CCPR/C/123/D/2249/2013 addressed to the General Prosecutor personally. He also claimed that neither the trial court nor the cassation court knew that he had been unlawfully interrogated and detained on the night of his mother’s death, and that this should be viewed as a new circumstance in the case and serve as grounds for a new trial. The author submitted that on 26 May 2014, Sosnovskiy District Court had denied his complaint against the Pavlovskiy interdistrict office of the Investigative Committee for failure to investigate his claims against his former lawyer. He noted that the court had reviewed his complaint in his absence, although he had specifically motioned the court to provide for his presence during the hearing. State party’s further observations on the merits 9.1 In a note verbale dated 7 April 2015, the State party noted that a review of the arguments made by the author in his defence during the trial had shown that he had not made any statements regarding his treatment while in detention or regarding violation of his right to defence. His line of defence was that he did not cause the injuries that led to the death of his mother. When reaching the verdict, the court took into consideration, inter alia, his confession made during the pretrial investigation. In his cassation appeal filed on 5 September 2007, the author asked the court to find the confession he had given during the pretrial investigation inadmissible as he had been in a state of shock from what had happened and had been under the influence of alcohol. He did not provide any other grounds for inadmissibility of his confession. 9.2 Starting from 2008, the author submitted several appeals for a supervisory review. On 27 June 2008 he submitted his first appeal, in which he claimed that his confession had been coerced by the police. On 7 July 2008, that appeal was denied by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. On 1 August 2011, he submitted another appeal, in which he added that his lawyer had not provided him with quality legal assistance. That appeal was denied by Nizhegorodskiy Regional Court on 31 August 2011. On 20 December 2011, the author submitted another appeal containing allegations of police coercion. On 17 January 2012, that appeal was denied by the Chairperson of Nizhegorodskiy Regional Court. 9.3 The State party noted that the author’s allegations of failure by his lawyer to provide quality legal assistance had also been subject to several inquiries by investigative bodies. On 29 November 2010, the Pavlovskiy interdistrict office of the Investigative Committee refused to initiate a criminal investigation into the author’s complaint against his lawyer due to a lack of corpus delicti. That refusal was annulled on 25 October 2013 by the Sosnovskiy district prosecutor’s office. An additional inquiry into the complaint resulted again in a refusal to initiate a criminal investigation, on 4 December 2013. The last such refusal was issued by the investigative bodies on 3 July 2014. The State party noted that all inquiries had been examined by the Office of the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation, with the author notified about this on 3 September 2014. 9.4 The State party noted that national courts had twice reviewed the author’s complaints under article 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code 10 about unlawful actions by his lawyer, by the deputy district prosecutor and by the investigator from the Pavlovskiy interdistrict office of the Investigative Committee, on 27 April 2011 and 26 September 2014. Both complaints had been denied. 9.5 On 22 April 2014, the author’s lawsuit against his former lawyer for moral damages was denied by Sosnovskiy District Court. That decision was upheld by Nizhegorodskiy Regional Court on 22 July 2014. 9.6 The State party submitted that, on the basis of the above-mentioned court reviews and inquiries, it deemed the author’s allegations of mistreatment while in detention and of violation of his right to quality legal assistance to be unsubstantiated. 10 According to article 125, decisions of the inquirer, the investigator and the public prosecutor to refuse to institute a criminal case or to terminate a criminal case, as well as other decisions and actions or omissions, which may infringe the constitutional rights and freedoms of the participants in criminal court proceedings or may interfere with citizens’ access to the administration of justice, may be appealed against to the district court at the place at which the preliminary investigation was conducted. 5