Doubt in Favour of the Defendant, Guilty Beyond Reasonable Doubt As to the above case, the Court noted that Mr. Berisha’s statement was made prior to the indictment against the applicant or prior to his situation being “substantially affected”, even though it had surely impacted the proceedings, as it results from the prosecutor’s application and the ruling of the national court. Notwithstanding that, the Court considered crucial that Mr. Berisha could not be regarded as having acted as a public official and that he was not involved in the criminal investigation into the MP’s murder as a police officer, investigator or a prosecutor. He acted as a private individual, in his capacity as the chairman of a political party which was legally and financially independent from the State. His statement, which was made in a heated political climate, could be regarded as his party’s condemnation of the MP’s assassination. Therefore, according to the Court, in the present case, there was no breach of Article 6 (2) of the Convention. On the other hand, the above reasoning appears to be disputable, since, despite what was stated in the judgment, the Court itself did not take in consideration the context of the declaration made by Mr. Berisha: in fact, even though he did not hold any official position, he was one of the most prominent persons in the country and the chairman of a powerful political party. His influence was so relevant that his declaration was quoted both by the prosecutor and the national court. So, despite the decision of the Court, it appears that in the present case there was an infringement of Article 6 (2) since the above statement could certainly influence the judicial authorities involved in the proceedings. In the case of Fatullayev648 the Court outlined a fundamental distinction between a statement which affirms that a person is only suspected of having committed a crime and an adamant statement, in the absence of a final conviction, that an individual has committed the crime. In this case, the applicant was the founder and editor-in-chief of newspapers published in the Azerbaijani and Russian language. The newspapers were widely known for frequently publishing articles which harshly criticised the government and various public officials. On 30 March 2007, one of these newspapers published an article written by the applicant, where he described the possible consequences of Azerbaijan’s support for a “antiIranian” resolution of the United Nations Security Council, evoking the possibility that “the Iranian long-range military air force, thousands of insane kamikaze terrorists and hundreds of Shahab-2 and Shahab-3 missiles” struck some targets on the territory of Azerbaijan, targets which were analytically indicated in the story. Shortly after the publication of the article, the Prosecutor General made a statement to the press, noting that the above article had contained information which constituted a threat of terrorism and that a criminal investigation had been commenced against the applicant. As a consequence of the publication of the article, the 648 148 Fatullayev v. Azerbaijan, no.54204/08, ECHR, 29.04.2015.