Communication N° 172/2000 Submitted by: Danilo Dimitrijevic Alleged victim: The complainant State party: Serbia and Montenegro Date of adoption of Views: 16 November 2005 Subject matter: torture and/or ill-treatment of the complainant in detention. time, he was denied food and water, and the possibility of using the lavatory. Although the complainant requested medical attention, and his injuries visibly required such attention, he was not provided with any. During the night, he was taken from the police station to the Novi Sad District Prison in the Klisa neighbourhood. He was not illtreated there. At no time was he told why he had been brought to the police station, in contravention of articles 192 (3), 195 and 196 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), which deals with police powers of arrest and detention. Procedural issue: exhaustion of domestic remedies Substantive issues: failure promptly to investigate allegations of torture; right to complain; right to compensation Articles of the Convention: 12, 13, 14 1. The complainant is Danilo Dimitrijevic, a Serbian citizen of Roma origin, residing in Serbia and Montenegro. He claims to be a victim of violations of article 2, paragraph 1, read in connection with articles 1 and 16, paragraph 1; article 14 alone; and articles 12 and 13 taken alone and/or read in connection with article 16, paragraph 1, by Serbia and Montenegro of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. He is represented by the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC), based in Belgrade, and by the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), based in Budapest, both nongovernmental organizations. 2.3 On 17 November 1997, the complainant was brought before the investigating judge of the Novi Sad District Court, Savo Durdiü, for a hearing on the charges of larceny against him, in accordance with Article 165 of the Serbian Criminal Code (Case file No. Kri. 922/97). Upon noticing the complainant’s injuries, the judge issued a written decision ordering the police immediately to escort him to a forensic specialist for the purpose of establishing their nature and severity.1 In particular, the judge ordered that a forensic medial expert examine the “injuries visible in the form of bruises on the outside of the suspect’s legs.…” The judge did not inform the public prosecutor of the complainant’s injuries, even though, according to the complainant, he should have done so in accordance with Article 165 (2) of the CPC. Rather than taking the complainant to a specialist, as instructed, the police presented him with a release order, on which the required internal registration number was missing and which incorrectly stated that his detention started at 11 p.m. on 14 November 1997, although he had been taken into custody eleven hours earlier. 2 In the complainant’s view, this was an effort to evade responsibility for subjecting him to the physical abuse he had been subjected to during that period. The facts as presented by the complainant 2.1 At around noon on 14 November 1997, the complainant was arrested at his home in Novi Sad, in the Serbian province of Vojvodina, and taken to the police station in Kraljevica Marka Street. The arresting officer presented no arrest warrant; nor did he inform the complainant why he was being taken into custody. However, since a criminal case was already pending against him, in which he was charged with several counts of larceny, the complainant assumed that this was the reason for his arrest. He made no attempt to resist arrest. At the police station, he was locked into one of the offices. Half an hour later, an unknown man in civilian clothes entered the office, ordered him to strip to his underwear, handcuffed him to a metal bar attached to a wall and proceeded to beat him with a police club for approximately one hour from 12.30 to 13.30. He sustained numerous injuries, in particular on his thighs and back. The complainant assumes that the man was a plain-clothes police officer. During the beating an officer, whom the complainant knew by name, also entered the room and, while he did not take part in the abuse, he did not stop it. 2.4 Upon his release, and being ignorant of his rights under the law and frightened by his experiences in the preceding three days, the complainant did not seek immediate medical assistance. He did, however, go to a privately owned photographic studio and had photographs taken of his injuries. He has provided these photos, dated 19 November 1997. On 24 November 1997, and having consulted a lawyer, the complainant attended the Clinical Centre of the Novi Sad Forensic Medicine 2.2 The complainant spent the next three days, from 14 to 17 November 1997, during the day, in the same room where he had been beaten. During that 1 2 89 This order has been provided. This release order has been provided.