46 MAMATKULOV AND ASKAROV v. TURKEY JUDGMENT – JOINT PARTLY DISSENTING OPINION Uzbekistan, the majority of the Court consider that those findings did not support the specific allegations made by the applicants in the instant case and required corroboration by other evidence (see paragraph 73 of the judgment). It is their view that insufficient corroborative evidence has been adduced to enable the Court to conclude that substantial grounds existed at the date of the applicants' extradition to believe that they faced a real risk of treatment proscribed by Article 3 (see paragraph 77 of the judgment). 7. We cannot agree that the undisputed findings concerning the general situation in Uzbekistan afford no support for the specific allegations of the applicants that they ran a real risk of ill-treatment if returned to that country. We consider that, on the contrary, the findings provide strong grounds for believing that the applicants were at particular risk of such treatment. Not only were both applicants members of Erk but both were arrested in March 1999 (shortly after the reported terrorist bomb attacks in Tashkent) on suspicion of homicide, causing injuries by explosions and an attempted terrorist attack on the President of Uzbekistan himself. 8. It is unclear to us what further corroborative evidence could reasonably be expected of the applicants, particularly in a case such as the present, where it was Turkey's failure to comply with the interim measures indicated by the Court which has prevented the Court from carrying out a full and effective examination of the application in accordance with its normal procedures. In such a situation, we consider that the Court should be slow to reject a complaint under Article 3 in the absence of compelling evidence to dispel the fears which formed the basis of the application of Rule 39. 9. In concluding that the required level of risk had not been sufficiently shown, the majority of the Court place reliance on three particular features of the case – the assurances given by the Uzbek government; the statement by the Public Prosecutor of the Republic of Uzbekistan, which accompanied those assurances, to the effect that Uzbekistan was a party to the United Nations Convention against Torture and accepted and reaffirmed its obligation to comply with the requirements of that convention; and the medical reports from the doctors of the Uzbek prisons in which the two applicants were being held. 10. We do not consider any of these factors to be compelling or to be sufficient, either individually or collectively, to allay the serious concerns concerning the treatment which was liable to await the applicants on their return. As to the assurances, we find it striking that the only assurance which was received prior to the applicants' surrender (namely, that of 9 March 1999) was not even communicated to the Court until 19 April 1999, well after the application of Rule 39 and after the extradition had been effected in disregard of the Court's interim measures. Moreover, an assurance, even one given in good faith, that an individual will not be