Date: 27 November 2007
The applicant, Mr Petru Popovici, known as Micu, is a Moldovan national who was born in 1962. He is currently serving a life sentence in Rezina Prison. In November 2001 he was arrested and placed in detention. Along with ten other persons he was charged with being a member of a criminal gang and with having committed numerous offences, including ten murders and 13 attempted murders.
In March 2003 the Secretary of the Superior Security Council of Moldova, Mr Valeriu Gurbulea, gave an interview to a Russian language newspaper in which he referred to Micu as the “leader of the most important criminal gang”.
On 7 October 2003 Chişinău Court of Appeal acquitted the applicant of all the charges for lack of evidence and ordered his release from custody.
On the same date, he was arrested and placed in administrative detention for 30 days. On the expiry of that period he was remanded in custody on new charges of blackmail. He remained in detention on the basis of periodically renewed decisions until 1 March 2004, when the Supreme Court of Justice examined the appeal lodged by the Prosecutor's Office against the acquittal of 7 October 2003.
The Supreme Court of Justice upheld the prosecutor's appeal, and found the applicant guilty of the majority of the offences as charged. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
The applicant complained under Article 3 of the Convention about being detained in inhuman and degrading conditions between 7 October 2003 and 1 March 2004. He also complained under Article 5 § 3 of the Convention that the courts did not give relevant and sufficient reasons for his pre-trial detention. The applicant also complained under Article 5 § 4 that during the proceedings concerning his remand he and his lawyers had had no access to the materials in his criminal file on the basis of which the courts ordered his detention and that on 17 November 2003 an investigator had been present during their meeting. He also complained that the judges who ordered and extended his pre-trial detention were not independent and impartial. The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 that he had not been assisted by a lawyer during the proceedings before the first-instance court and that neither he nor his lawyer had been present at the hearing of his appeal by the Court of Appeal in the administrative proceedings against him. He also complained that the criminal proceedings against him, which ended with the final judgment of the Supreme Court of Justice of 1 March 2001, had not been fair. The applicant complained under Article 6 § 2 of the Convention that his right to be presumed innocent had been breached. The applicant finally complained under Article 13 of the Convention that he had not had an effective remedy in respect of the alleged breach of Article 3 of the Convention.
(from the official press-release prepared by the Registry Office of the European Court of Human Rights)
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