tenced him to 15 years' imprisonment. The applicant was detained in the court room immediately after the pronouncement of his sentence. By a judgment of 12 February 2003, the Supreme Court of Russia upheld the conviction on appeal.
THE LAW
I. Alleged violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention
10. The applicant complained that the length of the proceedings had been incompatible with the "reasonable time" requirement, laid down in Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, which, in so far as relevant, reads as follows:
"In the determination of... any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a... hearing within a reasonable time by [a]... tribunal..."
11. The Government contested that argument.
A. Admissibility
12. The Court considers that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. It further notes that it is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.
B. Merits
1. Submissions by the parties
13. The Government submitted that the period under consideration had begun on 18 August 2000, when the applicant had been charged in the course of the additional investigation, and had ended on 18 September 2001, when the first-instance court had delivered its judgment. They argued that the criminal proceedings had been particularly complex in view of the remoteness of the events (the murder took place in 1989), the large number of victims and defendants (seven and three respectively) and the large number of documents in the case file (twenty-nine volumes). The Government also asserted that the studying of the case documents by the defendants' legal counsel, including the applicant's lawyer, and repeated applications put forward by the defence in the course of the court's proceedings had somewhat impeded the examination of the case.
14. According to the applicant, the whole period from 4 September 1996 until 12 February 2003 should be assessed by the Court. He further argued that though the events that had triggered the additional investigation had indeed taken place in 1989, they had already been examined by the domestic courts in 1992 - 1996. The studying of the case documents had taken only twenty-one days out of the ten-month trial. The applications of the defence had been decided by the trial court very quickly. Finally, it had taken the appeal court more than one year and four months to examine his appeal. Therefore, all the delays were attributable to the authorities.
2. The Court's assessment
(a) Period to be taken into consideration
15. The Court reiterates that in criminal matters, the "reasonable time" referred to in Article 6 § 1 begins to run as soon as a person is "charged"; this may occur on a date prior to the case coming before the trial court (see, for example, Deweer v. Belgium, judgment of 27 February 1980, Series A No. 35, § 42), such as the date of arrest, the date when the person concerned was officially notified that he would be prosecuted, or the date when preliminary investigations were opened (see Wemhoff v. Germany, judgment of 27 June 1968, Series A No. 7, § 19; Neumeister v. Austria, judgment of 27 June 1968, Series A No. 8, § 18; and Ringeisen v. Austria, judgment of 16 July 1971, Series A No. 13, § 110). "Charge", for the purposes of Article 6 § 1, may be defined as "the official notification given to an individual by the competent authority of an allegation that he has committed a criminal offence", a definition that also corresponds to the test whether "the situation of the [suspect] has been substantially affected" (see Deweer, cited above, § 46).
16. In the present case, the Court reiterates that the applicant was finally convict
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