C O M P A R AT I V E S T U D Y was formally charged with aiding and abetting murder and was taken into custody where he stayed under detention on remand. He was released after three months of detention on remand with a discharge order was finally issued after three years. After having been released, Mr. Allenet de Ribemont submitted a claim for compensation based on Article 6 par. 2 of the Convention, but the claim was dismissed by the national courts: more specifically Mr. Allener sought compensation of ten million French francs for the non-pecuniary and pecuniary damage he maintained he had sustained on account of the above statements by the Minister of the Interior and senior police officials. ECHR stated that Government of France had wrongly argued that presumption of innocence could be infringed only by a judicial authority. On the contrary, the Court acknowledged that the principle of presumption of innocence was above all a procedural safeguard in criminal proceedings, but that its scope was more extensive, and that it imposed obligations not only on criminal courts but also on other authorities. The Court stated that Article 6 (2) is surely violated if a judicial decision concerning a defendant reflected an opinion that the person is guilty before he has been proven so by law, specifying that “It suffices, even in the absence of any formal finding, that there is some reasoning suggesting that the court regards the accused as guilty”639; but the Court also stressed that presumption of innocence may be infringed not only by a judge or court but also by other public authorities. At the time of the press conference, some of the highest-ranking officers in the French police referred to Mr. Allenet de Ribemont, without any qualification or reservation, as one of the instigators of a murder and thus an accomplice in that murder. This was clearly a declaration of the applicant’s guilt which, firstly, encouraged the public to believe him guilty and, secondly, prejudged the assessment of the facts by the competent judicial authority. Therefore the Court stated that there had been a breach of Article 6 (2). In the case of Krause640 the Commission has stated the following: “Article 6 (2), therefore, may be violated by public officials if they declare that somebody is responsible for criminal acts without a court having found so. This does not mean, of course, that the authorities may not inform the public about criminal investigations. They do not violate Article 6 (2) if they state that a suspicion exists, that people have been arrested, that they have confessed etc. What is excluded, however, is a formal declaration that somebody is guilty”. In that case, the applicant was arrested under suspicion of having committed various offences and was placed in solitary detention on remand. Before the commencement of the main trial, the Head of the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police was interviewed on 639 640 Ibid. §35. Krause v. Switzerland, no.13126/87, ECHR, 20 May 1992. 143