GÄFGEN v. GERMANY JUDGMENT 49 paragraph 108 above). It further concluded that there was nothing to indicate that the applicant had been threatened for a second time by the police, at Birstein or during the journey to and from that place, in order to make him disclose real evidence (see paragraph 99 above). 171. The Court notes the Regional Court’s finding that the applicant’s statements made following the threat, including those made at Birstein and those made on the return trip to the police station, had been made under the continuous effect of the threats issued during interrogation and were therefore inadmissible (see paragraph 29 above), whereas it regarded the real evidence which had become known as a result of such statements as admissible. The Court notes that in the proceedings before the domestic courts, the impugned real evidence was classified as evidence which had become known to the investigation authorities as a consequence of the statements extracted from the applicant (the “long-range effect” (Fernwirkung) – see paragraph 31 above). For the purposes of its own assessment under Article 6, it considers it decisive that there is a causal link between the applicant’s interrogation in breach of Article 3 and the real evidence secured by the authorities as a result of the applicant’s indications, including the discovery of J.’s body and the autopsy report thereon, the tyre tracks left by the applicant’s car at the pond, as well as J.’s backpack, clothes and the applicant’s typewriter. In other words, the impugned real evidence was secured as a direct result of his interrogation by the police that breached Article 3. 172. Furthermore, an issue arises under Article 6 in respect of evidence obtained as a result of methods in violation of Article 3 only if such evidence was not excluded from use at the applicant’s criminal trial. The Court notes that at the trial the Regional Court did not admit any of the confessions the applicant had made in the investigation proceedings under threat or as a result of the continuous effects of the threat (see paragraphs 28-30 above). However, that court, rejecting the applicant’s motion at the outset of the trial, refused to bar the admission of items of evidence which the investigation authorities had secured as a result of his statements made under the continuous effect of his treatment in breach of Article 3 (see paragraph 31 above). 173. The Court is therefore called upon to examine the consequences for a trial’s fairness of the admission of real evidence obtained as a result of an act qualified as inhuman treatment in breach of Article 3, but falling short of torture. As shown above (see paragraphs 166-67), in its case-law to date, it has not yet settled the question whether the use of such evidence will always render a trial unfair, that is, irrespective of other circumstances of the case. It has, however, found that both the use in criminal proceedings of statements obtained as a result of a person’s treatment in breach of Article 3 – irrespective of the classification of that treatment as torture, inhuman or degrading treatment – and the use of real evidence obtained as a direct result