C O M P A R AT I V E S T U D Y having conducted internal investigation in his company, informed the petrol company that the applicant’s employee G.N. confessed he had been stealing petrol, but was refusing to pay for the damage, so the applicant suggested to the petrol company that they should inform the police. Few months later the employee G.N. complained to the Police that people from the security company where he was employed, threatened him with violence in order to obtain money from him and that he was illegally held in detention. The next day the Prosecution opened an investigation against the applicant and another employee in his company. Three days later the applicant was arrested. The first arrest ended with the applicant being placed in house arrest, to be released on bail later on by the Court of Appeal. In the meantime, his company licence was revoked and the applicant informed the media that the prosecution and his arrest were a result of the intent of the Ministry of Interior to monopolize the security services market by destroying competitors, including his company. Then, the applicant was arrested again with expanded criminal investigation against him and two others, for alleged blackmailing of two potential victims. National Court ordered detention and the national Appellate Court upheld that decision. The ECHR found that although the complaint lodged by G.N. to the Police did not directly indicate the applicant’s name, the only ground cited by the prosecuting authority when arresting the applicant and when requesting the court to order his pre-trial detention was that the victim G.N. had directly identified him as the perpetrator of a crime. So for the Court “It is unclear why his name was included in that decision at the very start of the investigation and before further evidence could be obtained.”626 Moreover, the Court noted that “the domestic court, when examining the request for a detention order (…), established that at least one of the aspects of G.N.’s complaint was abusive (…). This should have cast doubt on G.N.’s credibility. The conflict he had with the company’s administration (…) gives further reasons to doubt his motives. However, rather than verifying this information, which was easily obtainable from the law enforcement authorities, particularly given the large number of prosecutors assigned to the case, the prosecutor arrested the applicant partly on the basis of his alleged kidnapping of G.N. This lends support to the applicant’s claim that the investigating authorities did not genuinely verify the facts in order to determine the existence of a reasonable suspicion that he had committed a crime, but rather pursued his arrest, allegedly for private interests. (…)”627 The Court concluded according to the information in its possession “ does not satisfy an objective observer that the person concerned may have committed the offence”628. There was, accordingly, a violation of Article 5 Ibid. §70. Ibid. §72. 628 Ibid. §73. 626 627 137