urn the case to the prosecutor for five days so that he could remedy these defects. It also rejected applications for release by the applicant and his co-defendants, noting that the preventive measure had been imposed lawfully and that there were no grounds for varying it.
21. The applicant lodged an appeal, which was dismissed on 9 June 2004 by the Tula Regional Court. Its decision stated that the grounds for holding the defendants in custody still obtained and that the Code of Criminal Procedure did not require that a court set a time-limit for detention when returning a case to a prosecutor.
22. On 17 May 2004 the prosecutor again sent the case for trial.
23. On 31 May 2004 the Uzlovaya Town Court set the opening date for the trial and held that all three defendants should remain in custody, without citing any grounds for the continuation of their detention on remand or setting a time-limit for it. On 7 June 2004 the applicant appealed against that decision. On 23 August and 20 October 2004 he asked the President of the Uzlovaya Town Court whether his appeal had been considered. He did not receive any response to his enquiry. According to the Government, his statement of appeal had been received by the Town Court on 11 June 2004 but, for reasons that remained unknown, it had not been forwarded to the Tula Regional Court for consideration.
24. On 4 November 2004 the Uzlovaya Town Court heard an application by the prosecutor for a further extension of the applicant's detention. The applicant and his co-defendants pleaded for release, maintaining that the initial six-month period of their detention pending trial had expired on 9 October 2004.
25. The Town Court held that the six-month period of detention should be calculated from the date when the case had been sent for trial again, that is, from 17 May 2004. It extended all the co-defendants' detention by three months, citing as the ground the complexity of the case and the large number of victims and witnesses who had not yet been examined. The applicant appealed. On 17 December 2004 the Tula Regional Court dismissed his appeal in a summary fashion, endorsing the reasoning of the Town Court.
26. On 10 February 2005 the Uzlovaya Town Court granted a further extension of the defendants' detention until 17 May 2005. On 15 April 2005 the Tula Regional Court upheld that decision on an appeal by the applicant.
27. On 19 July 2005 the Town Court convicted the defendants of four robberies and sentenced the applicant to nine years' imprisonment in a high-security institution.
28. In his statement of appeal the applicant complained, in particular, that his presumption of innocence had been compromised by publications in local newspapers which quoted high-ranking police officials.
29. The applicant submitted copies of three articles published in the regional press in 2004. The articles described the robbery of the hospital and two other robberies for which the applicant and his co-defendants were said to be responsible. The perpetrators were described as "jackals from Petelino", "robbers" or a "gang". The same photograph accompanied all three articles; the face and upper body of the person on the photograph were covered with a jacket.
30. On 25 January 2006 the Tula Regional Court dismissed the appeal. With regard to the newspaper publication, it held that "information in the mass media about the robbery committed in the regional psychiatric hospital [was] not a violation of the convict Shulenkov's rights".
II. Relevant domestic law
31. The Russian Constitution provides that a judicial decision is required before a defendant can be detained or his or her detention extended (Article 22).
32. The Code of Criminal Procedure ("CCrP") provides that the term of detention "during the trial" (that is, after the case has
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