ely, mainly, or partly - by the treatment he underwent while in police custody (see the Ribitsch, cited above, § 34).
48. As to the seriousness of the acts of ill-treatment, the Court reiterates that in order to determine whether a particular form of ill-treatment should be qualified as torture, it must have regard to the distinction, embodied in Article 3, between this notion and that of inhuman or degrading treatment. It appears that it was the intention that the Convention should, by means of this distinction, attach a special stigma to deliberate inhuman treatment causing very serious and cruel suffering. The Court has previously had before it cases in which it has found that there has been treatment which could only be described as torture (see Aksoy v. Turkey, 18 December 1996, § 64, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996-VI; {Aydin} v. Turkey, 25 September 1997, §§ 83 and 84 and 86, Reports 1997-VI; Selmouni, cited above, § 105; Dikme v. Turkey, No. 20869/92, §§ 94 - 96, ECHR 2000-VIII; and, among recent authorities, {Bati} and Others v. Turkey, Nos. 33097/96 and 57834/00, § 116, ECHR 2004-... (extracts), as well as Menesheva v. Russia, No. 59261/00, § 55, ECHR 2006-...).
49. Furthermore, the Court reiterates its well-established case-law that in respect of a person deprived of his liberty, any recourse to physical force which has not been made strictly necessary by his own conduct diminishes human dignity and is in principle an infringement of the right set forth in Article 3 of the Convention. It observes that the requirements of an investigation and the undeniable difficulties inherent in the fight against crime cannot justify placing limits on the protection to be afforded in respect of the physical integrity of individuals (see Tomasi, § 115, and Ribitsch, §§ 38 - 40, both cited above).
50. Turning to the circumstances of the present case the Court reiterates that, as follows from the applicant's description of the treatment he was subjected to, and the medical information in the case-file, the beatings complained of led to a bruise on his back in the right lumbar region and to the fact that his right temple area was sensitive to palpation which, however, did not lead to the establishment of any harm to the applicant's health (see § 13 above). Although the Court has found this unacceptable treatment to be deliberate it does not consider that it caused such serious injuries or suffering or was of such a cruel nature that it should be characterised as torture within the meaning of Article 3 of the Convention. Thus, the Court concludes that, taken as a whole, the ill-treatment amounted to inhuman treatment within the meaning of that provision.
51. Accordingly, there has been a breach of Article 3 of the Convention.
2. Alleged failure to carry out an effective investigation
(a) General principles
52. The Court reiterates that where an individual makes a credible assertion that he has suffered treatment infringing Article 3 at the hands of the police or other similar agents of the State, 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. As with an investigation under Article 2, such an investigation should be capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible. Otherwise, the general legal prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment would, despite its fundamental importance, be ineffective in practice and it would be possible in some cases for agents of the State to abuse the rights of those within their control with virtual impunity (see Jasar v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, No. 69908/01, § 55, 15 February 2007;
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