under Article 3 in respect of these injuries.
41. Having regard to the material in its possession and to the parties' submissions before it, the Court answers this question in the negative. In the Court's view, the use of force against the applicant had been lawful and strictly necessary, in response to the applicant's unruly behaviour.
42. The Court accepts the Government's explanation that the altercation between the applicant and L., a prison guard who used the rubber truncheon to subdue the applicant, had taken place in a narrow doorway and that the other officers present could not have come to L.'s rescue.
43. Furthermore, the Court observes that the applicant was refusing to comply with the legitimate orders of the remand prison personnel. He swore at the officers, pushed them out of the cell and grabbed one of them by the arms. The Court accepts that in these circumstances the officers needed to resort to physical force in order to enter the cell and search the applicant.
44. In these circumstances, the Court cannot conclude that on 30 July 2005 the use of a rubber truncheon by a prison guard to restrain the applicant amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention. While the applicant experienced certain mental and physical suffering as a result of the altercation with the remand prison officers, the use of force against him cannot be held to have been excessive. It follows that there has been no violation of Article 3 of the Convention under its substantive limb.
2. Adequacy of the investigation
45. The Court reiterates that where an individual raises an arguable claim that he has been seriously ill-treated by the police or other such agents of the State unlawfully and in breach of Article 3, that provision, read in conjunction with the State's general duty under Article 1 of the Convention to "secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in... [the] Convention", requires by implication that there should be an effective official investigation. This investigation should be capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible (see Assenov and Others, cited above, § 102).
46. An obligation to investigate "is not an obligation of result, but of means": not every investigation should necessarily be successful or come to a conclusion which coincides with the claimant's account of events; however, it should in principle be capable of leading to the establishment of the facts of the case and, if the allegations prove to be true, to the identification and punishment of those responsible (see Paul and Audrey Edwards v. the United Kingdom, No. 46477/99, § 71, ECHR 2002-II, and Mahmut Kaya v. Turkey, No. 22535/93, § 124, ECHR 2000-III).
47. An investigation into serious allegations of ill-treatment must be thorough. That means that the authorities must always make a serious attempt to find out what happened and should not rely on hasty or ill-founded conclusions to close their investigation or as the basis for their decisions (see Assenov and Others, cited above, §§ 103 et seq.). They must take all reasonable steps available to them to secure evidence concerning the incident, including, inter alia, eyewitness testimony and forensic evidence (see, mutatis mutandis, Salman v. Turkey [GC], No. 21986/93, § 106, ECHR 2000-VII; {Tanrikulu} v. Turkey [GC], No. 23763/94, §§ 104 et seq., ECHR 1999-IV; and {Gul} v. Turkey, No. 22676/93, § 89, 14 December 2000). Any deficiency in the investigation which undermines its ability to establish the cause of injuries or the identity of the persons responsible will risk falling foul of this standard.
48. Furthermore, the investigation must be expeditious. In cases examined under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention, where the effectiveness of the official investiga
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