Постановление Европейского суда по правам человека от 04.03.2010 «Дело Мохов (Mokhov) против России» [англ.]

trial by prejudicial statements made in close connection with those proceedings. The presumption of innocence enshrined in paragraph 2 of Article 6 is one of the elements of the fair criminal trial that is required by paragraph 1 (see Allenet de Ribemont v. France, 10 February 1995, § 35, Series A No. 308). It prohibits the premature expression by the tribunal itself of the opinion that the person "charged with a criminal offence" is guilty before he has been so proved according to law (see Minelli v. Switzerland, 25 March 1983, § 37, Series A No. 62) but also covers statements made by other public officials about pending criminal investigations which encourage the public to believe the suspect guilty and prejudge the assessment of the facts by the competent judicial authority (see Allenet de Ribemont, cited above, § 41; Daktaras v. Lithuania, No. 42095/98, §§ 41 - 43, ECHR 2000-X; and {Butkevicius} v. Lithuania, No. 48297/99, § 49, ECHR 2002-II).
29. It has been the Court's consistent approach that the presumption of innocence will be violated if a judicial decision or a statement by a public official concerning a person charged with a criminal offence reflects an opinion that he is guilty before he has been proved guilty according to law. It suffices, even in the absence of any formal finding, that there is some reasoning suggesting that the court or the official regards the accused as guilty. A fundamental distinction must be made between a statement that someone is merely suspected of having committed a crime and a clear declaration, in the absence of a final conviction, that an individual has committed the crime in question. The Court has consistently emphasised the importance of the choice of words by public officials in their statements before a person has been tried and found guilty of a particular criminal offence (see {Bohmer} v. Germany, No. 37568/97, §§ 54 and 56, 3 October 2002, and {Nest'ak} v. Slovakia, No. 65559/01, §§ 88 and 89, 27 February 2007).
30. Turning to the facts of the present case, the Court observes that, before the opening of the trial in the applicant's case on charges of murder and robbery, a State television channel broadcast on two occasions a statement by the investigator from the prosecutor's office.
31. As regards the contents of the statement, the Court notes that the investigator stated in affirmative terms that the applicant "had committed... a murder, connected to the robbery and attack" (see paragraph 9 above). This statement was not limited to describing the status of the pending proceedings or a "state of suspicion" against the applicant but represented, as an established fact, without any qualification or reservation, that he had committed the offences, without even mentioning that he denied it. In addition, the investigator emphasised that the murder in question had been committed while the investigation on other charges against the applicant had been pending, thus portraying him as a hardened criminal.
32. The Court considers that this statement by the public official amounted to a declaration of the applicant's guilt and prejudged the assessment of the facts by the competent judicial authority. Given that the investigator represented the prosecuting authorities when interviewed, he should have exercised particular caution in his choice of words when describing the criminal proceedings pending against the applicant (see, mutatis mutandis, Khuzhin and Others v. Russia, No. 13470/02, § 96, 23 October 2008). The Court does not share the Government's view that the applicant's subsequent conviction could have been of any significance in this respect. Therefore, it considers that the investigator's statements must have encouraged the public to consider the applicant a murderer before he had been proved guilty according to law. Accordingly, the Court finds that there was a breach of the presumption of innoce



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