European Court of Human Rights

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 51284/09
Anzhelo Angelov GEORGIEV and Others
against Bulgaria
lodged on 1 September 2009

STATEMENT OF FACTS

THE FACTS

The applicants, Mr Anzhelo Angelov Georgiev, Ms Kamelia Ivanova Dekova, Mr Georgi Mirchev Kosev, Mr Nikolay Angelov Dragnev, and Pavel Yonkov Tsekov, are Bulgarian nationals who were born in 1973, 1972, 1986, and 1978 respectively and live in Varna. They are represented before the Court by Ms H. Dimitrova, a lawyer practising in Varna.

A.  The circumstances of the case

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.

The applicants worked for the private company I. which provides Internet services.

On 16 June 2008 the Varna district public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation against an unknown perpetrator on suspicion that he or she had transmitted materials in violation of the intellectual property legislation by using the company’s internal servers.

The prosecutor supervising the case ordered a specialised operation to be carried out in the company’s office in Varna aimed at the seizure of illegal software. The police officers were instructed to enter the company’s premises as quickly as possible and overpower all individuals found there in order to prevent any deletion of information.

On 18 June 2008 masked police officers of the Central Service for Combating Organised Crime (“the CSCOC”) accompanied by policemen of the Varna Regional Police Directorate broke into the company’s office. The applicants alleged that during the operation the policemen had used physical force against them and had injured them.

On 19 June 2008 a forensic expert examined Ms Dekova, Mr Kosev and Mr Tsekov.

According to the medical reports, Ms Dekova had a swollen right upper eyelid and a swelling and a wound next to her right eyebrow, a bruise and an abrasion on her right armpit, four brown-reddish burns on and below the right shoulder blade and a bruise on her right thigh. Mr Kosev had a jaw injury and six reddish strips on the abdomen. Mr Tsekov had three long bruises in the area of the left armpit. The expert concluded that the burns could have been inflicted by electric batons, and the bruises caused by a blow with or against a blunt object.

On an unspecified date the applicants and five other individuals lodged a complaint with the Varna district public prosecutor’s office. On 13 March 2009 the district prosecutor refused to open a criminal investigation against the policemen. He established that when the policemen had tried to enter the company’s building, someone had locked the door and the company’s employees had made an attempt to hide or delete the information sought. The policemen had therefore cut the door lock and had broken into the premises. They then instructed all individuals found there to lie on the floor and refrain from touching the computer equipment. However, the company’s employees had disobeyed the orders and had continued to delete information from their computers. Therefore the policemen had used physical force, electric batons and handcuffs in respect of some of them in order to overcome their resistance and prevent them from touching their computers. During the clash, some employees had been knocked over. Without elaborating further, the public prosecutor stated that these findings were corroborated by the explanations given by those who had been present during the police operation and by documents submitted by the Varna Regional Police Directorate. He further established, on the basis of medical reports, that the complainants had sustained injuries, and noted that the identities of the policemen who had inflicted them were unknown. However, he found that force had been necessary to overcome the complainants’ resistance and to prevent them from destroying very important evidence. He concluded that the policemen had not committed a criminal offence.

Upon appeal by the applicants and one of the other complainants, on 10 April 2009 the Varna regional public prosecutor’s office upheld the decision. It held that the policemen had used force in compliance with the applicable legislation for the purposes of gathering physical evidence.

COMPLAINTS

The applicants complain, relying on Article 13 of the Convention, that they sustained injuries during a specialised police operation and that the prosecuting authorities failed to conduct a thorough and careful investigation of their complaints.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1.  Were Ms Dekova, Mr Kosev and Ms Tsekov subjected to ill-treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention?

2.  Having regard to the procedural protection from inhuman or degrading treatment (see Labita v. Italy [GC], no. 26772/95, § 131, ECHR 2000-IV, Assenov and Others v. Bulgaria, 28 October 1998, § 102, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998-VIII, and Hristovi v. Bulgaria, no. 42697/05, §§ 86-94, 11 October 2011), did the authorities carry out an effective investigation into the allegations of Ms Dekova, Mr Kosev and Ms Tsekov of ill-treatment? The Government are requested to provide information as to the course of the investigation and the evidence gathered, including whether all the police officers who took part in the incident were identified and questioned. The Government are also invited to provide a copy of the full investigation file. Ms Dekova, Mr Kosev and Ms Tsekov are requested to provide a copy of their complaints to the public prosecutor.