at the trial.
14. By a judgment of 20 November 2000, the Cheremushkinskiy District Court of Moscow found the applicant guilty of unlawfully procuring and being in possession of drugs with the intention of selling them and of selling a large supply of drugs. The trial court sentenced him to nine years' imprisonment. It based its judgment on the following evidence:
i) the statements by the officers who arrested the applicant on 21 October 1999. They stated that on 19 October 1999 they had arrested Ms U, performed a search on her person and seized a large quantity of drugs. Ms U claimed that she had just bought the drugs from the applicant and offered to assist the officers in the applicant's arrest. She called the applicant on the telephone and asked for drugs. The applicant agreed and fixed a meeting for 21 October 1999. The police arrested the applicant at that meeting, performed a search on his person and seized a large quantity of drugs;
ii) the deposition by Ms U made during the pre-trial investigation in which she confirmed the statements made by the officers. In her oral testimony at the trial Ms U retracted her earlier deposition;
iii) the statements by eyewitnesses who were present during the applicant's arrest and search on 21 October 1999 and who testified that a large quantity of drugs had been seized from the applicant;
iv) the depositions by an attesting witness, Ms S, who was present at the arrest of Ms U on 19 October 1999. In her depositions made during the pre-trial investigation Ms S confirmed the statements by the police officers. However, at the trial she partly retracted them, claiming that she had not heard Ms U mention the applicant's name and that she had signed a blank sheet of paper which was later filled in by the police;
v) the reports on the applicant's and Ms U's arrest and search;
vi) the expert reports confirming that the substances seized from the applicant and Ms U were heroin;
vii) the report on the medical examination of the applicant, according to which the applicant was in a state of drug intoxication.
15. The trial court rejected the applicant's allegation of ill-treatment with reference to the statements by the police officers and the prosecutor's decision not to open a criminal case against them.
16. The applicant appealed against the trial judgment arguing inter alia in his additional statement of appeal as follows:
"[T]he court arbitrarily refused the defence's application to examine as witnesses Ms Y, Ms R, Ms B and three other persons who could confirm [the applicant's] alibi, namely the fact of his presence at home between noon and 3 p.m. on 19 October 1999. That refutes his involvement in the offences of which he has been charged by the prosecution on the basis of Ms U's pre-trial statement made under duress... No other evidence of the applicant's guilt has been adduced..."
On 21 February 2001 the Moscow City Court upheld the trial judgment. It did not address the trial court's refusal to hear witnesses on the applicant's behalf.
17. On 6 February 2003 the Presidium of the City Court, sitting as a supervisory-review court, reduced the applicant's sentence to seven years' imprisonment. On 22 April 2004 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation examined an application by the applicant for supervisory review. It found that no conclusive evidence had been adduced confirming that the applicant had intended to sell heroin to Ms U on 21 October 1999. The Supreme Court upheld the applicant's conviction for procurement and possession of heroin on 21 October 1999 and his conviction in relation to the episode on 19 October 1999. The Supreme Court reduced the applicant's prison sentence to four years and six months.
II. Relevant domestic law
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