GÄFGEN v. GERMANY JUDGMENT 7 abuse or had been otherwise influenced. The threat to inflict pain upon the applicant had been illegal pursuant to Article 136a of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and also pursuant to Article 1 and Article 104 § 1 of the Basic Law (see paragraphs 59-60 below) and in violation of Article 3 of the Convention. 27. However, notwithstanding this breach of the applicant’s constitutional rights, the court found that the criminal proceedings were not, in consequence, barred and could proceed. It found that the use of the investigation methods in question, though prohibited in law, had not so restricted the rights of the defence that the criminal proceedings could not be pursued. In view of the seriousness of the charges against the applicant on the one hand, and the severity of the unlawful conduct during investigation on the other, there had not been such an exceptional and intolerable violation of the rule of law as to bar the continuation of the criminal proceedings. 28. In response to the applicant’s second preliminary application, the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court found that, in accordance with Article 136a § 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, all confessions and statements hitherto made by the applicant before the police, a public prosecutor and a district court judge were inadmissible as evidence in the criminal proceedings because they had been obtained through the use of prohibited methods of interrogation. 29. The court found that on 1 October 2002 detective officer E. had used prohibited methods of interrogation within the meaning of Article 136a § 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure by threatening the applicant with intolerable pain if he did not disclose the child’s whereabouts. Therefore, any statements which the applicant had made as a consequence of this forbidden investigative measure were inadmissible as evidence. This exclusion of evidence (Beweisverwertungsverbot) did not only comprise the statements made immediately after the unlawful threat. It covered all further statements which the applicant had made to the investigation authorities since that date in view of the continuous effect of the violation of Article 136a of the Code of Criminal Procedure. 30. The procedural irregularity caused by the use of a prohibited method of investigation could only have been remedied if the applicant had been informed before his subsequent questioning that his earlier statements made as a consequence of the threat of pain could not be used as evidence against him. However, the applicant had only been instructed about his right not to testify, without having been informed about the inadmissibility of the evidence that had been improperly obtained. He had therefore not been given the necessary “qualified instruction” (qualifizierte Belehrung) before making further statements. 31. However, the court limited the inadmissible evidence to the abovementioned statements. It went on to dismiss the applicant’s application for a