SECOND SECTION
CASE OF MILJAK v. CROATIA
(Application no. 15681/18)
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
16 January 2024
 
 
 
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Miljak v. Croatia,
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Pauliine Koskelo, President,
 Lorraine Schembri Orland,
 Davor Derenčinović, judges,
and Dorothee von Arnim, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 15681/18) against the Republic of Croatia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 29 March 2018 by a Croatian national, Mr Hrvoje Miljak (“the applicant”), who was born in 1988, lives in Šibenik and was represented by Ms L. Horvat, a lawyer practising in Zagreb;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Croatian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms Š. Stažnik;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated in private on 12 December 2023,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the applicant’s alleged ill-treatment by prison officers and the lack of an effective investigation into the incident. 2. In the morning of 6 October 2016, the applicant was randomly selected to witness a search of his cell conducted by five prison officers, while his cellmates waited outside. He was warned not to touch anything inside the cell while the search was taking place. 3. According to the Government, the applicant had asked if he could take his socks and he was told that he could not. At one point, one of the officers noticed that the applicant had put something in his mouth and ordered him to stop and spit out what he had put in the mouth. The applicant replied that he had swallowed a subtoxone tablet. The officers then ordered the applicant to lie down, which he did and then two officers laid him with his chest against the floor, while an officer held him by the neck and head. Two other officers were holding the applicant’s arms behind his back, until he was handcuffed. 4. According to the applicant, he had asked whether he could take his socks because he was cold and, since nobody replied, he had reached to take his socks. At that moment, the officers stopped him by throwing him on the floor and hitting him on the head and body several times. 5. In the early evening, the prison nurse noticed bruises on the applicant’s left temple and behind his ear, after which he was taken to the hospital. He was diagnosed with two fractured ribs, pneumothorax, several scratches and blow marks on the left side of the chest, neck and head, as well as blows to the left temporal area and the left earlobe. The applicant underwent surgery and remained hospitalised until 14 October 2016. 6. Following the incident, an inspection ordered by the competent Ministry was conducted but its results, noted in a report dated 21 October 2016, were inconclusive since it had not been possible to determine the exact circumstances in which the applicant had suffered the injuries. 7. On 19 May 2017 the applicant filed a criminal complaint with the Split Municipal State Attorney’s Office against unknown prison employees complaining about their cruel and degrading treatment, inflicting serious bodily injury and committing abuse of authority. 8. During the investigation, the inspection report had been obtained (see paragraph 6 above), as well as a forensic expert opinion by a certified court expert. The latter concluded that the applicant’s rib fracture could have been caused by a single blow with a blunt hard object (such as a fist or a foot with a shoe on it) with high intensity force, or by a spontaneous or forced fall on an angular blunt hard object such as the edge of a stair, a bed or a cupboard. His hematomas on the left earlobe and temporal region of the head could have been caused by one or two blows with a blunt hard object (an open or a closed fist) with low to medium intensity force, but also by the head hitting a blunt hard object. Finally, hematomas on the left side of his neck could have been caused by pressing the neck with a fist or in a so-called “tie” position with lower or medium intensity force, or by hitting with a blunt hard object with medium intensity force. 9. On 31 January 2018 the Split Municipal State Attorney’s Office dismissed the applicant’s criminal complaint for serious bodily injury concluding that, since the medical expert opinion had allowed for the possibility of several different ways in which the applicant’s injuries could have come about, there was no reasonable suspicion that the suspected prison officers had intentionally inflicted those injuries on the applicant. The applicant did not take over the prosecution. 10. The applicant complained, under Article 3 of the Convention, about his ill-treatment by prison officers and the lack of an effective investigation into the incident.

Outcome for Article 3: violation