the defendants should remain in custody" (see paragraphs 16 and 17 above). It is even more striking that by that time the applicant had already spent a year in custody, the investigation had been completed and the case had been referred for trial.
59. After the case had been submitted for trial in April 2004 the trial court issued collective detention orders using the same stereotyped formula to extend the detention of six persons. The Court has already found that the practice of issuing collective detention orders without a case-by-case assessment of the grounds for detention in respect of each detainee was incompatible, in itself, with Article 5 § 3 of the Convention (see Shcheglyuk v. Russia, No. 7649/02, § 45, 14 December 2006; Korchuganova, cited above, § 76; and Dolgova v. Russia, No. 11886/05, § 49, 2 March 2006). By extending the applicant's detention by means of collective detention orders the domestic authorities had no proper regard to his individual circumstances.
60. Lastly, the Court notes that the domestic authorities explicitly refused to consider whether the length of the applicant's detention had exceeded a "reasonable time" (see paragraphs 28 and 34 above). Such an analysis should have been particularly prominent in the domestic decisions after the applicant had spent several years in custody; however, the reasonable-time test has never been applied.
61. The Court has frequently found a violation of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention in Russian cases where the domestic courts extended an applicant's detention relying essentially on the gravity of the charges and using stereotyped formulae without addressing specific facts or considering alternative preventive measures (see Belevitskiy v. Russia, No. 72967/01, §§ 99 et seq., 1 March 2007; Khudobin v. Russia, No. 59696/00, §§ 103 et seq., ECHR 2006-... (extracts); Mamedova v. Russia, No. 7064/05, §§ 72 et seq., 1 June 2006; Dolgova, cited above, §§ 38 et seq.; Khudoyorov v. Russia, No. 6847/02, §§ 172 et seq., ECHR 2005-X (extracts); Rokhlina v Russia, cited above, §§ 63 et seq.; Panchenko v. Russia, cited above, §§ 91 et seq.; and Smirnova v. Russia, Nos. 46133/99 and 48183/99, §§ 56 et seq., ECHR 2003-IX (extracts)).
62. Having regard to the above, the Court considers that by failing to address specific facts or consider alternative "preventive measures" and by relying essentially on the gravity of the charges, the authorities extended the applicant's detention on grounds which, although "relevant", cannot be regarded as "sufficient" to justify its duration for more than five years. In these circumstances it would not be necessary to examine whether the proceedings were conducted with "special diligence". However, the Court will address the Government's argument that the complexity of the applicant's case accounted for the length of his detention. It accepts that in cases concerning organised crime, involving numerous defendants, the process of gathering and hearing evidence is often a difficult task, as it is necessary to obtain voluminous evidence from many sources and to determine the facts and degree of alleged responsibility of each of the co-suspects (see, mutadis mutandis, {Laszkiewicz} v. Poland, No. 28481/03, §§ 59 and 61, 15 January 2008). However, it has already found, in similar circumstances, that the complexity of the case, the number or the conduct of the defendants could not justify more than five years' detention pending investigation and trial (see Erdem v. Germany, No. 38321/97, § 46, ECHR 2001-VII (extracts)).
63. There has therefore been a violation of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention.
II. Alleged violation of Article 5 § 4 of the Convention
64. The applicant further complained under Article 6 § 3 (b) that he had been refused access to the materials submitted by the prosecution in support of their requests for an ext
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