immediately, allegedly to remove incriminating evidence and to put M.K. on tranquilizers; (c) by interviewing no other witnesses than the police inspectors; (d) by having the deceased’s body identified by M.K. rather than by his family; (e) by failing to seal the door or to return the keys of the apartment to the complainants; and (f) by sending M.K. to deliver the tragic news to the complainants. The complainants also informed the district prosecutor that several witnesses could testify that the police had previously shot at and threatened their son. They challenged the deputy public prosecutor for bias, since he had already indicated that he would reject any criminal charges. and the deceased had been established on the basis of the concurring statements of J.J., Z.P. and M.L., the report of the investigating judge, as well as the police report of 19 April 1994, and the findings and opinions of the experts from the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the Belgrade Faculty of Medicine dated 22 November 1994 and 27 November 1996. It concluded that there were no grounds for conducting an investigation against the charged police inspectors for the criminal offence of murder. 2.21 On 13 March 1998, the complainants appealed to the Supreme Court of Serbia and Montenegro and, on 23 March, they supplemented their reasons of appeal. They challenged that the District Court had failed to address their arguments or the objections raised by Prof. Dr. Z.S., an internationally renowned expert selected by the United Nations for autopsies conducted on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, while merely relying on the contradictory findings of the commission of forensic experts and on the unscrutinized statements of M.K., as well as of the charged inspectors themselves, against one of whom criminal proceedings had previously been instituted for similar conduct. No fingerprints of the deceased had been found in apartment N° 82; the cables attached to the radiator had not even been examined for his biological traces. 2.19 After the District Public Prosecutor had decided, on 24 September 1997, not to initiate criminal proceedings against inspectors J.J., Z.P. and M.L., the complainants, on 4 October 1997, filed a request for an investigation of their son’s alleged murder with the Belgrade District Court. 3 In particular, they requested the investigating judge to interrogate J.J., Z.P. and M.L. in the capacity of accused, to detain them on remand in order to prevent any interference with witnesses, to summon and examine certain witnesses, including the complainants themselves, and to seek clarification of the remaining forensic inconsistencies. By letter of 28 January to the President of the District Court, the complainants criticized that only one of their requests, i.e., the interrogation of the police inspectors, had been complied with. They also challenged that the authorities persistently refused to state the time of their son’s death, that no explanation had been given for the numerous bruises on the deceased’s body, that the Institute of Forensic Medicine had refused to hand out any photographs of the deceased and that its forensic findings were intended to conceal their son’s abuse by the police, that M.K. had given three different versions of the incident to the investigating judge, the complainants, and her friends, respectively, and that not a single pedestrian on the busy streets facing apartment N° 82 had witnessed their son jumping out of the window. 2.22 By decision of 21 May 1998, 5 the Supreme Court of Serbia in Belgrade rejected the complainants’ appeal as unfounded. It endorsed the findings of the Belgrade District Court, considering that the commission of experts, in its supplementary findings and opinions of 27 November 1996, responded to all objections raised by the complainants’ lawyer and by Dr. Z.S. in a precise manner. The complaint 3.1 The complainants claim that the State party failed to proceed to a prompt an impartial investigation of their son’s death and alleged prior torture, in violation of article 12, although the forensic evidence submitted by the complainants strongly suggested that their son was the victim of an act of torture within the meaning of article 1 of the Convention. 2.20 By decision of 17 February 1998, 4 the Belgrade District Court found that the absence of any physical contact between the police inspectors 3.2 They submit that other inconsistencies further supported their suspicion, inter alia: (a) the fact that N.N. was explicitly told that he would not be subjected to physical force, if he opened the door of apartment N° 82; (b) that the search warrant issued on 19 April 1994 only authorized the police to enter the apartment to “search for goods related to criminal offences”, rather than to arrest N.N., and that it stated 11 a.m. as the time of the entry, 3 In accordance with Section 60 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the State party, the injured party may apply for criminal proceedings to be instituted, if the public prosecutor finds that there are no sufficient grounds to initiate criminal proceedings ex officio. If the investigating judge rejects the request for the initiation of criminal proceedings, a special chamber of the competent court decides whether such proceedings shall be initiated. See ibid., Section 159. 4 See Belgrade District Court, Decision of 17 February 1998, Ki. N° 898/97 (Kv. N° 99/98). 5 See Supreme Court of Serbia in Belgrade, Decision of 21 May 1998, Kž. II 224/98. 96