he prison hospital can be compared to one in pre-trial detention. The Court recalls that it has found a violation of Article 3 of the Convention in a number of cases against Russia on account of a lack of personal space afforded to detainees who were confined to their cells for twenty-three hours a day (see Khudoyorov v. Russia, No. 6847/02, § 104 et seq., ECHR 2005-X (extracts); Novoselov v. Russia, No. 66460/01, § 41 et seq., 2 June 2005; and Labzov v. Russia, No. 62208/00, § 41 et seq., 16 June 2005).
44. The Court observes that the parties disagreed as to the specific conditions of the applicant's detention. However, there is no need for the Court to establish the truth of each and every allegation, since it considers that those facts that are not in dispute give it sufficient grounds to make substantive conclusions on whether the conditions of the applicant's detention amounted to treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention.
45. It follows from the Government's submissions concerning cell measurements and number of inmates per cell (see paragraph 19 above) that at different periods of the applicant's confinement to the prison hospital the living area per inmate was 1.9, 2.6 and 3.85 sq. m.; wherein the latter figure represents only a short period of detention from 19 to 26 August 2003. Furthermore, part of the cells' surface was occupied by beds for the occupants, a toilet, which according to the Government was separated by a partition, and a table for four persons. This arrangement left inmates with almost no free space in which they could move.
46. The Court cannot overlook the fact that the applicant's situation was gravely exacerbated by the fact that he had tuberculosis and thus required sufficient circulation of clean air. Instead, he was kept for twenty-three hours a day in cramped conditions with other sick detainees. The Court observes that even the domestic standards, namely, 5 sq. m. per detainee in medico-prophylactic penitentiary institutions (see paragraph 24 above), were not met.
47. Although in the present case there is no indication that there was a positive intention to humiliate or debase the applicant, the Court reiterates that in previous cases where the applicants had at their disposal less than three square metres of personal space, it found that the overcrowding was severe enough to justify in its own right a finding of a violation of Article 3 of the Convention. Accordingly, it was not necessary to assess other aspects of the physical conditions of detention (see Lind v. Russia, No. 25664/05, § 59, 6 December 2007; Andrey Frolov v. Russia, No. 205/02, §§ 47 - 49, 29 March 2007; Mayzit v. Russia, No. 63378/00, § 40, 20 January 2005; and, for even shorter periods of detention, Kantyrev v. Russia, No. 37213/02, §§ 50 - 51, 21 June 2007; and Labzov, cited above, § 44).
48. Having regard to its case-law on the subject and the material submitted by the parties, the Court notes that the Government have not put forward any fact or argument capable of persuading it to reach a different conclusion in the present case. The very fact that the sick applicant was obliged to live, sleep and use the toilet in particularly limited space with other sick inmates, combined with the lack of access to fresh air, was sufficient to cause distress or hardship of an intensity exceeding the unavoidable level of suffering inherent in detention, and arouse in him feelings of fear, anguish and inferiority capable of humiliating and debasing him.
49. There has therefore been a violation of Article 3 of the Convention on account of the conditions of the applicant's detention in the prison hospital ЯМ-401/Б, which must be considered inhuman within the meaning of this provision.
II. Alleged violation of Article 3 of the Convention on
account of infection with tuberculosis and lack of medical
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