69.  The applicant also complained under Article 3 about the conditions of his second detention, under Article 5 §§ 1 and 5 that his first detention pending  <mask> had been unlawful and that the authorities had failed to grant him compensation, and under Article 6 § 1 that the high amount of the state fee in the proceedings under the 1988 Act had obstructed his right to access to a court.


105.  The Government further contended that the applicant's detention pending  <mask> complied fully with the domestic legislation, in particular with the provisions of Article 466 § 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Referring to Constitutional Court decision no. 333-O-P of 1 March 2007 (see paragraph 73 above), they argued that the relevant provisions had been predictable, clear and foreseeable and had enabled the applicant to estimate the length of his detention pending extradition.


329.  The applicants' representatives also contended that the assurances provided by the Russian authorities to their Georgian counterparts had no value and that the undertakings given to the Court by the Russian Government were no more than signed pieces of paper. They pointed out that the CPT itself had stated in one of its statements that Russia was failing to respect the undertakings that it had signed (see paragraph 267 (e) above). In their opinion, the Georgian authorities had not ensured that the assurances provided had any real value. On the contrary, they had actively cooperated with their Russian counterparts to facilitate the extraditions. Thus, they had sent photographs of the applicants which were subsequently used to support the  <mask> request, and had kept the Russian authorities informed of changes in the applicants' identities. Assisted in this way, the Russian authorities had “updated” their extradition request, altering the applicants' names to reflect the changes in identification. The Georgian authorities had not taken the measure of either the political nature of the accusations made against the applicants by the Russian authorities or the latter's clear bias in the disputed extradition proceedings. They had not required any prima facie evidence of those accusations. The letters referred to by the Georgian Government (see paragraph 324 above) did not contain a guarantee that the applicants would not be sentenced to death, but simply an assurance that a moratorium was in force in Russia.


78.  The applicant also claimed EUR 1,600 for the legal costs incurred before the domestic courts. He informed the Court that his lawyer had spent sixteen hours on his case and that her hourly rate was EUR 100. The applicant also claimed EUR 112 for postal expenses. He produced a detailed timesheet indicating the tasks performed by the lawyer, specifying the relevant dates and the time spent on each task. All of the tasks performed by the lawyer were related to the applicant’s detention pending  <mask> in 2011.


50.  The Government lastly submitted that although in the past the Court had not excluded that an issue might exceptionally be raised under Article 6 of the Convention by an  <mask> decision in circumstances where the fugitive had suffered or risked suffering a flagrant denial of a fair trial in the requesting country, the facts of the present case did not disclose such a risk. In particular, there were no grounds to question the reasonableness and lawfulness of the decision of the Supreme Court of Belarus of 18 May 2002 and the applicant’s statements about the risk of an unfair trial were explained by his unwillingness to stand trial. The Government further referred to the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Belarus on the presumption of innocence and indicated that this provision was a sufficient guarantee against an unfair trial in the applicant’s criminal case.


65.  The Government pointed out that in normal circumstances they complied with the measures indicated by the Court. Their failure to do so in the instant case was owed to the fact that the applicant had requested the interim measure too late, and had not given the Spanish authorities time to take the necessary steps to avoid the  <mask>. The application had been made on 6 August, whereas the applicant’s transfer was scheduled for the next day. The Government considered that there was no violation of Article 34 where, as in the instant case, they were given less notice than could objectively be considered necessary and reasonable.


96.  The Government contended that the application should be declared inadmissible as incompatible ratione personae. They submitted that the applicant had not been extradited by the Russian authorities to Uzbekistan, the measure at issue had not been applied to him, his  <mask> had been suspended and therefore he could not claim to be a victim of a violation of Article 3.


81.  The Government further claimed that while certain prejudices towards ethnic Uzbeks persisted in the requesting country, there was no “flagrant denial of justice” for the Uzbek minority in Kyrgyzstan. The diplomatic assurances given by the Kyrgyz authorities in the applicants’ respective cases excluded the possibility of their ill-treatment upon  <mask>. The Court had not yet allowed demonstrating the effectiveness of Russian authorities’ diplomatic supervision mechanism for the protection of the rights of those extradited to Kyrgyzstan because it had indicated interim measures precluding such extraditions.


117.  The applicant disagreed with the Government. He submitted that the domestic legislation required that his detention with a view to  <mask> should have been authorised by a domestic court within 48 hours of the arrest. Referring to the Court's case-law, he asserted that Russian laws concerning detention pending extradition did not comply with the Convention criteria of quality of law; that the length of his detention had been excessive as he had spent more than nineteen months in custody whereas the maximum length of detention under the domestic legislation could not exceed eighteen months. He further emphasised that the application of the interim measure by the Court had implied the suspension of his extradition to Uzbekistan, but it had not obliged the Russian authorities to prolong his detention. The applicant reiterated that his detention between 6 and 27 March 2008 had been unlawful as it had not been based on a court order and pointed out that at the time of his arrest the proceedings concerning his Russian passport had been pending and the issue of his nationality had not been clarified and that his arrest and detention in view of extradition had therefore been unlawful from the outset.


125.  The applicant further contended that the prosecutor’s order of 2 June 2011 to detain him with a view to his  <mask> to Uzbekistan (see paragraph 46 above) could not serve as a sound legal basis for his detention, as under Article 466 § 2 of the Russian Code of Criminal Procedure a prosecutor was only entitled to detain a person with a view to extradition if an extradition request was accompanied by a detention order issued by a court of the requesting country. A copy of the decision of the Gizhduvanskiy District Court of Uzbekistan of 14 September 2010, to which a Russian prosecutor had referred in his order of 2 June 2011, had not been duly signed by the judge who had issued that order or sealed with that court’s official stamp, and therefore, in the applicant’s view, could not be regarded as a valid court decision for the purposes of Article 466 § 2 of the Russian Code of Criminal Procedure. The applicant further pointed out that the prosecutor’s order of 2 June 2011 had been set aside by a court decision of 30 August 2011 as unlawful and unjustified (see paragraph 48 above). Lastly, the applicant submitted that his detention pursuant to a prosecutor’s order had been unlawful in any event as the Court had held in the case of Dzhurayev v. Russia (no. 38124/07, §§ 72-74, 17 December 2009) that only a Russian court’s decision could form a proper legal basis for a person’s detention pending extradition.


66.  The applicant maintained that he had argued before the Russian courts that there was a real risk that he would be ill-treated and persecuted politically in Uzbekistan. He had submitted reports on Uzbekistan by the UN institutions and international NGOs, confirming that torture was widespread in detention facilities and that this information had not been properly assessed by the Russian authorities. He pointed out that the courts had rejected his arguments without giving any reasons other than the reference to the assurances given by the Uzbek authorities. Finally, he referred to a number of cases examined by the Court in which it had been established that  <mask> to Uzbekistan of a person sought for political crimes would constitute a violation of Article 3.


78.  The applicant maintained that he had argued before the Russian courts that there was a real risk that he would be ill-treated and persecuted politically in Uzbekistan. He had submitted reports on Uzbekistan by the UN institutions and international NGOs, confirming that torture was widespread in detention facilities and that this information had not been properly assessed by the Russian authorities. He pointed out that the courts had rejected his arguments without giving any reasons other than the reference to the assurances given by the Uzbek authorities. Finally, he referred to a number of cases examined by the Court in which it had been established that  <mask> to Uzbekistan of a person sought for political crimes would constitute a violation of Article 3.


98.  The applicant claimed that his detention pending  <mask> had been in breach of both domestic and international legal provisions. The decision of the district prosecutor’s office of 9 June 2009 authorising his remand in custody had been unlawful as, contrary to the requirements of Article 466 § 2 of the CCrP, the Russian authorities had not received either a copy of the Almaty City Court’s arrest warrant or an extradition request by the time they had taken the decision in question. Furthermore, the applicant insisted that he should have been released no more than two months after his initial remand in custody since, pursuant to Article 466 § 2 of the CCrP, a term of detention authorised by a prosecutor could not be longer than two months. In the absence of any judicial decision covering his detention between 3 May 2009 and 30 April 2010, his detention had therefore been in breach of Article 5 § 1 (f) of the Convention. During his lengthy detention he had not been protected against arbitrary deprivation of liberty.


109.  The Government recalled that the High Court had accepted that, upon  <mask> to Florida, there was a realistic possibility of prosecution under the felony murder rule. It was not the Government’s position that the case against the applicant was one of premeditated killing. It had been accepted by the Government in the High Court proceedings that the case against the first applicant might be put on the basis that he killed Mr Hayes in the course of the robbery without the prosecution having to prove that the first applicant intended to kill Mr Hayes. It was not accepted by the Government that the fact that it was open to the prosecution to put the case on this basis demonstrated that the killing was accidental or that the first applicant did not intend to kill Mr Hayes.


104.  The Government maintained that the  <mask> of individuals from Ukraine to Turkmenistan was regulated by the Minsk Convention 1993, which had been ratified by the Ukrainian Parliament and had become part of Ukrainian legislation under Article 9 of the Constitution. They further noted that under the Minsk Convention, a Contracting State had to recognise official documents issued by the other Contracting State. Therefore, the Ukrainian Government could not call into question the official documents issued by the relevant Turkmen authorities in the applicant’s case. The Government maintained that by detaining the applicant, the Ukrainian authorities had acted in accordance with their international obligations under the Minsk Convention and that his detention was for the purpose of extradition.


108.  The Government also submitted that the length of the applicant’s detention was accounted for by the pending requests for asylum and refugee status, the court proceedings challenging the refusal to grant him refugee status; the ongoing “ <mask> check” in order to verify his citizenship and legal basis for residing in Russia; and the fact that, before deciding on the extradition request, certain additional documents and clarifications as to the charges against the applicant had been requested from the Uzbek authorities. The Russian migration authority had had to carry out an inquiry into the applicant’s allegation of possible persecution on religious grounds in the event of his being returned to Uzbekistan. The migration officer had had several interviews with the applicant in order to fill in the asylum application. During those interviews the applicant had not complained about the conditions of his detention in the Russian remand centre. Having regard to the medical report in respect of the applicant, the migration authority had refused the asylum request as unfounded.


94.  The applicant maintained that he had argued before the Russian courts that he faced a real risk of ill-treatment and political persecution in Uzbekistan. He had submitted reports on Uzbekistan by the UN institutions and international NGOs confirming that torture was widespread in detention facilities and that this information had not received proper assessment from the Russian authorities. He further maintained that the authorities had failed to take into account the information from the Russian Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees confirming that the risk of his being ill‑treated in Uzbekistan was justified and substantiated. He pointed out that the courts had rejected his arguments without giving any reasons except a reference to the assurances given by the Uzbek authorities. Finally, he referred to a number of cases examined by the Court in which it had been established that  <mask> to Uzbekistan of a person sought for political crimes would constitute a violation of Article 3.


104.  The applicant maintained that he had argued before the Russian courts that there was a real risk of his ill-treatment and political persecution in Uzbekistan. He had submitted reports on Uzbekistan by the UN institutions and international NGOs, confirming that torture was widespread in detention facilities and that this information had not been properly assessed by the Russian authorities. He pointed out that the courts had rejected his arguments without giving any reasons other than the reference to the assurances given by the Uzbek authorities. Finally, he referred to a number of cases examined by the Court in which it had been established that  <mask> to Uzbekistan of a person sought for political crimes would constitute a violation of Article 3.


104.  The Government submitted that the applicant’s detention pending expulsion had been lawful within the meaning of Article 5 § 1 (f). The applicant was detained with a view to enforcement of the court order for his administrative removal from the country under Article 18.8 § 1 of the CAO. Referring to the reasons given by the courts for the applicant’s expulsion and detention, the Government argued that the expulsion proceedings had nothing to do with the  <mask> proceedings. The law on detention pending expulsion was sufficiently clear and foreseeable. The applicant’s detention was necessary to ensure the administrative removal, because he could have absconded from the authorities if released.


105.  The applicant maintained that on 12-13 March 2013 he had not in fact been released from detention, and that his detention had constituted an uninterrupted period from 13 September 2012. He argued that administrative‑removal proceedings had been initiated only when the authorities had faced the need to release him and the administrative detention had been aimed solely at keeping him under the authorities’ exclusive control after the expiry of the term of his detention pending  <mask>. Further, after 9 April 2013, the date of the formal refusal of his extradition to Uzbekistan, he had been kept in detention so that the authorities could organise his removal to the requesting country. He further argued that the Russian law on detention pending expulsion was not sufficiently clear and foreseeable. In particular, he submitted that his arrest for the purpose of expulsion had been ordered in order to circumvent the requirements of the domestic law, which prescribed a maximum time‑limit for detention pending extradition. In contrast, detention pending expulsion was not limited in time under Russian law.


180.  The Government confirmed that by the date of the applicant’s arrest with a view to  <mask> he was living in Moscow with his wife and three of their six minor children, while the other three children remained in Uzbekistan. They argued that the decision to extradite the applicant to his home country did not constitute an interference within the meaning of Article 8 § 1. The decision was in accordance with law, namely Article 466 § 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation and Article 61 § 1 of the 1993 Minsk Convention. It served a legitimate aim and was necessary in a democratic society. First, it was justified by a pressing social need to ensure that the proceedings against the applicant in Uzbekistan were conducted with reasonable grounds to suspect him of having committed particularly serious crimes in Uzbekistan. It was proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued, because neither the applicant’s wife nor their children held Russian nationality. They were Uzbek nationals. The applicant’s wife and three children could follow him to Uzbekistan if the applicant was extradited.


133.  The Government argued that, according to the information of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the FSB, there were no circumstances which would preclude the applicant’s  <mask> to Uzbekistan. Whilst noting that the Government failed to elaborate on that point, the Court reiterates that in cases concerning aliens facing expulsion or extradition it is entitled to compare material referred to by the Government with information from other reliable and objective sources (see Salah Sheekh, cited above, § 136, and Gaforov v. Russia, no. 25404/09, § 129, 21 October 2010).


40.  The applicant further submitted that the provisions of the Russian criminal law on detention of persons with a view to  <mask> fell short of the requirement of legal certainty and the Convention principles. He also noted that his detention after 22 October 2001, when the extradition request had been dismissed, had lacked any grounds whatsoever. The applicant found it unexplainable that it took three days to deliver the Prosecutor General’s decision of 22 October 2001 from Moscow to St. Petersburg.


71.  The Government submitted, on the one hand, that the applicant had had not requested refugee status immediately on his arrival in Russia and had also omitted to raise the issue of the risk of ill-treatment within the administrative-removal proceedings. According to them, where applicants raised an ill-treatment argument before the authorities in  <mask> proceedings, the domestic courts duly verified those allegations. To demonstrate the existence of an “established practice” in that regard, they referred to the case of Zokhidov (cited above), where the applicant had brought his ill-treatment argument to the attention of the domestic authorities and the extradition order had been set aside. In any event, the applicant in the present case had failed to provide any reliable evidence demonstrating that if he was removed to Uzbekistan he would run the risk of being subjected to ill‑treatment. On the other hand, they maintained that the applicant had various remedies available to him to raise the ill‑treatment issue and had “made use of them in full”. The domestic authorities had carefully examined the potential risk of treatment contrary to Article 3, as well as the applicant’s family situation, in the administrative-removal and the refugee-status proceedings and had dismissed his allegations. They also noted that it had remained open for the applicant to challenge the latest court decisions in the refugee-status and the administrative‑removal proceedings by lodging a further complaint with the Nizhniy Novgorod Regional Court by way of cassation appeal and with the Supreme Court by way of supervisory review and concluded that the complaint was manifestly ill‑founded.


88.  The applicant further maintained that there were no effective remedies that he was required to exhaust in order to challenge the GPO of Ukraine's decision to extradite him to Kazakhstan. In particular, the applicant stated that he had complained on various occasions to the domestic courts about the unreasonable length of his detention and its unlawfulness, the unlawful inactivity of the Governor of Kharkiv SIZO no. 27, who refused to release him, and about the  <mask> decision itself. The proceedings concerning these complaints and their unfavourable outcome showed that there were no domestic remedies available to the applicant.


72.  The applicant submitted that by contacting Interpol, the Maltese authorities sent the message to the wrong address and by means of the wrong courier. At the time, before the coming into force of the European Arrest Warrant, a request for  <mask> was conducted through diplomatic channels, and only the Minister had the power to halt such requests. However, the AG failed to advise the Minister to withdraw the extradition on the basis of the rescinded warrant. Thus, the Spanish authorities were obliged to continue with the extradition proceedings unless they were halted by the Spanish Minister.


67.  The applicant pointed to inconsistency in the Government's submissions. On the one hand, the Government had claimed that, by virtue of the 1993 Minsk Convention, detention with a view to  <mask> was unlimited in time; on the other, they had cited the Constitutional Court's decision of 4 April 2006, which confirmed that Chapter 13 of the Code of Criminal Procedure should apply to extradition proceedings. Since Article 109 in Chapter 13 limited the period of detention to two months, the applicant's detention had been unlawful already after 13 October 2003. In any event it had been unlawful after the expiry of the maximum eighteen-month period of detention mentioned in paragraph 4 of Article 109. That view had been endorsed in the Moscow City Court's decision of 21 August 2006, which had ordered the applicant's release by reference to the expiry of the maximum detention period.


51.   The Government submitted that the applicant’s detention had been lawful and complied with Article 5 § 1 (f) of the Convention. Prior to the applicant’s arrest the Russian authorities had received a request for  <mask> from the Office of the Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan, an arrest warrant approved by the Ust-Kamenogorsk Town Prosecutor and a decision on the applicant’s placement on the list of fugitives from justice.


106.  The applicant complained under Article 5 § 1 (f) of the Convention that his ongoing detention pending  <mask> had been “unlawful”: first, until 21 December 2007 he had been detained in the absence of an official request for extradition; secondly, the term of his detention had not been extended by the domestic courts. He also invoked Article 5 § 2, complaining that he had not been promptly informed of the reasons for his arrest. Lastly, he relied on Article 5 § 4 arguing, first, that his detention had not been subject to any judicial control and, secondly, that he had been deprived of the right to have the lawfulness of his detention reviewed by a court owing to lack of access to a lawyer during the first two weeks of his detention.


107.  The applicant maintained that the requirements of Article 5 § 1 did not dispense the State from fulfilling its international obligations regarding  <mask>, since such a ground for detention was clearly provided for in Article 5 § 1 (f), which only required the detention to be in accordance with a procedure prescribed by the domestic legislation. The applicant submitted that the Minsk Convention did not provide for such a procedure. He further observed that the unlawfulness of his detention between 4 and 10 January 2007 had also been admitted by the State authorities themselves.


59.  The Government submitted that the applicant's detention had been lawful and compatible with Article 5 § 1 (f) of the Convention. On the day of her arrest the Russian authorities had had in their possession a confirmation from the Belarus authorities that a request for  <mask> would be sent shortly, an arrest warrant approved by the Minsk prosecutor and a decision on her inclusion on the list of fugitives from justice. The domestic courts had reviewed and confirmed the lawfulness of the custodial measure.


179.  The applicant claimed 30,000 euros (EUR) in respect of non‑pecuniary damage. He argued that he had suffered severe distress as a result of being held in detention for twenty-seven months so far and facing a real risk of being returned to Tajikistan following the  <mask> and administrative removal orders being upheld by the courts. He noted that his detention pending administrative removal was not limited in time. He had no remedies against that detention and did not know when he would be released.


130. The applicant was detained in Russia pursuant to an arrest warrant issued by a prosecutor's office in Uzbekistan. As the Court has found above, the applicant's detention was not authorised by a Russian court, in violation of the relevant domestic provisions. The Tyumen regional court and subsequently the Supreme Court did not examine the complaints concerning the lawfulness of the applicant's detention pending  <mask> (see paragraphs 44 and 48 above). Thus, the lawfulness of the applicant's detention during the period in question was not examined by any court, despite his appeals to that effect.


54.  The Government observed that the applicant should have foreseen that until such time as her applications for asylum, complaints about the alleged unlawfulness of her detention and other petitions had been decided “the issue of her  <mask>, and thus of her future” could not have been solved by the authorities. At the same time the Government maintained that the applicant could have estimated the term of her detention as the domestic courts had applied Article 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to regulate it. The applicant had been released from custody following the decision of 14 October 2004 due to the expiration of the maximum possible term set by paragraph 3 of Article 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Thus, despite the absence of specific provisions regulating the term of the applicant’s detention pending extradition, the legislation had provided the applicant with an opportunity to estimate rather clearly the maximum period of her detention: she either had to remain in custody until the decision on her extradition had been taken by the Prosecutor General, or she had to be released when the general term of detention provided for by the Code of Criminal Procedure had expired.


283.  The Government pointed out that the applicant’s transfer to Uzbekistan had not taken place through the  <mask> procedure, which had been immediately stayed following the Court’s decision of 22 September 2010. The Court is not convinced by the Government’s argument. While the measures taken to stay the extradition may be indicative of the Government’s initial willingness to comply with the interim measures, they cannot, in the Court’s view, relieve the State of its responsibility for subsequent events in the applicant’s case. Nor can the Government legitimately pretend, as their argument may suggest, that the applicant’s forcible return to Uzbekistan was not prevented by the interim measures which were formulated by the Court in the present case.


158.  The Government submitted that the applicant’s detention pending expulsion had been lawful within the meaning of Article 5 § 1 (f). The applicant was detained with a view to enforcement of the court order for his administrative removal from the country under Article 18.8 § 1 of the CAO. Referring to the reasons given by the courts for the applicant’s expulsion and detention, the Government argued that the expulsion proceedings had nothing to do with the  <mask> proceedings. The law on detention pending expulsion was sufficiently clear and foreseeable.


77.  The Government initially submitted that in the course of the  <mask> proceedings the Government of Uzbekistan had provided assurances that, if returned to Uzbekistan, the applicant would not be persecuted, in particular, on religious or political grounds. According to the Government, the arguments submitted by the applicant had not been “objectively confirmed”. The applicant had failed to adduce evidence that he risked being subjected to ill-treatment in the event of his extradition to Uzbekistan. Furthermore, the courts had carefully examined his allegations regarding the risk of his being subjected to ill-treatment if he were returned to Uzbekistan. In the Government’s view, the decision on the applicant’s administrative removal was well-founded, as he had failed to regularise his stay in Russia, despite being well aware of the applicable procedure. The Government also pointed out that the decision did not specify that the applicant was to be expelled to Uzbekistan, but merely stated that he was to be removed from the territory of the Russian Federation.


23.  The applicant also complained under Articles 3, 6 and 13 of the Convention about the risk of ill-treatment in Uzbekistan and various aspects of the  <mask> proceedings. However, having regard to all the material in its possession, it finds that these complaints do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention or its Protocols. It follows that this part of the application must be rejected as being manifestly ill-founded, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.


72.  The applicant complained that the appeal proceedings in respect of the detention orders of 25 December 2012 and 21 March 2013 had not been speedy and effective. He further complained that he had not had a legal remedy at his disposal enabling him to apply for judicial review of his detention on his own initiative following new developments in his  <mask> case, in particular, following the indication of interim measures by the Court on 17 June 2013. He cited Article 5 § 4 of the Convention, which reads as follows:


107.  The applicants further asked the Court not to limit its examination to the establishment of the Government's failure to assess properly the risk of ill-treatment before taking the  <mask> decision. They argued that they had submitted sufficient information for the Court to rule that their extradition to Uzbekistan would be incompatible with Article 3 of the Convention. As additional proof of an increased risk of ill-treatment, they had produced a list of their relatives and business partners who had been convicted to long terms of imprisonment in connection with the Andijan events. They also maintained that the Uzbek authorities knew about their application for asylum and their application before the Court, which had further intensified the risk of torture.


130.  The applicants submitted that Article 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure set the initial time-limit for detention at two months. As no extension of the applicants' detention had been ordered after the expiry of the two-month time-limit, the applicants' subsequent detention had been unlawful. The applicants referred in that respect to the Government's submissions in which it had been confirmed that the detention pending  <mask> was to be extended following the procedure established by Russian law for the extension of detention during the investigation and that that procedure had not been respected in the applicants' case (see paragraph 133 below).


105.  The Government relied on the reasoning of the House of Lords in Wellington and the Canadian Supreme Court in Burns and Ferris (see paragraphs 34–42 and 44 and 45 above). On the basis of those cases, the Government submitted that, in the  <mask> context, a distinction had to be drawn between torture and other forms of ill-treatment. A real risk of torture in the receiving State should be an absolute bar on extradition. However, for all other forms of ill-treatment, it was legitimate to consider the policy objectives pursued by extradition in determining whether the ill-treatment reached the minimum level of severity required by Article 3. This was the appropriate means of resolving the tension that existed between the Court’s judgments in Soering, on the one hand, and Chahal and Saadi, on the other. Article 3 could not be interpreted as meaning that any form of ill-treatment in a non-Contracting State would be sufficient to prevent extradition.


117.  The applicant submitted that he had brought his fears of ill-treatment in Uzbekistan to the attention of the domestic authorities during the refugee-status and  <mask> proceedings. He had relied on reports by UN agencies and respected international NGOs which clearly demonstrated that individuals who, like him, were suspected of membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir were at an increased risk of ill-treatment. However, the domestic authorities had not taken into account the evidence he had submitted and had dismissed his fears as unsubstantiated without a thorough assessment of the general situation in Uzbekistan or his personal situation, relying on the diplomatic assurances provided by the Uzbek authorities. Yet, those assurances were unreliable on account of the absence of any mechanism of compliance monitoring or any accountability for their breach (he referred to Othman (Abu Qatada) v. the United Kingdom, no. 8139/09, § 189, ECHR 2012 (extracts)).


76.  The Government insisted that the entire period of the applicant’s detention pending  <mask> had been lawful, and that the domestic provisions governing detention pending extradition were sufficiently accessible and clear. The applicant’s detention had been based on detention orders issued by the competent courts. The Government also submitted that, pursuant to the decisions of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Russia, the provisions of Chapter 13 of the CCrP were fully applicable to persons detained with a view to extradition under Article 466 of the CCrP. The applicant’s placement in custody had been ordered and repeatedly extended in accordance with the provisions of Chapter 13 of the CCrP. The domestic courts had referred to those provisions in their decisions. Upon the expiry of the authorised detention term, which had not exceeded the maximum period of eighteen months authorised by Russian law, the applicant had been released. Hence, the applicable legislation had enabled him to estimate the length of his detention.


49.  The applicant, an ethnic Uzbek charged by the Kyrgyz authorities in absentia in connection with the Jalal-Abad riots, belonged to a vulnerable group even in the absence of a formal  <mask> request. The fact that Kyrgyzstan had ratified international human rights instruments did not exclude the possibility that the applicant as a member of a vulnerable group would face a serious risk of ill‑treatment if returned to the country owing to the fact that there was an administrative practice of ill‑treatment of ethnic Uzbeks as reported, in particular, by Amnesty International and the UN Universal Periodic Review.


59.  The Government submitted that the applicant’s provisional detention, which had transformed into detention pending the outcome of the  <mask> proceedings, was prompted by the obligations the Bulgarian State had undertook under the 1975 Treaty and had been in line with the applicable legislation, the 2005 Act. In the Government’s view, the detention ordered by the prosecutor for a period of seventy-two hours had been mandatory under the 2005 Act. The domestic courts had assessed the necessity of the detention and taken the applicant’s arguments into account. The Government further argued that the national authorities had correctly applied the national legislation, which contained sufficient safeguards against arbitrariness. Lastly, the Government stated that the only authority competent to decide if the extradition request had been identical to an older one had been the court which examined the extradition request. Such an assessment had only been possible at the end of the extradition proceedings.


61.  The Government observed that on 15 May 1998 the applicant was placed in detention with a view to  <mask> (see paragraph 25 above) and that the first set of the extradition proceedings ended on 12 May 1999 (see paragraph 33 above). Few days later, on 4 June 1999, another warrant for the applicant’s arrest was issued in the ambit of the second set of extradition proceedings, which came to an end on 3 November 2000, after the applicant’s conviction (see paragraphs 35 and 40 above).


72.  The applicant complained under Article 6 that he did not understand the charges against him during his deportation. The Court notes that there were no judicial proceedings concerning the applicant’s removal from the territory of Ukraine and that any such proceedings would fall outside the scope of Article 6 of the Convention (see Maaouia v. France [GC], no. 39652/98, § 40, ECHR 2000‑X). Despite its findings that the applicant’s expulsion has appearances of  <mask> in disguise (see paragraph 58 above), the Court considers that this does not preclude it from examining the question of whether the removal of the applicant from the territory of Ukraine, which was formally presented as expulsion, complied with the Convention requirements. Being master of the characterisation to be given in law to the facts of the case, the Court decides to examine the problem raised by the applicant under Article 1 of Protocol No. 7, which reads as follows:


73.  The Government submitted that the matter of  <mask> to Belarus was covered by the Constitution of Ukraine, the CIS Convention on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Matters 1993 (the “Minsk Convention”), the Code of Criminal Procedure and Resolution no. 16 of the Plenary Supreme Court of 8 October 2004 on certain issues relating to the application of legislation governing the procedure and length of detention (arrest) of persons awaiting extradition. The relevant provisions of these instruments were clear, understandable, foreseeable and accessible to the person concerned. They further noted that under the Minsk Convention, a Contracting State had to recognise official documents issued by another Contracting State. Therefore, the Ukrainian Government could not call into question the official documents issued by the relevant Belorussian authorities in the applicant’s case. The Government maintained that by detaining the applicant, the Ukrainian authorities had acted in accordance with their international obligations under the Minsk Convention and that his detention was for the purpose of extradition. Moreover, according to the Government, the applicant could have challenged his arrest before a court. The Government lastly noted that since the applicant’s arrest and detention were lawful, he did not have a right to any compensation.


83.  The applicant argued that there had been insufficient reasons for his detention since he had had no intention to abscond, and that the courts should have considered less stringent preventive measures such as house arrest. He also argued that the provisions of the CCrP on detention in  <mask> cases were unclear and unforeseeable because they allowed arrest and detention without a detention order issued by a Russian court. Such provisions did not specify the circumstances in which detention could be replaced by house arrest, which remained an illusory option.


52.  The Government maintained that the interview between the applicant and the prosecutor had been held in the context of the ordinary activities of the prosecution service, whose task was to supervise the observance of the law by the prison authorities. They also maintained that the conversation had been necessary in the context of  <mask> proceedings against the applicant. They further noted that the applicant had been informed of his right to remain silent. Therefore, they concluded that the prosecutor had acted within the law and his interview with the applicant could not be considered as putting pressure on the applicant because of his application lodged with the Court.


161.  The applicant submitted that the  <mask> proceedings had lasted for more than eight years and the authorities had therefore had plenty of time to examine the extradition request and to fulfil all necessary formalities while he had been serving his prison term. By resuming the extradition proceedings only after the end of his prison term, the authorities had failed to exercise due diligence and had made him languish in detention for many additional months after he had finished serving his sentence.


168.  The Government further stated that the applicant could have complained to the courts about his detention under section 17 of the Custody Act, but they failed to elaborate on that assertion. In any event, the Court has already held that the Custody Act derives from the Code of Criminal Procedure and concerns persons suspected or accused of criminal offences in Russia, and there is no indication that this Act applied at the material time to persons detained pending  <mask>. Hence, the Court is not certain that the remedy suggested by the Government bore any relation to the breaches alleged (see Muminov, cited above, § 115).


92.  The applicant maintained that in the event of his  <mask> he would face a strong risk of being denied a fair trial. He noted that the Government had failed to give any explanations about the domestic judicial system in Turkmenistan, probably because they considered this problem beyond their responsibilities. The applicant drew attention to the Government’s acceptance that they could not consider the probability of a flagrant denial of a fair trial in Turkmenistan.


53.  The Government noted that the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan had expressly undertaken to ensure that Russian diplomatic representatives would be given access to the applicant in the event of his  <mask>. They further noted with regret that, by forbidding extradition in cases similar to the present case, the Court had not yet given the Russian authorities an opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of such “diplomatic supervision” in practice. At the same time, within the framework of the above mechanism, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Kyrgyz Prosecutor General’s Office had provided information to the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office concerning the fate of several ethnic Uzbeks previously extradited to Kyrgyzstan for criminal prosecution. The information in question proves that the Kyrgyz authorities had abided by their assurances not to subject these persons to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, thus demonstrating the unbiased attitude – and in certain cases even specific loyalty – of Kyrgyz justice towards this category of persons. The Government cited the examples of three individuals of Uzbek ethnic origin who had received a suspended sentence and had been released on parole, or whose criminal case had been dismissed. The Government further informed the Court that on 30‑31 July and 21 November 2014, and again on 24 February 2015 the diplomats of the Consulate General of Russia in Osh and of the Russian Embassy in Kyrgyzstan had visited six non-Kyrgyz persons (two of them ethnic Uzbeks charged with particularly grave crimes including aggravated murder, and one of whom had also been charged with participation in mass disorders) extradited to Kyrgyzstan earlier. The latter were satisfied with the conditions of their detention and denied having been subjected to any form of ill-treatment during preliminary investigations. No violations of their procedural rights, including the right to defence, had been recorded by the Kyrgyz law-enforcement bodies.


191.  The applicant argued that execution of the  <mask> order against him would entail “significant and irreparable” consequences to his relationship with his wife and children, especially his daughter who required health care in Russia. The extradition order and judicial review decisions had not properly taken into account various aspects relating to his family life. In particular, the appeal court provided no reasoning in response to his related arguments. His extradition would not pursue any of the aims set out in Article 8 § 2 of the Convention, the Government’s reference to their other international obligations being insufficient to outweigh their obligations under Article 8 of the Convention.


72.  The Government referred to the information from the PGO, according to which there had been no reason to expect treatment contrary to Article 3 in Turkmenistan. While in detention pending  <mask> the applicant had not alleged that he was in danger of such treatment and had submitted such complaints only after the extradition. The Government also noted that the applicant's extradition had been found unlawful by a domestic court on 5 December 2002.


33.  The applicant complained under Article 5 § 1 (f) of the Convention that his arrest and detention were unlawful. He further complained that since the date when he had received refugee status his detention could not be considered to be with a view to  <mask> and that none of the grounds listed in Article 5 § 1 of the Convention was applicable to his detention, as the domestic law prohibited the removal of refugees from the territory of Ukraine. The applicant also complained under Article 5 § 4 of the Convention that he had had no possibility to challenge his arrest and detention. The applicant finally complained of a violation of Article 5 § 5 of the Convention because he had not been able to receive any compensation for the allegedly unlawful detention.


204.  The Government argued that the impugned decisions clearly stated that the applicant was charged with having committed certain crimes and that his  <mask> was sought with a view to prosecuting him on those charges. Moreover, the authorities explicitly stated that the issue of the applicant's criminal responsibility for the crimes for which his extradition was being sought was to be decided only by the courts of the requesting country.


135.  The applicant argued in reply that he did not have at his disposal a procedure by which the lawfulness of his detention could be examined by a court and his release ordered. He argued that the procedure set out in Article 125 of the CCrP did not comply with the requirements of an effective remedy, since that provision conferred standing to complain about alleged infringements of rights and freedoms within criminal proceedings solely on parties to those proceedings and thus was ineffective for obtaining judicial review of the lawfulness of detention pending  <mask> and moreover a court could not instruct an investigating authority to release the detainee. In any event, the ineffectiveness of the procedure set out in Article 125 had been amply demonstrated in practice in his own case, since on 23 December 2010 the Sverdlovskiy District Court had refused to consider such complaint the merits. Furthermore, the complaints regarding the unlawfulness of the two persecutor’s orders, even though submitted on four occasions in two sets of proceedings, including the extension proceedings, had remained unexamined by the domestic courts. He further reiterated the Court’s earlier findings that neither Article 108 nor Article 109 of the CCrP entitled a detainee to initiate proceedings for examination of the lawfulness of his detention. He concluded therefore that the only available way of challenging the lawfulness of his detention was an appeal against the extension decision. However, he submitted that during his six months of detention the domestic court had examined the issue of his placement into custody on one occasion only, within the extension proceedings of 27 December 2010, and the interval between the extension and the release was manifestly excessive.


36.  The Government submitted that the matter of  <mask> to Belarus was covered by the Constitution of Ukraine, the CIS Convention on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Matters 1993, the Code of Criminal Procedure and Resolution no. 16 of the Plenary Supreme Court of 8 October 2004 on certain issues relating to the application of legislation governing the procedure and length of detention (arrest) of persons awaiting extradition. The relevant provisions of these texts were clear, understandable, foreseeable and accessible to the person concerned. Moreover, according to the Government, the applicant could have challenged his arrest in court. The Government further argued that at the material time the applicant had not acquired refugee status because the relevant decision of the State Migration Committee had been challenged by the GPO in court. The Government finally noted that since the applicant's arrest and detention were lawful, he did not have a right to any compensation.


92.  The Government argued that the applicant had had ample opportunities to challenge the lawfulness of his detention but had failed to use them. The applicant's lawyer had challenged the lawfulness of detention before the Prosecutor General on 11 October 2002 and before the Moscow City Court on 18 October 2002. The PGO had replied to the applicant's lawyer on 11 November 2002. The Moscow City Court had refused to consider the complaint because it should have been submitted to a competent district court. The applicant himself had not made any complaints. He had been informed of the decision to extradite him on 24 October 2002 and had not requested to contact a lawyer. The Russian legislation did not provide for notification of the lawyer of the person whose  <mask> was under way.


45.  The Government further submitted the following arguments to demonstrate that human rights protection mechanisms in Kyrgyzstan had been improving: Kyrgyzstan was a party to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the Optional Protocol to it; the Kyrgyz Constitution guaranteed fair trial and proscribed capital punishment, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment; the Kyrgyz Criminal Code criminalised torture and was based on the principles of lawfulness and equality before the law; Kyrgyzstan was a vice-president of the UN Human Rights Council and rapporteur of its bureau; since June 2010 the country had undergone positive changes, including adopting a new Constitution, parliamentary and presidential elections, the setting up of domestic and international commissions to investigate the Jalal‑Abad violence, reform of legislation in order to bring it into compliance with UN standards and on 7 June 2012 a law had been adopted with a view to creating a national anti-torture centre. The Government suggested that the overall human rights situation in Kyrgyzstan had not called for a total ban on  <mask> from the Council of Europe’s Member States.


97.  The applicant complained that he was detained in violation of Article 5 §§ 1 and 3. He maintained that prior to 30 January 2007, when the General Prosecutor’s Office had received the official request for his  <mask>, his detention had fallen within the ambit of Article 5 § 1 (c). Only after that date, in his view, could the detention be qualified as being “with a view to extradition”.


33.  The Government alleged that the applicant did not exhaust domestic remedies, as he failed to make use of the so-called habeas corpus procedure provided by Article 137 of the Criminal Code. They moreover pointed out that the applicant had decided not to await for the decision of the Magistrates' Court's on the merits of the  <mask> request. In its decision on admissibility the Court considered that the question of exhaustion of domestic remedies was linked to the substance of the applicant's complaint under Article 5 § 4 of the Convention and that it should therefore be joined to the examination of the merits of the case.


30.  The applicant complained about the unlawfulness of his preventive detention since it had exceeded the time-limits imposed by law, namely the 1939 Convention and/or the 1957 Convention as the Italian authorities had submitted a late  <mask> request without requesting an extension of time. The applicant complained that the extradition request had not been submitted to the relevant authority, in that it had been submitted by the Italian Ministry to the CL and not by diplomatic channels to the CR. He invoked Article 5 § 1 of the Convention which, in so far as relevant, reads as follows:


235.  The applicant maintained his complaint. He agreed that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 1 in respect of his detention pending  <mask> and his house arrest. In response to the non‑exhaustion argument, he submitted that the Government had failed to demonstrate that an ordinary appeal against the decision of 13 May 2011 constituted an effective remedy. The relevant CCrP provisions were not clear enough. Chapter 45 of the CCrP did not contain specific provisions on appeals against a preventive measure. It was not clear from Article 108 § 11 of the CCrP that an appeal court could order an applicant’s immediate release. He referred to the case of a Mr V., where an extension of Mr V.’s detention pending extradition by the first-instance court had been found unlawful by the appeal instance. However, the appeal court had remitted the case for fresh consideration and had not ordered the applicant’s release; as a result, V.’s detention had been again extended by the lower court.


87.  The Government argued that the applicant did not have victim status, as enforcement of the  <mask> order had been and remained suspended due to the application of Rule 39 of the Rules of Court. The Uzbek authorities had provided assurances that the applicant would not be prosecuted for offences other than those indicated in the extradition request; that he would not be surrendered to another State without Russia’s consent; and that he would not be subjected to ill-treatment. The offences for which the applicant was being prosecuted did not entail the possibility of a sentence of capital punishment. The Russian courts had delved into the issue of the possible risk of the applicant’s ill-treatment and had dismissed it.


127.  The applicant maintained that the requirements of Article 5 § 1 did not dispense the State from fulfilling its international obligations regarding  <mask>, since such a ground for detention was clearly provided for in Article 5 § 1(f), which only required the detention to be in accordance with a procedure prescribed by the domestic legislation. The applicant submitted that the Minsk Convention did not provide for such a procedure. He further stated that his detention, from the moment of his apprehension on 23 August 2004 until the present date, lacked a legal basis, had been groundless and in breach of the procedure prescribed by law. He stated that his detention until 16 September 2004 should fall within the ambit of Article 5 § 1(c) of the Convention and after that date – it should be examined under Article 5 § 1(f).


65.  The applicant argued that the orders for his detention with a view to  <mask> were unlawful and could not be taken into account. These orders not only contained wrong data about his nationality, but also failed to properly address the issue of limbo incarceration. Moreover, even if the orders in issue had not been adopted, the applicant would not have been released before 7 October 1999. His detention on remand was in fact never revoked and the execution of his extradition was suspended awaiting the outcome of the criminal proceedings pending in Italy.


113.  The applicant complained under Article 5 § 1 of the Convention that his detention pending  <mask> between 6 and 27 March 2008 had been unlawful as it had not been based on a court order and that the court order authorising his detention as of 27 March 2008 had not set any time‑limits for the duration of the detention, in violation of the relevant provisions of the domestic law. The relevant parts of Article 5 § 1 read as follows:


42.  The applicant complained against San Marino in relation to the unlawfulness of his  <mask> order as a result of the procedural irregularities relating to the extradition. He argued that the 1939 Convention was applicable to his extradition and not the 1957 Convention which San Marino adhered to after his extradition proceedings had initiated. He complained that the extradition request had not been submitted to the relevant authority, in that it had been submitted by the Italian Ministry to the CL and not by diplomatic channels to the RC. It followed that his extradition and transfer to the Italian authorities had been unlawful.


89.  The Government insisted that the applicant's detention pending  <mask> had been lawful as it had been based on the decision of the Zheleznodorozhniy District Court of 1 November 2007. They submitted that after that his detention had been authorised by the same court on 30 January 2008 and that it fully complied with the provisions of Article 466 § 1 of the CCP. They further stated that the duration of the detention had lengthened owing to the applicant's request for refugee status and the application of the interim measures by the Court.


234.  The Government acknowledged, without further details, that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 1 (f) in respect of both the detention pending  <mask> and the house arrest. However, in the same set of observations they argued, as regards the complaints under Article 5 §§ 1 and 4 about house arrest, that the applicant had failed to lodge an ordinary appeal under Articles 107 § 2 and 108 § 11 of the CCrP against the court decision of 13 May 2011 ordering his house arrest, despite the fact that such an appeal constituted an effective remedy in respect of the complaint.


40.  The applicant maintained that his detention between 29 December 2004 and 6 January 2005 fell within the ambit of Article 5 § 1 (c) of the Convention because there had been no request for his  <mask> to Belarus; therefore he considered himself arrested on the basis of Article 61 § 2. He considered that only from 6 January 2005 when that request had been received by the Ukrainian authorities did his detention fall within the ambit of Article 5 § 1 (f). For the Government, the detention fell within Article 5 § 1 (f) throughout.


50.  The Government submitted that the applicant’s allegations concerning the risk of ill-treatment in Kyrgyzstan had been subject to examination in the course of the refugee status and temporary asylum proceedings. Moreover, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, the Moscow City Court and the Supreme Court of Russia had thoroughly examined the allegations in the course of the  <mask> proceedings. For instance, in the course of the hearing before the Moscow City Court on 16 April 2013 the applicant and Ms Ryabinina, an expert on refugee law, had made submissions regarding possible ill-treatment in Kyrgyzstan. However, the claims had been dismissed, as the applicant had only referred to the general human rights situation in Kyrgyzstan and had thus failed to demonstrate any individualised risk of ill-treatment. The courts’ decisions upholding the extradition order had been fully and properly reasoned.


167.  The applicant complained under Article 5 § 4 of the Convention that the review of his detention pending  <mask> had not been effective in that none of the arguments raised by his counsel in the appeal against the detention order of 19 March 2012 had been examined by the Preobrazhenskiy District Court of Moscow in its decision of 3 May 2012 and that, therefore, the proceedings that had ended with the Moscow City Court’s decision of 23 July 2012 had been in breach of the principle of equality of arms and had not been adversarial. Article 5 § 4 of the Convention reads as follows:


205.  The applicant submitted that in stating that his actions were “punishable under the Russian criminal legislation” the Russian authorities had declared him guilty before trial, which was further proved by the reply of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office of 30 December 2009, stating that it “had granted their Tajikistani counterpart's request for the applicant's  <mask> with a view to prosecuting him in connection with his participation in a prohibited religious organisation”. In the applicant's opinion, the wording used by the Russian authorities was even capable of influencing the Tajik courts.


44.  The Government submitted that the applicant had never raised his complaints about the risk of his ill-treatment in the event of  <mask> to Turkmenistan with the domestic courts or the General Prosecutor’s Office. The Government considered that the domestic legislation provided the applicant with an opportunity to do so. They noted in particular that Article 55 of the Constitution guaranteed to everybody the right to challenge any decision, act or omission of the State authorities in the courts. Furthermore, Article 2 of the Code of Administrative Justice made it possible to challenge not only the prosecutor’s decision on the applicant’s extradition but any action the prosecutor took in the process of the extradition proceedings. Therefore, they considered that the applicant had failed to exhaust the remedies available to him under Ukrainian law.


86.  The Government relied on two legal approaches which they had obtained from the PGO and from the Supreme Court of Russia. The PGO stated that the applicant's detention prior to  <mask> had been based on the provisions of the Minsk Convention of 1993 and the relevant Russian legislation. The Supreme Court agreed with the applicant that from 27 September until 24 October 2002 he had been detained unlawfully. However, the decision of the Moscow City Court of 5 December 2002 had corrected the violation by declaring the extradition and the detention unlawful so the applicant's rights had thus been restored.


86.  The Government contended that the application should be declared inadmissible as incompatible ratione personae. They submitted that the applicant had not been extradited by the Russian authorities to Uzbekistan, the impugned measure had not been applied to him, his  <mask> had been suspended and therefore he could not claim to be the victim of a violation of Article 3.


129.  The Government submitted that the applicant’s  <mask> to Uzbekistan would not expose him to any risk of ill-treatment or political persecution. His allegations of such risks, raised for the first time in his judicial appeal against the prosecutor’s extradition order, had been examined and rejected by the Russian courts. The Government reiterated the domestic courts’ reasoning and relied on the diplomatic assurances provided by the Uzbek Prosecutor General’s Office.


130.  The applicant submitted that he had brought his fears of ill-treatment in Uzbekistan to the attention of the domestic authorities as early as December 2009 in his application for refugee status. He had consistently reiterated his fears during the refugee status and  <mask> proceedings. He had relied on reports by UN agencies and respected international NGOs which clearly demonstrated that individuals who, like him, were suspected of membership of banned religious organisations were at an increased risk of ill-treatment. He had also argued that the wording of the charges brought against him showed that they had been motivated by political and religious considerations. However, the domestic authorities had not taken into account the evidence submitted by the applicant and had dismissed his fears as unsubstantiated without a thorough assessment of the general situation in Uzbekistan or his personal situation, relying on the diplomatic assurances provided by the Uzbek authorities. Yet, those assurances were unreliable due to the absence of any mechanism of compliance monitoring or any accountability for their breach (he referred to Chahal v. the United Kingdom, 15 November 1996, § 105, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996‑V, and Saadi v. Italy [GC], no. 37201/06, § 147, ECHR 2008).


52.  The Government maintained that they could not doubt the information provided by the Turkmen authorities, as the  <mask> proceedings were being conducted in accordance with international agreements. They further noted that they had neither the possibility of checking this information nor any legal basis for doing so, since the proceedings in the applicant’s case would be conducted by the foreign country’s authorities. They noted that all countries were interested in having a good international reputation, and that it was not in a country’s interests to worsen its external relations with its partners by violating its obligations. In the Government’s opinion, it was more important for the State to have a good international reputation than to violate its international obligations.


76.  The Government contested this claim. They argued that the provisions of the Russian law governing the detention of persons pending  <mask> were clear enough and foreseeable. In accordance with the decision of the Constitutional Court of 4 April 2006 No. 101-O, the provisions of Article 466 and Chapter 13 of the Code of Criminal Procedure were applicable to such detention. The Government noted that the first applicant had been brought before a judge within forty-eight hours of her arrest. Under Article 109 of the Criminal Procedural Code, her detention could not exceed twelve months, while she had spent eleven months and twenty-five days in detention. In so far as the first applicant complained about the absence of review of her detention, the Government noted that she had made use of the relevant provisions of the Russian criminal procedural legislation and appealed to higher courts against the decisions by which her detention had been ordered. She could also make use of Article 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure which allowed the parties to the proceedings to seek judicial review of decisions of the investigation.


197.  The applicant further stressed that the extraordinarily precipitated enforcement of the deportation order against him and the fact that the authorities hid him from his lawyer on that day strongly contradicted the Government’s assertion that the domestic bodies had not intended to act in breach of the interim measure and Article 34 of the Convention. Lastly, he contested their argument that the scope of the interim measure had been limited to  <mask>. He averred that it had been aimed at preventing the irreparable damage which he risked suffering if he was removed, in any form, to his country of origin, at allowing him to pursue the proceedings before this Court, and at securing him effective Convention protection.


84.  The Government submitted that the applicant’s arrest had been lawful and effected on the basis of the relevant information at the disposal of the Russian authorities concerning the pending criminal proceedings against the applicant in Uzbekistan, the Uzbek decisions to impose on him a preventive measure (arrest and detention) and to add his name to the wanted list. The Government also specified that the applicant’s subsequent detention had been authorised by a Russian court, which verified that the essential conditions for such detention were complied with: that the alleged criminal acts were punishable under both Russian and Uzbek criminal law; that they could entail a sentence equal to or exceeding one year of imprisonment (as required by the Minsk Convention) and that the relevant limitation periods for prosecuting the relevant offences had not expired. The initial detention order had contained a time-limit, which was in compliance with the requirements of Article 466 and Chapter 13 of the Russian CCrP. The applicant’s detention had been extended by a court on several occasions, within the time-limits specified in Article 109 of the CCrP. The applicant had made use of legal assistance in the detention proceedings and the courts had assessed all the relevant factual and legal circumstances, dismissing the possibility of applying a less stringent preventive measure. The applicant had been able to foresee the maximum statutory period of his detention with a view to  <mask>, that is until a decision was taken by the Prosecutor’s General Office on the extradition request or until expiry of the time-limits set in the detention orders. The applicant could have realised that the “final decision” concerning his extradition could not have been taken before his application for refugee status, appeals against detention orders or against an extradition decision had been examined.


35.  The Government contested the applicant’s allegations. They argued that the detention in question had been ordered in compliance with the  <mask> rules, as the Italian courts had found, and that its sole purpose had been for the applicant to be surrendered to the courts of the requesting State. They added that the applicant had not given his consent to the extradition, pointing out that consent would have accelerated the proceedings, and that the delay in the scheduling by the Court of Appeal of a hearing on the merits could be explained by the three applications for release that the applicant had filed within a period of three months. Lastly, they took the view that the proceedings in question, which had led the Italian authorities, both judicial and administrative, to authorise the extradition, had been conducted within the time-limits provided for by the rules of domestic and international law.


100.  The applicant claimed that the Constitutional Court did not provide an adequate remedy. Notwithstanding its decision recognising a violation of Article 5 § 1 and declaring the arrest warrant defective, it nonetheless kept in force its effects, thereby negating its own conclusion on the unlawfulness. He submitted that the Spanish authorities’ activity and his arrest were triggered and kept in place as a result of Malta’s request for his  <mask>. Thus, in order to be effective the Constitutional Court should have ordered the applicant’s release, as did the court of first instance by issuing an order to the Maltese authorities to take all necessary steps through diplomatic channels to reverse the effects of the unlawful warrant. Furthermore, the applicant submitted that the European Extradition Convention, which was applicable in the present case, required as a basis for an extradition request a valid arrest warrant issued according to the laws of the requesting Party.


70.  The applicant complained that his  <mask> to Kazakhstan would subject him to a risk of ill-treatment. He formulated his complaint under Article 3 of the Convention and vaguely referred to Article 6 of the Convention without making a specific detailed complaint in this respect. The Court considers that the complaint falls to be examined under Article 3 of the Convention, which reads as follows:


62.  The applicant maintained that his detention between 29 July 2005 and 3 August 2005 fell within the ambit of Article 5 § 1 (c) of the Convention. He considered that once the request for his  <mask> had been received by the Ukrainian authorities on 3 August 2005, his detention fell within the ambit of Article 5 § 1 (f). For the Government, the whole period of detention fell within Article 5 § 1 (f).


38.  The Government emphasise that when the Magistrates' Court, whether as a court of criminal inquiry or as a court of committal for the purposes of  <mask>, arrives to the conclusion that the arrest is unlawful, it has the authority to order the immediate release of the person in custody. During the extradition proceedings, the primary function of the Magistrates' Court is to decide whether there are legal obstacles to the requested extradition. It has also the competence to determine any collateral issue which may arise, such as the lawfulness of the arrest of the person brought before it. Its President is in fact a Magistrate who is bound by his duties to attend to any complaint of an unlawful arrest. If he fails to do so, he may be held criminally liable for the offence punished by Article 137 of the Criminal Code. Should the Magistrates' Court find that the arrest is unlawful, it is obliged to order the immediate release. The extradition proceedings will then continue with the person requested free from arrest. The Government refer, on this point, to the decision given on 27 February 2001 in the case of The police v. Pierre Gravina (see paragraph 28 above) and underline that according to Article 15(1) of the Extradition Act, the court of committal in extradition proceedings should have the same powers, as nearly as may be, as the court of criminal inquiry.


96.  The Government pointed out at the outset that the applicant had lodged his appeal against the judgment of the Zamokvoretskiy District Court outside a ten-day time-limit set out in the domestic law. However, the domestic courts granted an extension of the period for introduction of the grounds of appeal. They examined the appeal against the refusal to grant the applicant refugee status. Furthermore, the applicant made use of the procedure for challenging the  <mask> order by the Prosecutor General. In each set of the proceedings, his arguments were examined by the courts at two levels of jurisdiction. Therefore, the applicant had an effective domestic remedy in respect of his complaint under Article 3 and was able to make use of it.


187.  The Government submitted, with reference to Articles 1 § 3 and 125 § 5 of the CCrP and Article 46 of the Constitution, that a court examining a complaint by a person detained pending  <mask> against detention orders issued by a prosecutor had authority to release such detainee, should it find the underlying detention orders unlawful or unjustified. The Court notes, however, that none of the legal provisions relied on by the Government explicitly provides for the court’s competence to release a detainee in the applicant’s situation (see paragraphs 85 and 90 above). As regards, in particular, Article 125 § 5, it only states that a court examining a complaint lodged under that provision can declare a decision issued by a law-enforcement authority unlawful or unjustified and instruct that body to rectify the indicated shortcomings (see paragraph 93 above).


99.  The Government submitted that the applicant’s pre-trial detention could not be considered excessive because of the complexity of the case. They argued that the domestic authorities had taken all the necessary steps for the proper administration of justice and that there had been no distinguishable period of unexplained activity on their part in examining the case. Moreover, the domestic courts had repeatedly examined and extended the applicant’s detention, taking into consideration his arguments and providing relevant and sufficient reasons, such as the  <mask> that he had committed the offences, the seriousness of the offences, that he was a danger to society, that he was preparing to abscond or that he needed to be prevented from intimidating other witnesses.


68.  The Government submitted that the applicant’s pre‑trial detention could not be considered excessive because of the complexity of the case. They argued that the domestic authorities had taken all the necessary steps for the proper administration of justice and that there had been no distinguishable period of unexplained activity on their part in examining the case. Moreover, the domestic courts had repeatedly examined and extended the applicant’s detention, taking into consideration his arguments and providing relevant and sufficient reasons such as the  <mask> that he had committed the offence, that he was a danger to public order or that he was preparing to abscond.


62.  The applicant maintained that his pre-trial detention had not been based on sufficient and relevant reasons. He alleged that the prosecution had no  <mask> of his having committed a criminal offence and that there had been no sufficient grounds to believe that he might re-offend, abscond, influence witnesses or obstruct the investigation. He further claimed that the prosecution and the courts had failed to take into account the facts of his family commitments, including an underage child, or of his job and permanent place of residence. He also refuted the Government’s contention that he had delayed studying the case file. He noted that the domestic court had not imposed any deadline on him in that regard.


28. The Government were of the opinion that the whole period of the applicant’s detention had been justified. They stressed that the domestic courts dealing with the applicant’s case had found his detention to be compatible with the provisions of Article 258 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and that no grounds warranting the applicant’s release from detention as provided for by Article 259 of the Code had been established. The evidence obtained in the proceedings indicated that there was a  <mask> that the applicant had committed the offences.


52.  The Government argued that domestic courts had given “relevant” and “sufficient” grounds for the applicant's detention since they had relied on the  <mask> that the applicant had committed the offences with which he was charged, the heavy sentence which could be imposed on him and the need to take evidence from several witnesses. Moreover, the courts considered that the applicant's case had not disclosed any of the grounds for release from detention as provided in Article 218 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.


106.  The applicant argued that when ordering and extending his pre-trial detention the domestic courts had essentially relied only on those circumstances which were constitutive elements of the offences he had been charged with. In his view, the same circumstances could not also serve to justify his detention, as this would mean that a  <mask> that an offence had been committed was in itself sufficient to justify the prolonged periods of detention, which was contrary to the Court’s case-law. In any event, the applicant considered that the domestic courts had failed to display the necessary diligence in the conduct of the proceedings. He pointed out that the first-instance judgment of the Rijeka County Court of 8 June 2010 had been quashed by the Supreme Court on 10 May 2011 and that after that there had been no activity in the conduct of the proceedings, while at the same time he had been held in detention. The decisions of the domestic courts did not indicate, nor did they justify, such protracted proceedings, although his detention had been extended twice beyond the maximum statutory time-limits. The applicant also pointed out that it had taken the Rijeka County Court one year and ten months to adopt a first-instance judgment, after which it took one year for the case to be decided on appeal before the Supreme Court. After the Supreme Court had quashed the first-instance judgment no hearing was held in the proceedings, no evidence was taken and there was no other activity. However, during that whole period he had been kept in detention. Therefore, the applicant considered that the domestic courts had not acted with due diligence and had not given sufficient weight to his arguments that his detention was no longer reasonable or necessary; nor had they given any consideration to releasing him by imposing less severe preventive measures such as bail or police supervision.


74.  The applicant argued that the USD 30,000 found in his bag had not belonged to him and had been placed there during the time that the bag had been with the airport employees. He claimed that, despite his persistent requests, no video tapes from the X-ray security monitor, which had allegedly been the initial source of suspicion, had been produced. He further argued that the paperwork documenting the search was flawed. According to the applicant, the grounds for his arrest had been fabricated and premeditated, as confirmed inter alia by the fact that some of the officials that participated in his arrest had been at work earlier than their normal working hours. The applicant concluded that the domestic authorities had failed to demonstrate that there had been any lawfully obtained evidence against him that was sufficient to found a  <mask> that he had committed any criminal offence.


34.  The Government argued that there had been valid reasons for holding the applicant in detention for the entire period in question. They stressed that the applicant’s detention had been justified by the persistence of a  <mask> that he had committed the offences with which he had been charged and the fact that the charges against him attracted a heavy sentence. The domestic courts had also relied on the risk that the applicant and other defendants might interfere with the proceedings. The Government further justified the length of the applicant’s detention by the particular complexity of the case. They submitted that the investigation concerned several counts of burglary and armed robbery which the applicant and other suspects had allegedly committed in various locations throughout the country to the detriment of 30 victims. They also referred to the significant volume of evidence obtained and examined in the course of the proceedings. Lastly, the Government maintained that the authorities displayed adequate diligence in dealing with the applicant’s case.


63.  The applicants raised a number of generic complaints which can be summarised as follows: (i) that no  <mask> against them had been established with a basis in admissible evidence to justify their detention; (ii) that they had not been brought before a judge within twenty‑four hours of their arrest as required under the Charter of Basic Rights and Freedoms; (iii) that, on account of the discrepancy in the applicable time-limits, the relevant law lacked the required quality; (iv) that they had arbitrarily been denied release pending trial; (v) that the decisions in respect of their remand and first request for release had lacked adequate reasoning and the procedure preceding them had fallen short of the applicable requirements; and (vi) that the procedure in respect of their appeal against detention and their request for release had not been speedy.


134.  The Government submitted that Article 5 of the Convention required compliance with domestic law. The applicants had breached the law by wilfully abandoning the places of their service. Since they were subject to all the obligations prescribed by the Constitution, the investigating authority, based on a  <mask> that they had committed acts prohibited by law, filed motions for detention. Furthermore, the investigating authority applied Section 21 § 2 of the Alternative Service Act which was in force at the material time. Accordingly, the investigating authority and the District Courts had issued lawful decisions and detained the applicants for having committed an act prohibited by law. Hence, the applicants’ detention was lawful. They had been charged for their actions under Articles 361 and 362 of the CC. Following an examination of the applicants’ cases on the merits and after additional investigation, the domestic authorities found out that the acts committed by the applicants lacked corpus delicti, the prosecutor terminated the proceedings and released the applicants. According to the Court’s case-law, detention was in principle lawful if carried out pursuant to a court order. A court error under domestic law in making the order would not necessarily retrospectively affect the validity of the intervening period of detention. In conclusion, there was no violation of Article 5 § 1 (c) of the Convention.


83.  The Government submitted that the applicant's lawyer had been regularly informed by the investigator about all procedural steps and had had full knowledge of the relevant material. The applicant replied that he had been refused access to the case file and that as a result the material pertaining to the investigation carried out between 27 December 1997 and 5 January 1998 had remained inaccessible despite the fact that it contained relevant information about the existence of a  <mask> against the applicant.


89.  The applicant submitted that the proceedings were not adversarial, that the courts, in accordance with the applicable legislation and judicial practice, had not examined all aspects relevant to the lawfulness of his detention and that they had not decided his case speedily. He referred to the Commission’s report in the present case and to the judgment in the case of Nikolova v. Bulgaria ([GC], no. 31195/96, ECHR 1999-II). He further noted that Bulgarian courts persistently refused to examine questions concerning the existence of a  <mask> against the detainee in habeas corpus proceedings, especially when the criminal case was at its trial stage. The trial judges considered that that would amount to pre-judging the merits of the criminal case.


73.  The Government noted, referring to Wemhoff v. Germany, judgment of 27 June 1968, Series A no. 7, p. 24, § 10, that the reasonableness of continued detention must be assessed in each case according to its special features. They further noted that according to the Court's case-law the principal grounds for detention besides  <mask> are the danger of absconding, the risk of collusion and the need to prevent the accused committing further offences (see W. v. Switzerland, judgment of 26 January 1993, Series A no. 254‑A, p. 14, § 31). The Government submitted that when imposing detention as a preventive measure in respect of the applicant the investigation authorities and the courts had taken into consideration the fact that in 2001 she had sought to evade the investigation, had had no place of residence and, therefore, being free could evade the trial. Furthermore, she had been accused of having committed a grave offence. In the Government's view the domestic authorities and courts had sufficient grounds to consider the applicant's detention necessary to prevent her from committing further offences and evading justice.


100.  The applicant further complained under Article 5 §§ 1 and 3 that he had been arrested on  <mask> of having committed the offences, but that the repeated refusals of the courts to grant him bail, coupled with the fact that there was no time-limit under domestic law for keeping him in custody, had made his detention unlawful. Moreover, when he was eventually granted bail, the financial guarantees imposed were so high that his actual release on bail had been impossible.


33.  The applicant argued that the length of his detention was clearly unreasonable. He submitted that the courts had justified his detention by repeatedly relying on the same grounds: the  <mask> that he had committed the offences with which he had been charged, the severity of the anticipated penalty and the risk of obstruction of the proceedings. As regards the latter, the applicant averred that the authorities had not specified any concrete grounds justifying that risk. Moreover, one of the main prosecution witnesses (M.S.) had been in custody during the relevant time. The applicant also argued that the courts had not taken into account that he had had an unblemished reputation. Lastly, he submitted that there had been delays in the proceedings and that hearings had been held infrequently.


32.  The Government submitted that the applicant's detention, throughout its entire length, was based cumulatively on all the prerequisites of detention listed in the Code of Criminal Procedure as applicable at the material time, in particular on the persistence of  <mask> that he had committed the offence in question. They underlined that the present case concerned offences committed in an organised criminal group and that the applicant had been charged with establishing and leading that group.


41.  The Government considered that the applicant’s pre-trial detention had satisfied the requirements of Article 5 § 3. Throughout its entire period it had been justified by “relevant” and “sufficient” grounds, in particular the existence of a  <mask> that he had committed the offences he had been charged with. Moreover, the Government considered that the applicant’s protracted detention pending trial was justified by the complex nature of the case and a genuine public interest requirement, namely the fact that the applicant had been charged with serious offences and was facing a lengthy prison sentence. Finally, the Government noted that the applicant’s pre-trial detention was justified by the risk that he would obstruct the proceedings and tamper with evidence.


62.  The Government submitted that Article 96 § 2 of the then current Code of Criminal Procedure (“CCrP”) provided for placement in custody on the sole ground of the gravity of the charges. As the investigative authorities had a  <mask> that the applicant had committed manslaughter, her placement in custody was lawful. The Government claimed that the investigators had authorised the applicant's detention having regard to her high social status, which could have afforded her an opportunity to exercise pressure on witnesses, and to her family situation. They noted that her underage son was in care of her relations. The global term of the applicant's detention did not exceed the maximum period of eighteen months authorised by Article 97 § 2 of the CCrP in case of serious and especially serious criminal offences. The lawfulness of extensions was confirmed on several occasions by the domestic courts.


110.  The applicant complained that his initial pre-trial detention and its continuation were arbitrary. He argued that there had been no evidence grounding a  <mask> that he had committed a criminal offence necessitating his pre-trial detention. He also complained that insufficient reasons had been given for the judicial decisions ordering and extending his detention. The facts on which the suspicions against him had been based were linked to his criticisms of the country’s leaders. Furthermore, he had been kept in pre-trial detention despite the Constitutional Court’s finding of a violation of his right to liberty and security in its judgment of 11 January 2018. He complained that in those respects there had been a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention, the relevant parts of which provide:


41.  The Government submitted that the applicant’s detention pursuant to the above-mentioned decision had been lawful within the meaning of the domestic law and had been justified by the  <mask> that he had committed a crime. They added that there had been “adequate” and “sufficient” grounds for the applicant’s continued detention and that its duration had not been excessive. They thus considered that his detention had been in compliance with Article 5 of the Convention.


76.  The applicant considered that the existence of a  <mask> against him and the complexity of the case had not been sufficient to justify his lengthy detention. Neither had been the seriousness of the charges, relied upon by the authorities as their main argument. The authorities had applied law and practice incompatible with the Convention. According to that law and practice the seriousness of the charges had triggered automatic detention.


52.  The applicant further alleged that the investigation of his complaints of ill-treatment did not meet the minimum standards of effectiveness. The investigation was not sufficiently independent, was directed at exonerating the police rather than at establishing the objective facts, and featured numerous delays. For instance, although the authorities were notified of the applicant’s injuries within twenty-four hours of their infliction, they took ten days to initiate a formal investigation (on 1 August 2005) and ten more days to question the officers implicated in the ill-treatment in question (on 9 August 2005). This delay could have been used by the officers to coordinate their statements and destroy evidence. Furthermore, it was only in November 2005 (nearly four months after the events complained about) that the applicant was granted the status of an injured party in connection with the investigation of his complaint of ill-treatment. The first attempt to reconstruct the events leading to the applicant’s injuries was made only in January 2006 (some six months after the events complained about) and the first confrontation between the applicant and the police officers was held only in February 2006 (seven months after the events in question). Notwithstanding that there was sufficient evidence to give rise to a  <mask> that the police officers identified had committed a crime of violence, they were not summoned as defendants or even as suspects, but were always questioned only as witnesses. No procedure by which the applicant could have identified the other concerned officers, whose names he did not know, was ever set up.


49.  The Government further stated that the applicant had been arrested on a  <mask> of having committed an offence and that there had been no circumstances excluding any danger of him absconding or committing an offence. In particular, the applicant had previously committed criminal offences and the charges concerned a serious offence. The courts had taken these facts into account in their decisions. Therefore, there had been relevant and sufficient reasons justifying the applicant's deprivation of liberty pending trial.


105.  The applicant argued that, as in the case of Grinenko v. Ukraine (no. 33627/06, §§ 83-84, 15 November 2012), his arrest report had contained a formulaic phrase referring to unidentified “witnesses”. Such wording would not have persuaded an independent observer that there had been a  <mask> against him. The applicant further stated that his detention under the court order of 23 February 2005 had not been necessary as he had been a minor at the time.


79.  The Government contended that the report of the applicant’s arrest had been based on the  <mask> that the applicant had committed the crime. That suspicion was based on the statements of D.K., who had identified the applicant as the person who had attempted to arrange the murder. The Government maintained that the applicant’s detention on the basis of the arrest report had been lawful and compatible with Article 5 § 1 (c) of the Convention.


60.  The Government asserted that the applicant’s arrest fell within paragraph (c) of Article 5 § 1. They noted that the applicant had been arrested within the framework of the criminal proceedings instituted against him and that the domestic authorities had had a  <mask> that he had committed a crime. They stressed again that the applicant could have challenged the lawfulness of his arrest before the courts if he had considered his arrest unlawful.


197.  The Government maintained that the reasons for extending the applicant’s detention had been relevant and sufficient, and that the fear that he might abscond had persisted throughout the proceedings. In particular, the  <mask> that he had committed the criminal offences of which he had been accused, as well as the fear that he might abscond due to the severity of the penalty he had been facing, had not been substantially brought into question (dovedeni u pitanje). Also the fact that S.Š. had been brutally murdered in his official capacity, for profit, on his doorstep clearly indicated that the applicant’s detention was justified within the meaning of Article 175 § 1(4) of the CCP.


134.  The applicant complained that his initial pre-trial detention and its continuation were arbitrary, for two main reasons. Firstly, he argued that his initial pre-trial detention had not complied with domestic legislation in that he had been a member of the National Assembly enjoying parliamentary immunity. He further contended that there had been no evidence grounding a  <mask> that he had committed a criminal offence necessitating his pre-trial detention. He complained that in those respects there had been a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention, the relevant parts of which provide:


26.  The applicant argued that his detention had not been lawful and/or based on a  <mask> that he had committed the offence of pimping. At the time that he operated his business there were no legal provisions in the Criminal Code making it clear that the provision of erotic video-chat services could be considered prostitution. The two cases relied upon by the Government came before the domestic courts one year later, so it had been impossible to foresee that his activity might be held to be criminal in nature.


174.  The Government submitted that the first applicant had been arrested on 20 May 2004 on suspicion of a drug offence and that his arrest had been in compliance with Article 263 of the Code of Administrative Offences. They noted that he had been held under administrative detention without a prosecutorial or judicial warrant for the three-day period permissible under the aforementioned legal provision, after which he had been released (on 23 May 2004). As regards the subsequent three days of the first applicant's detention (from 23 to 26 May 2004), the Government maintained that they had been based on a  <mask> of his involvement in a murder and had been in compliance with the criminal procedure legislation.


49.  The applicant’s lawyer argued that the length of the applicant’s detention had been clearly unreasonable. She submitted that the courts had justified his detention by repeatedly relying on the same grounds; the  <mask> that he had committed the homicide with which he had been charged, the severity of the anticipated penalty, the risk of obstruction of the proceedings and of absconding. The applicant’s lawyer further submitted that the applicant had not contributed to the overall length of the proceedings; on the contrary, he had always been at the disposal of the domestic courts.