16 HARUTYUNYAN v. ARMENIA JUDGMENT admission in evidence of information obtained thereby did not in the circumstances of those cases conflict with the requirements of fairness guaranteed by Article 6 § 1. 63. The Court observes, however, that different considerations apply to evidence recovered by a measure found to violate Article 3. An issue may arise under Article 6 § 1 in respect of evidence obtained in violation of Article 3 of the Convention, even if the admission of such evidence was not decisive in securing the conviction. The use of evidence obtained in violation of Article 3 in criminal proceedings raises serious issues as to the fairness of such proceedings. Incriminating evidence – whether in the form of a confession or real evidence – obtained as a result of acts of violence or brutality or other forms of treatment which can be characterised as torture should never be relied on as proof of the victim’s guilt, irrespective of its probative value. Any other conclusion would only serve to legitimate indirectly the sort of morally reprehensible conduct which the authors of Article 3 of the Convention sought to proscribe or, in other words, to “afford brutality the cloak of law” (see, as the most recent authority, Jalloh v. Germany [GC], no. 54810/00, §§ 99 and 105, ECHR 2006-IX). 64. In the present case, the Court notes that the applicant was coerced into making confession statements and witnesses T. and A. into making statements substantiating the applicant’s guilt. This fact was confirmed by the domestic courts (see paragraphs 29-36 above) and is not in dispute between the parties. The Court is not called upon to decide in the present case whether the ill-treatment inflicted on the applicant and witnesses T. and A. for the purpose of coercing them into making the above statements amounted to torture within the meaning of Article 3, this question, in any event, falling outside the Court’s competence ratione temporis (see paragraph 50 above). In this connection, however, the Court notes with approval the findings of the Avan and Nor Nork District Court of Yerevan in its judgment of 9 October 2002, condemning the actions of the police officers and evaluating them as having the attributes of torture (see paragraph 29 above). Furthermore, the Government in their submissions also characterised the ill-treatment inflicted on the applicant and witnesses T. and A. as torture (see paragraph 52 above). Even if the Court lacks competence ratione temporis to examine the circumstances surrounding the ill-treatment of the applicant and witnesses T. and A. within the context of Article 3, it is nevertheless not precluded from taking the above evaluation into account for the purposes of deciding on compliance with the guarantees of Article 6. The Court further notes its finding that the statements obtained as a result of such treatment were in fact used by the domestic courts as evidence in the criminal proceedings against the applicant (see paragraph 59 above). Moreover, this was done despite the fact that ill-treatment had already been established in parallel proceedings instituted against the police officers in question.