classified as “for internal use only”. The Regional Court found that that information was a trade secret protected by the Commercial Secrets Act (Federal Law no. 98-FZ of 29 July 2004) and that its disclosure could have harmed public interests. Every hearing after 12 September 2008 was held in camera. 8.  On 14 December 2008 the jury convicted the applicant as charged. In the last days of December the trial judge sentenced him to life imprisonment. On 4 June 2009 the Supreme Court quashed the conviction on one count and upheld the remainder of the verdict and sentence. The hearing was public. The court of appeal held, in particular, that the decision to dispense with a public hearing had been lawful and rejected, in a summary fashion, the relevant arguments by the applicant.