CCPR/C/126/D/2570/2015 after the period of limitations had expired; and (c) in the case of extradition, the author would risk serious human rights violations. 2.5 On 17 April 2012, the Court of Cassation upheld the Prosecutor’s appeal and quashed the previous decision, sending the case back to another section of the Venice Court of Appeal in order for it to duly consider “the legal relevance” of every element of the case at hand and, in particular, “the aggravating circumstances mentioned in the documents supporting the request of extradition [which] are relevant in order to determine the period of limitation of the alleged offence”. 2.6 On 26 October 2012, the Venice Court of Appeal confirmed that the conditions for extradition had not been met, since “no evidence of guilt [was] to be found in the documents supporting the request”. However, on 8 March 2013, the Court of Cassation again upheld an appeal by the Prosecutor and quashed the second decision by the Venice Court of Appeal, referring the case back to a different section of the Court. In particular, the Court of Cassation held that “if the formal request of extradition and the documents attached thereto did not provide for evidence of guilt, the Court of Appeal should have requested supplementary information [to the authorities of the requesting State] as foreseen by article 13 of the ECE”. 2.7 On 21 November 2013, the Venice Court of Appeal again rejected the extradition request because it did not meet the requirements set forth by domestic and international law. According to the court, extradition was to be denied on account of “consistent evidence that corroborates the doubt that, if rendered to the Ukrainian authorities, [the author] would predictably be subjected to a penitentiary treatment contrary to fundamental human rights, with regard to his personal safety, and could be deprived of an effective remedy to obtain limitation of the duration of his provisional custody [as attested by] the recurring warnings of physical violence against detainees and of inadequate health assistance to them in Ukrainian prisons [which] makes even more negative the perspective of detention in Ukraine”. 2.8 On 8 April 2014, for the third time, the Court of Cassation upheld the appeal filed by the Prosecutor and quashed the decision. However, the court did not send the case back to the Venice Court of Appeal, but ruled on the merits and authorized the extradition of the author with a final and binding decision, concluding that he would not face a real risk of being subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in the case of extradition to Ukraine. According to the author, in reaching this conclusion, the Court of Cassation disregarded the vast majority of the materials that he provided because they “did not come from reliable sources”2 and deemed other materials irrelevant. 3 2.9 On 11 July 2014, the Italian Minister of Justice issued an extradition decree, allowing the author to be extradited for execution of the arrest warrant issued by the tribunal of Cherkasy on 30 May 2011 for the offence of robbery. According to the decree, given that Ukraine is a member of the Council of Europe, a party to the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Convention on Extradition, it could not be argued that inhuman and degrading treatment are provided for by law in the Ukrainian legal system, and the current situation of political uncertainty in Ukraine would not directly affect the author and his detention. The extradition decree was neither served on nor communicated to the author, who did not know about its existence until 10 September 2014, when his brother obtained access to the case file at the Registry of the Venice Court of Appeal. 2 3 The author claims that his sources were reliable: international organizations such as the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, nongovernmental organizations, such as Amnesty International, and even Ukrainian parliamentary bodies such as the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, established to implement the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. A report of Amnesty International from 2012 and several judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. 3