reply. A complaint lodged with the district prosecutor's office by his mother, acting under a power of attorney, had also been futile as that office had refused to open criminal proceedings against the police officers. The appeals against the refusal to higher prosecutors and courts had turned out to be ineffective as the district prosecutor's office had conspicuously disregarded their instructions and, after each reversal of its decision by the higher prosecutor or the court, had again issued a new refusal to open criminal proceedings.
102. As regards the additional investigation ordered by the regional prosecutor on 21 March 2008, the applicant argued that similar orders had been made before, namely on 5 December 2005 and 9 October 2006, but had not returned any positive results. Additional enquiries had invariably concluded with decisions refusing to open criminal proceedings. Indeed, on 9 June 2008 the district prosecutor's office again, for the ninth time, decided not to investigate the applicant's allegations of ill-treatment, citing the same reasons as had been earlier considered insufficient by higher prosecutors and courts. Therefore, the applicant considered that the domestic authorities had failed to conduct an adequate and effective investigation into his allegations of ill-treatment and that he had not had any effective domestic remedy for his complaint under Article 3.
103. The applicant further maintained that he had been beaten and tortured by electricity in the police department. His allegations had been confirmed by witness statements and medical evidence showing that he had numerous bruises and thermoelectric burns. The Government had not provided a convincing explanation for those injuries.
B. The Court's assessment
1. Admissibility
104. The Court considers that the question whether this complaint is premature in view of the pending investigation and whether the applicant exhausted domestic remedies in respect of his complaint under Article 3 are closely linked to the question of whether the investigation into his allegations of ill-treatment was effective. However, these issues relate to the merits of the applicant's complaints under Article 3 of the Convention. The Court therefore decides to join these issues to the merits.
105. The Court further notes that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. It is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.
2. Merits
(a) Effectiveness of the investigation
106. The Court reiterates that where an individual raises an arguable claim that he has been seriously ill-treated in breach of Article 3, that provision, read in conjunction with the State's general duty under Article 1 of the Convention to "secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in... [the] Convention", requires by implication that there should be an effective official investigation. An obligation to investigate "is not an obligation of result, but of means": not every investigation should necessarily be successful or come to a conclusion which coincides with the claimant's account of events; however, it should in principle be capable of leading to the establishment of the facts of the case and, if the allegations prove to be true, to the identification and punishment of those responsible (see Paul and Audrey Edwards v. the United Kingdom, No. 46477/99, § 71, ECHR 2002-II, and Mahmut Kaya v. Turkey, No. 22535/93, § 124, ECHR 2000-III).
107. An investigation into serious allegations of ill-treatment must therefore be thorough. That means that the authorities must always make a serious attempt to find out what happened and should not rely on hasty or ill-founded conclusions to close their i
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