tion.
III. As to the consequences to be drawn from
an inadequate and ineffective investigation
15. However, even applying the traditional standard of "proof beyond reasonable doubt", I am of the opinion that the Court should have found a violation of Article 3 in its substantive aspect.
16. The applicant set out his complaint in a coherent and convincing manner. He presented an arguable claim based on credible assertions which, regrettably, did not prompt an effective and thorough official investigation.
17. Consequently, in my view, the inadequacy and ineffectiveness of the investigation into the applicant's complaint amounts not only to a violation of the procedural aspect of the complaint in question. It amounts also to a strong corroboration of the same complaint in its substantive aspects, as there is a serious risk that a deficient investigation covered up guilty behaviour by the members of the police. Indeed, in the present case "the assistant prosecutor confined herself to questioning the investigator and some of the police officers involved" (paragraph 52 of the judgment).
18. As Judge Loucaides rightly pointed out in his dissenting opinion in the case of Petropoulou-Tsakiris v. Greece (No. 44803/04, 6 December 2007), the majority's approach may encourage the authorities to use unacceptable methods of investigation into facts amounting to ill-treatment in respect of individuals such as the applicant or other persons who do not have eyewitnesses to corroborate their complaints of ill-treatment. This is particularly true with regard to violence within the closed environment of a police car and a police station. Or, as Judge Bonello put it in his partly dissenting opinion in the case of {Veznedaroglu} v. Turkey, "[the applicant] has been penalised for not coming up with evidence that the Convention obliges the State to procure" (see paragraph 19 of the opinion).
19. In the case of Ireland v. the United Kingdom (18 January 1978, § 161, Series A No. 25), the Court stated that it
"adopts the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt but adds that such proof may follow from the coexistence of sufficiently strong, clear and concordant inferences or of similar unrebutted presumptions of fact. In this context the [[conduct of the Parties]] <*> when evidence is being obtained has to be taken into account". (emphasis added)" <**>
--------------------------------
<*> В тексте документа вместо жирного шрифта использовано выделение двойными квадратными скобками.
<**> See also the partly dissenting opinion of Judge Loucaides, joined by myself, in the case of Zubayrayev v. Russia (No. 67797/01, 10 January 2008).
20. To sum up, and in the light of the above, I believe that the applicant's version of events is true and I am satisfied that there has been a violation of Article 3 in its substantive aspect.
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