issued by the Registrar of the Court

ECHR 318 (2017)

26.10.2017

Shortcomings in the official investigation into police violence against

demonstrators who were held following the 2001 G8 Summit in Genoa

In today’s Chamber judgments¹in the cases of Blair and Others v. Italy (applications nos. 1442/14,

21319/14 and 21911/14) and Azzolina and Others v. Italy (applications nos. 28923/09 and

67599/10) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:

a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment) of the

European Convention on Human Rights.

The cases concerned incidents following the G8 Summit in Genoa in 2001, when demonstrators

were subjected to violence by law-enforcement officers while in detention. The applicants alleged

that they had been subjected to torture and complained that the investigation by the domestic

courts had been ineffective, in particular because the statute of limitations had been applied to

virtually all the acts committed and because a number of those convicted had been granted a

remission of their sentence.

The Court held, in particular, that the ill-treatment suffered by the applicants was beyond doubt,

having been established in a detailed and thorough manner by the domestic courts. The applicants,

who had been in a particularly vulnerable situation owing to their detention, had been subjected to

physical, verbal and psychological abuse which in the Court’s view amounted to torture. Owing to

the lack of an offence of torture in Italian law at the time of the events, virtually all the acts of

violence had been statute-barred when the cases came to trial. Because of the application of the

statute of limitations and the remissions of sentence granted to several of those convicted, none of

the persons found to be responsible had received appropriate punishment. The Court therefore held

that the applicants had not had the benefit of an effective official investigation.

Principal facts

The applicants in these five cases are 59 individuals of various nationalities.

The Italian city of Genoa hosted the 28th G8 Summit from 19 to 21 July 2001. An anti-globalisation

summit was also staged in the city at the same time and was attended by between 200,000 and

300,000 people. A large number of demonstrations were organised during that event, some of which

led to clashes between the law-enforcement agencies and demonstrators. These confrontations

caused hundreds of injuries on both sides. Whole neighbourhoods of the city were also severely

damaged.

Arrangements were put in place to deal with the individuals arrested during the demonstrations. In

particular, two temporary centres, the Forte San Giuliano and Bolzaneto barracks, were used as

holding areas for arrestees before their transfer to various prisons.

The applicants, who were arrested and taken to the Bolzaneto barracks between 20 and 22 July,

stayed there for one or two days before being transferred. They alleged that they had been

subjected to violence there at the hands of the police and the medical staff. In particular, they

1. Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month period following its delivery,

any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges

considers whether the case deserves further examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final

judgment. If the referral request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day.

Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of its execution.

Further information about the execution process can be found here: www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution.

claimed to have sustained bodily injury and insults, been sprayed with irritant gas, had their personal

effects destroyed and been subjected to other forms of ill-treatment. They had not been provided

with appropriate treatment for their injuries at any stage, as the violence had continued during the

medical examinations.

Following these events the Genoa public prosecutor’s office commenced criminal proceedings

against 145 individuals, including a deputy police commissioner, police officers and medical staff. On

14 July 2008, 15 of the defendants were sentenced to between nine months’ and five years’

imprisonment and were temporarily barred from holding public office. Ten of them were granted

stays of execution of sentence, three were granted complete remission of sentence and two were

granted a three-year remission of sentence. The court held that inhuman and degrading treatment

had demonstrably been inflicted, but that the difficulties with identifying the perpetrators and the

fact that Italian criminal law lacked any criminal offence of torture had complicated the process of

convicting the guilty parties. An appeal judgment of 5 March 2010 overturned the aforementioned

judgment in part, on the grounds that a number of offences had become statute-barred. However,

the Court of Appeal emphasised that the credibility of the witness statements and the seriousness of

the violence were beyond doubt and held that the sustained, systematic abuse suffered by the

applicants had been intended to break down their psychological and physical resistance and had had

serious consequences for the victims, with after-effects persisting long after the end of their

detention. On 14 June 2013 the Court of Cassation upheld that judgment, observing that virtually all

the offences had become statute-barred.

Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court

Relying mainly on Article 3 of the Convention (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading

treatment), the applicants complained of being subjected to acts of violence which they equated

with torture and inhuman or degrading acts. They also maintained that the subsequent investigation

had been inadequate on account of the lack of appropriate sanctions against the persons found to

be responsible. In that regard they complained, in particular, of the statute of limitations applying to

most of the offences with which those persons had been charged, the remission of sentence granted

to some of the convicted persons, and the absence of disciplinary sanctions against them.

Furthermore, they alleged that the Italian State had failed to take the requisite action to prevent this

kind of ill-treatment, by omitting to provide for an offence of torture in Italian criminal law.

The applications in the case of Blair and Others v. Italy were lodged with the European Court of

Human Rights on 10 December 2013 and on 6 and 10 March 2014. Those in the case of Azzolina and

Others v. Italy were lodged on 27 May 2009 and 3 September 2010.

The judgments were given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:

Blair and Others v. Italy:

Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (Greece), President,

Kristina Pardalos (San Marino),

Guido Raimondi (Italy),

Azzolina and Others v. Italy:

Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (Greece), President,

Kristina Pardalos (San Marino),

Guido Raimondi (Italy),

Aleš Pejchal (Czech Republic),

Ksenija Turković (Croatia),

Aleš Pejchal (the Czech Republic),

Ksenija Turković (Croatia),

Armen Harutyunyan (Armenia),

Pauliine Koskelo (Finland),

Pauline Koskelo (Finland),

Tim Eicke (United Kingdom),

and also Abel Campos, Section Registrar.

Decision of the Court

Following a friendly-settlement agreement with the Italian Government the applications were struck

out of the list with regard to four applicants in the case of Blair and Others v. Italy and seven

applicants in the case of Azzolina and Others v. Italy. These eleven applicants each received 45,000

euros (EUR) in respect of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage and the costs and expenses incurred

in the domestic proceedings and before the Court.

Article 3

In the case of Azzolina and Others v. Italy the Italian Government raised several preliminary

objections. They maintained in particular that, as a result of the judicial proceedings before the

domestic courts, the applicants had obtained at least partial recognition of the alleged violations and

been granted compensation in the form of damages. As a result, they could no longer claim victim

status. Furthermore, as the proceedings were still pending, they had not exhausted domestic

criminal remedies.

The Court considered that the applicants, who had lodged their applications more than eight years

after the events, could not be criticised for not awaiting the judgment of the Court of Cassation,

especially in view of the application of the statute of limitations and the remissions of sentence. It

decided to join to the merits the Government’s preliminary objection that the applicants no longer

had victim status following the proceedings before the domestic courts, and the objection of failure

to exhaust domestic civil remedies.

Ill-treatment of the applicants

The Court noted that the ill-treatment of the applicants had been established by the domestic courts

in detailed and thorough fashion, and that the witness testimony had been corroborated by the

statements of police officers and public officials, the defendants’ partial confessions, the medical

reports and the court-ordered expert reports. The Court therefore considered that the physical and

verbal abuse to which the applicants had been subjected, and the after-effects arising from it, were

established. It observed that this treatment had occurred over a significant period of time without

the intensity of the violence diminishing. Furthermore, it had taken place in an overall context of

excessive and indiscriminate use of force that had been manifestly disproportionate.

Lastly, the Court highlighted the serious breach on the part of members of the police force of their

professional duty to protect persons, in a situation where the applicants, having been placed in

police custody, had been particularly vulnerable. All of these factors, in the Court’s view, had

combined to make the applicants’ place of detention a place of “lawlessness” in which their most

fundamental safeguards had been withheld.

Consequently, since the acts of violence to which the applicants had been subjected were to be

considered as acts of torture, the Court found a violation of Article 3.

The ensuing investigation

While recognising the efforts made by the domestic courts in the investigation, the Court noted that

the lack of cooperation by the police, coupled with the fact that the applicants had not been allowed

to look at the police officers while they were in detention, had made it difficult if not impossible to

identify most of the perpetrators, who had therefore gone unpunished. The Court observed that of

45 persons committed for trial, the Court of Cassation had upheld the conviction of only eight police

officers or senior officials, and that all the persons convicted had been granted either a remission of

sentence or a stay of execution, with the result that, in practice, nobody had spent a single day in

prison for the ill-treatment of the applicants.

The Court stressed that the length of the proceedings and the application of the statute of

limitations to most of the offences had not been caused, in the present case, by prevarication or

negligence on the part of the prosecuting authorities and the domestic courts, but by structural

shortcomings in the Italian legal system. The problem stemmed from the fact that no existing

criminal offence was capable of encompassing the issues raised by possible acts of torture against

individuals.

In its judgment of 7 April 2015 in the case of Cestaro v. Italy the Court had already found the

domestic criminal legislation to be both inadequate and lacking in preventive effect. It had ruled that

Italy should equip itself with legal instruments capable of imposing the appropriate sanctions on the

perpetrators of acts of torture or ill-treatment and of ensuring that they did not benefit from the

statute of limitations or obtain a remission of their sentence. In the present case the Court took note

of the entry into force on 18 July 2017 of new legislation introducing the offence of torture into

domestic law.

With regard to disciplinary measures the Court observed that the police officers concerned had not

been suspended from duty during the trial, nor was it clear from the Government’s observations

whether they had been the subject of disciplinary action. The Court reiterated that where State

agents had been charged with offences involving ill-treatment, it was important that they should be

suspended from duty while being investigated or tried and should be dismissed if convicted.

In sum, the Court considered that the applicants had not had the benefit of an effective official

investigation. It therefore found a violation of Article 3.

Just satisfaction (Article 41)

In the case of Blair and Others v. Italy the Court held that Italy was to pay EUR 10,000 each to

Ms Menegon and Mr Spingi and EUR 70,000 each to the remaining 22 applicants in respect of

non-pecuniary damage, and EUR 40,320 in respect of costs and expenses to 13 of the applicants in

application no. 21911/14.

In the case of Azzolina and Others v. Italy the Court held that Italy was to pay, by way of

non-pecuniary damage, EUR 85,000 to Mr Azzolina and EUR 80,000 each to the 23 remaining

applicants.

The judgment is available only in French.

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The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member

States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.