FIFTH SECTIONCASE OF NAYYEM v. UKRAINE(Application no. 21174/23)      JUDGMENT STRASBOURG18 December 2025 This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.In the case of Nayyem v. Ukraine,The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of: Gilberto Felici, President, Mykola Gnatovskyy, Vahe Grigoryan, judges,and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,Having regard to:the application (no. 21174/23) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 20 July 2023 by a Ukrainian national, Mr Mustafa-Masi Nayyem (“the applicant”), who was born in 1981, lives in Kyiv and was represented by Ms Y. Naumenko and Ms Y. Kovalenko, lawyers practising in Kyiv;the decision to give notice of the application to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms M. Sokorenko;the parties’ observations; Having deliberated in private on 27 November 2025,Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE1. The application concerns the applicant’s complaint under Article 3 of the Convention that there was no effective investigation into his ill-treatment by private individuals.2. The applicant is a politician. At the material time he was a member of the Ukrainian Parliament.3. According to the applicant and the findings of the domestic pre-trial investigation, on 30 April 2018, during a dispute following a traffic accident, the applicant was beaten and struck several times in the head by a group of private individuals (A., M.-S., M.-A. and U.). M.-A. allegedly punched him in the jaw, while U. held his arms and A. and M.-S. surrounded them, preventing the applicant from leaving. M.-S. also allegedly punched the applicant twice in the head. Subsequently, while the applicant was chasing M.-A., U. allegedly grabbed the applicant by the neck, threw him to the ground and hit him several times. As a result, the applicant sustained a fractured jaw, a closed-head injury, a concussion, and bruises. On the same day a criminal investigation was initiated into the offences of hooliganism[1] and inflicting bodily injuries on the applicant. Subsequently, A., M.-S., and U. were charged with hooliganism, while M.-A. faced charges of hooliganism and causing bodily harm to the applicant. On 1 May 2018 the applicant underwent jaw surgery.4. During the investigation the police questioned the applicant and witnesses, examined video‑recordings of the events from CCTV[2] cameras and conducted a reconstruction of the incident. On 7 March 2019 a forensic medical examination established that the injuries sustained by the applicant were of moderate severity.5. On 30 June 2020 the trial court acquitted A., M.-S. and U. of hooliganism and dismissed a civil claim which had been lodged by the applicant. The Kyiv Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court upheld the acquittal on 17 November 2021 and 20 March 2023 respectively.6. The courts found that the prosecution had failed to provide documents proving that the investigators and prosecutors were authorised to conduct the criminal proceedings and, therefore, to disclose the pre-trial investigation evidence and bring charges against the defendants. As a result, all evidence gathered during the pre-trial stage was deemed inadmissible, and the courts held that A., M.-S., and U. should not have acquired the status of accused persons.7. Among the inadmissible evidence were the video-recordings from CCTV cameras, video analysis reports indicating that the injuries had been inflicted by the defendants, and the results of the forensic examination detailing the severity of the applicant’s injuries and indicating that they could have been caused by the events captured in the recordings. Relying on the testimony of the applicant, A., M.-S., U., and certain witnesses during the trial, the courts concluded that the actions of A., M.-S., and U. had not constituted hooliganism, that it had been the applicant who had provoked and escalated the dispute, and that there had been no admissible evidence other than the applicant’s statements that his injuries had been caused by the defendants who were on trial.8. M.-A., who had fled Ukraine following the incident, was declared wanted and the criminal proceedings against him on the charges of hooliganism and inflicting bodily injuries on the applicant were suspended. A request by the authorities for his extradition from Azerbaijan was rejected. In September 2019, shortly after he had returned to Ukraine and presented himself to the investigator, a preventive measure in the form of house arrest was imposed on him. On 20 April 2021 the criminal proceedings were discontinued on account of the expiry of the limitation period. However, on 11 October 2021 the Kyiv Court of Appeal, in M.-A.’s presence, overturned that decision and remitted the case for a new trial. On 12 December 2022 he was again declared wanted for his failure to appear before the trial court. The criminal proceedings against him are currently suspended. The authorities are unaware of his whereabouts.THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT9. Relying on Articles 3, 6, 8 and 13 of the Convention, the applicant complained that the investigation into his ill-treatment by private individuals had been ineffective. The Court considers that the complaint falls to be examined solely under Article 3 of the Convention (see Muta v. Ukraine, no. 37246/06, § 51, 31 July 2012).aDMISSIBILITY10. The Government submitted that the applicant’s complaint was manifestly ill-founded because the treatment in question had not attained the minimum level of severity to fall within the scope of Article 3 of the Convention. The applicant disagreed with the Government’s assertions. More specifically, he contended that the injuries inflicted on him had been serious and had had a long-term effect on his health.11. The Court dismisses the Government’s objection because the applicant indeed sustained injuries (a fractured jaw, a closed‑head injury, a concussion and bruises) and underwent surgery (see paragraph 3 above).

Outcome for Article 3: violation