t, 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. Thus, the investigation of serious allegations of ill-treatment must 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 investigation or as the basis of their decisions. They must take all reasonable steps available to them to secure the evidence concerning the incident, including, inter alia, eyewitness testimony, forensic evidence, and so on. Any deficiency in the investigation which undermines its ability to establish the cause of injuries or the identity of the persons responsible will risk falling foul of this standard (see, among many authorities, Mikheyev, cited above, § 107 et seq., and Assenov and Others v. Bulgaria, judgment of 28 October 1998, Reports 1998-VIII, § 102 et seq.).
55. On the basis of the evidence adduced in the present case, the Court has found that the respondent State is responsible under Article 3 for the ill-treatment of the applicant (see paragraph 53 above). The applicant's complaint in this regard is therefore "arguable". The authorities thus had an obligation to carry out an effective investigation into the circumstances in which the applicant sustained his injuries (see Krastanov v. Bulgaria, No. 50222/99, § 58, 30 September 2004).
56. In this connection, the Court notes that the prosecution authorities who were made aware of the applicant's beating carried out a preliminary inquiry which did not result in criminal prosecutions against the perpetrators of the beating. The applicant's ill-treatment complaints were also a subject of the examination by the domestic courts at the two levels of jurisdiction. In the Court's opinion, the issue is consequently not so much whether there was an inquiry, since the parties did not dispute that there was one, as whether it was conducted diligently, whether the authorities were determined to identify and prosecute those responsible and, accordingly, whether the inquiry was "effective".
57. The Court reiterates that the applicant was entirely reliant on the prosecutor to assemble the evidence necessary to corroborate his complaint. The prosecutor had the legal powers to interview the police officers, summon witnesses, visit the scene of the incident, collect forensic evidence and take all other crucial steps for establishing the truth of the applicant's account. His role was critical not only to the pursuit of criminal proceedings against the perpetrators of the offences but also to the pursuit by the applicant of other remedies to redress the harm he had suffered (see paragraph 28 above).
58. The Court will therefore first assess the promptness of the prosecutor's investigation, viewed as a gauge of the authorities' determination to prosecute those responsible for the applicant's ill-treatment (see Selmouni v. France [GC], No. 25803/94, §§ 78 and 79, ECHR 1999-V). In the present case the applicant complained of ill-treatment to the Oktyabrskiy District Prosecutor on 9 August 2001 (see paragraph 13 above). It appears that the prosecutor's office launched its inquiry immediately after being notified of the alleged beatings.
59. However, with regard to the thoroughness of the inquiry, the Court notes some discrepancies capable of undermining its reliability and effectiveness. Firstly, a thorough evaluation was not carried out with respect to the quantity and nature of the applicant's injuries. The Court has already found it striking that the initial examination of the applicant by a fo
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