28 JALLOH v. GERMANY JUDGMENT samples and bodily tissue for the purpose of DNA testing (see Saunders, cited above, § 69; Choudhary v. the United Kingdom (dec.), no. 40084/98, 4 May 1999; J.B. v. Switzerland, cited above, § 68; and P.G. and J.H. v. the United Kingdom, cited above, § 80). 2. Application of those principles to the present case 103. In determining whether in the light of these principles the criminal proceedings against the applicant can be considered fair, the Court notes at the outset that the evidence secured through the administration of emetics to the applicant was not obtained “unlawfully” in breach of domestic law. It recalls in this connection that the national courts found that Article 81a of the Code of Criminal Procedure permitted the impugned measure. 104. The Court held above that the applicant was subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment contrary to the substantive provisions of Article 3 when emetics were administered to him in order to force him to regurgitate the drugs he had swallowed. The evidence used in the criminal proceedings against the applicant was thus obtained as a direct result of a violation of one of the core rights guaranteed by the Convention. 105. As noted above, the use of evidence obtained in violation of Article 3 in criminal proceedings raises serious issues as to the fairness of such proceedings. The Court has not found in the instant case that the applicant was subjected to torture. In its view, 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, as it was so well put in the United States Supreme Court’s judgment in the Rochin case (see paragraph 50 above), to “afford brutality the cloak of law”. It notes in this connection that Article 15 of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment provides that statements which are established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be used in evidence in proceedings against the victim of torture. 106. Although the treatment to which the applicant was subjected did not attract the special stigma reserved to acts of torture, it did attain in the circumstances the minimum level of severity covered by the ambit of the Article 3 prohibition. It cannot be excluded that on the facts of a particular case the use of evidence obtained by intentional acts of ill-treatment not amounting to torture will render the trial against the victim unfair, irrespective of the seriousness of the offence allegedly committed, the weight attached to the evidence and the opportunities which the victim had to challenge its admission and use at his trial.