TEIXEIRA DE CASTRO JUDGMENT OF 9 JUNE 1998 9 “In the determination of ... any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair ... hearing … time by [a] ... tribunal...” He maintained that he had no previous convictions and would never have committed the offence had it not been for the intervention of those “agents provocateurs”. In addition, the police officers had acted on their own initiative without any supervision by the courts and without there having been any preliminary investigation. 32. The Government submitted that a large number of States, including most members of the Council of Europe, accepted the use of special investigative measures, in particular in the fight against drug trafficking. Society had to find techniques for containing that type of criminal activity, which destroyed the foundations of democratic societies. Article 52 of Legislative Decree no. 430/83, which was applicable to the facts of the present case – and indeed the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988 and the Council of Europe Convention of 1990 on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime –, thus allowed the use of undercover agents, whose role had however nothing in common with the activity of “agents provocateurs”. Furthermore, Article 126 §§ 1 and 2 (a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure laid down high standards that had to be met if the means used for obtaining evidence were to be considered legitimate and lawful. The two police officers involved in the present case could not be described as “agents provocateurs”. A distinction had to be drawn between cases where the undercover agent’s action created a criminal intent that had previously been absent and those in which the offender had already been predisposed to commit the offence. In the instant case, the officers had merely exposed a latent pre-existing criminal intent by providing Mr Teixeira de Castro with the opportunity of carrying it through. F.O. (one of the co-accused) had not pressed the applicant, who had immediately shown interest in obtaining the drugs and carrying out the transaction. In addition, when arrested, the applicant had been in possession of more drugs than had been requested by the “buyers”. Lastly, during the proceedings Mr Teixeira de Castro had had an opportunity to question both the two police officers and the other witnesses and to confront them. The Supreme Court had based its assessment not only on the police officers’ intervention but also on other evidence. There was nothing to suggest that the fairness of the trial had been undermined. 33. The Commission considered that the offence had been committed and the applicant sentenced to what was a fairly heavy penalty essentially, if not exclusively, as a result of the police officers’ actions. The officers had thus incited criminal activity which might not otherwise have taken place. That situation had irremediably affected the fairness of the proceedings. 34. The Court reiterates that the admissibility of evidence is primarily a matter for regulation by national law and as a general rule it is for the