period(s).
25. The applicant maintained his complaint.
2. The Court's assessment
(a) General principles
26. The Court reiterates that for treatment to be regarded as degrading or inhuman for the purposes of Article 3 of the Convention it must attain a minimum level of severity (see Price v. the United Kingdom, No. 33394/96, § 24, ECHR 2001-VII). When assessing conditions of detention, account has to be taken of the cumulative effects of those conditions, as well as the specific allegations made by the applicant. This being so, the Court cannot decide, once and for all, how much personal space should be allocated to a detainee in terms of the Convention (see Trepashkin v. Russia, No. 36898/03, § 92, 19 July 2007).
27. The Court further reiterates that allegations of ill-treatment must be supported by appropriate evidence. In assessing evidence, the Court has generally applied the standard of proof "beyond reasonable doubt" (see Ireland v. the United Kingdom, 18 January 1978, § 161, Series A No. 25). However, such proof may follow from the coexistence of sufficiently strong, clear and concordant inferences or of similar unrebutted presumptions of fact. Convention proceedings, such as those arising from the present application, do not in all cases lend themselves to a rigorous application of the principle affirmanti incumbit probatio (he who alleges something must prove that allegation), as in certain instances the respondent Government alone have access to information capable of corroborating or refuting allegations. Failure on a Government's part to submit such information without a satisfactory explanation may give rise to the drawing of inferences as to the well-foundedness of the applicant's allegations (see Ahmet {Ozkan} and Others v. Turkey, No. 21689/93, § 426, 6 April 2004).
(b) Application of the principles in the present case
28. The Court observes that the applicant did not maintain any particular allegations concerning cell No. 53. As to cell No. 163, apparently assigned at the time to former law enforcement officers, the Court observes that the parties are in disagreement as to the conditions of detention, but not regarding the cell size (twenty-one square metres).
29. It can be seen from the Government's submissions that the applicant was afforded no less than four square metres of the cell space, given that the cell population never exceeded five persons. The applicant, however, insisted that the cell population, especially in 2001 and 2002, had varied between eight and twenty persons, so that he had normally not been afforded more than two square metres of cell space.
30. The Court first reiterates that the national authorities acknowledged that some unspecified cells in 2001 and 2002 were overpopulated by national standards (see paragraph 17 above). The applicant relied on the above information when he raised the related complaint before this Court.
31. The Court further notes that, in their turn, the Government submitted that the primary evidence concerning the number of inmates in the cells had been destroyed owing to the expiry of the retention period (see paragraph 14 above). While it has not been alleged that the relevant registers were destroyed in breach of the time limits set in the national legislation, it was not explained why the register concerning the year 2003 had been destroyed already in August 2004 (see paragraph 14 above).
32. Furthermore, in their plea concerning the number of detainees, the Government relied on statements by the facility's acting director indicating the number of the applicant's fellow inmates. While accepting that the facility's registers had been destroyed, the Court considers it extraordinary that years after the applicant's detention in that facility had come to an end, the prison staff were able to re
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