Committee of Ministers Secrétariat Du Comité Des Ministres

SECRETARIAT / SECRÉTARIAT

SECRETARIAT OF THE COMMITTEE OF MINISTERS SECRÉTARIAT DU COMITÉ DES MINISTRES

Contact: John Darcy Tel: 03 88 41 31 56

Date: 09/04/2019 DH-DD(2019)387

Document distributed under the sole responsibility of its author, without prejudice to the legal or political position of the Committee of Ministers.

Meeting: 1348th meeting (June 2019) (DH)

Communication from a NGO (Greek Helsinki Monitor) (25/03/2019) in the MAKARATZIS group of cases v. Greece (Application No. 50385/99).

Information made available under Rule 9.2 of the Rules of the Committee of Ministers for the supervision of the execution of judgments and of the terms of friendly settlements.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Document distribué sous la seule responsabilité de son auteur, sans préjuger de la position juridique ou politique du Comité des Ministres.

Réunion : 1348e réunion (juin 2019) (DH)

Communication d’une ONG (Greek Helsinki Monitor) (25/03/2019) dans le groupe d’affaires MAKARATZIS c. Grèce (requête n° 50385/99) (Anglais uniquement).

Informations mises à disposition en vertu de la Règle 9.2 des Règles du Comité des Ministres pour la surveillance de l’exécution des arrêts et des termes des règlements amiables.

GREEK HELSINKI MONITOR (GHM) Address: P.O. Box 60820, GR-15304 Glyka Nera Telephone: (+30) 2103472259 Fax: (+30) 2106018760 e-mail: [email protected] website: http://greekhelsinki.wordpress.com

The President of the Committee of Ministers Department for the Execution of Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights Council of Europe Strasbourg France [email protected]

25 March 2019

Makaratzis group of cases (applications No. 50385/99 etc.)

Mr President

Under Rules 9(1) and 9(2) of the Rules of the Committee of Ministers for the supervision of the execution of judgments we submit the attached memo on the execution of Makaratzis group of cases (applications No. 50385/99 etc.), along with an attachment with the relevant excerpt from the Ombudsman report for 2018 in Greek, and request that the memo is also uploaded at your special website for the 1348th DH meeting (4-6 June 2019).

Yours faithfully

Panayote Dimitras Executive Director Greek Helsinki Monitor DH-DD(2019)387: Rule 9.2 Communication from a NGO in Makaratzis v. Greece. Document distributed under the sole responsibility of its author, without prejudice to the legal or political position of the Committee of Ministers.

GREEK HELSINKI MONITOR (GHM) Address: P.O. Box 60820, GR-15304 Glyka Nera Tel.: (+30) 2103472259 Fax: (+30) 2106018760 e-mail: [email protected] website: https://greekhelsinki.wordpress.com

Communication on the execution of Makaratzis group of cases (applications No. 50385/99 etc.)

25 March 2019

1. Introduction

The Committee of Ministers (CM) is requested to recall that Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) has been the representative of the applicants in nine of the thirteen cases under examination: Celniku, Karagiannopoulos, Leonidis, Bekos-Koutropoulos, Zelilof, Galotskin, Stefanou, Petropoulou-Tsakiris, Sidiropoulos-Papakostas. GHM submits the present communication both as a NGO working inter alia on reporting law enforcement abuses and as the representative of those applicants.

Moreover, the CM is requested to take into consideration that, after the CM 4-6 December 2018 meeting, GHM translated in Greek its decisions on the Makaratzis and Bekir-Ousta two groups of cases and sent them on 18 December 2018 to the Chairpersons of the Parliamentary Commission on the Execution of the ECtHR Judgments Antonis Syrigos and of the Greek Parliament’s Delegation to PACE Annetta Kavvadia, as well as to the Rapporteur of the PACE Committee of Legal Affairs and Human Rights on the Implementation of ECtHR Judgments. GHM requested to inform them and the bodies they chair and discuss the implementation of these judgments, or else receive be informed about the related actions of these bodies so as to include them in our next submission to the CM. As no answer was received a reminder was sent on 23 January 2019. In view of the absence of any answer, on 3 February 2019 GHM published the letter and the reminder (in Greek) with the conclusion that these parliamentary bodies have no intention to take any action towards the implementation of these judgments. This is reflected also in the fact that the Parliamentary Commission has not met since 1 November 2018 when it ceremonially discussed “Program setting and proposals for the functioning of the Commission” as it does once in every yearly session without any follow-up meetings…

2. Individual measures

In its December 2018 decision, the CM “welcomed the authorities’ intention to request the heads of the services involved in torture and other forms of ill-treatment to issue written apologies to the applicants; invited the authorities to inform the Committee by 1 September 2019 of any further development.” This is admittedly the simplest and quickest action possible. Yet, to this day, no such apologies were sent. GHM recommends that the apologies be sent promptly by the Ministers who have these services under their jurisdiction as after all they have the political responsibility for those service actions.

The CM also “invited the authorities to inform the Committee by 1 September 2019 about the reopened disciplinary investigations concerning the Sidiropoulos and Papakostas and Andersen cases.” As a representative of the applicants in Sidiropoulos and Papakostas, GHM is not aware of any reopened investigation. On the contrary, in the Greek Ombudsman’s annual report for 2018, published on 23 March 2019 and attached (in Greek) to this submission, the cases considered for a possible reopening of investigations did not include the Sidiropoulos and Papakostas and Andersen cases. The authorities may use the opportunity of their reply to the present submission to inform not only the CM but also the applicants as to why these cases were not mentioned by the Ombudsman as referred to him for reopening.

DH-DD(2019)387: Rule 9.2 Communication from a NGO in Makaratzis v. Greece. Document distributed under the sole responsibility of its author, without prejudice to the legal or political position of the Committee of Ministers. On the other hand, the CM “in the Zontul case, … noted, however, with satisfaction the Ombudsman’s decision to reopen the disciplinary investigations into the consequences of the acts at issue.” As is mentioned in the recently published Ombudsman report, though, that Authority had completed in May 2018 its examination of the case concluding that the only possible remedy is an apology (and offering suggestions for legislative amendments that will be commented upon below). It is to be recalled that, as the representative of the applicant informed the CM, he was never informed of that outcome even though he had written to the Ombudsman on 21 May 2018: “REDRESS and Mr Zontul are only aware of the closure of the reopened disciplinary investigation because Greece referred to it in its 4 October 2018 submission to the CoM.” It is hoped that the authorities will “provide the Committee by 1 September 2019 with the full conclusions of the Hellenic Coast Guard concerning the reopening of the disciplinary proceedings, notably as regards the continued employment of those responsible” as requested by the CM and will do the same for the Sidiropoulos and Papakostas and Andersen cases that they claim are under examination. GHM also supports REDRESS request: “It is crucial that Greece provide a full explanation to Mr Zontul about how the reopened disciplinary investigation was conducted and what conclusions it reached, including a copy of the investigation report. This is information to which Mr Zontul is entitled as the victim in question, and which is necessary for Mr Zontul to determine how he wishes to proceed with this matter.” GHM moreover requests that the same procedure is followed for the Sidiropoulos and Papakostas and Andersen cases.

Finally, in this section on disciplinary investigations, the CM is urged to recommend to Greece that all related correspondence and other actions in the reopened disciplinary examinations are automatically shared with the applicants, at least for their information, if not with an invitation to participate in these procedures offering comments or making statements if relevant. This request is the result of the fact that as mentioned above almost all related actions involving the government representatives including the Legal Council of State, the law enforcements agencies and the Ombudsman were done in the absence of any information, let alone involvement, of the applicants on behalf of whose rights they are supposed to be carried out.

GHM would like to urge the CM to consider the very positive development in the execution of another ECtHR judgment in Chowdury and others v. Greece. The Supreme Court Prosecutor issued the following related press release (translated in English by Greek Helsinki Monitor - GHM):

Supreme Court Prosecutor

Press Release 30-10-2018

The Supreme Court Prosecutor considered that the judgment of the Mixed Jury Court of Patras, No. 75- 128/30-7-2014, according to which the accused in the case were declared innocent of the crime of trafficking in human beings and the direct aiding and abetting repeatedly and as a profession, was in violation of Article 4 (2) of the ECHR, as the European Court of Human Rights has also ruled, assigned to the Deputy Supreme Court Prosecutor Charalambos Vourliotis to file an application for the cassation of the above judgment for the benefit of the law.

Thereafter, the Deputy Prosecutor, today, on 23 October 2018, filed an application for the cassation of that decision for the benefit of the law, for wrong interpretation and wrong application of the provision of Article 323A of the Penal Code, and for lack of specific and detailed reasoning. This remedy seeks to correct the mistaken assumptions of that Court of Justice, to ensure the unity of the case-law and to prevent the legal views referred to in the abovementioned decision from being repeated and consolidated.

GHM urges again the CM to ask Greece to apply consistently the procedure of an application for cassation for the benefit of the law by the Supreme Court Prosecutor as a fundamental remedy to execute ECtHR judgments to remove domestic judgments held by the ECtHR to be in violation of the ECHR from the case- law so as to prevent the repetition of such judgments with similar reasoning and/or invoking such judgments. If filed by the Supreme Court Prosecutor and if approved by the Supreme Court such cassation judgments would be a very powerful apology to the victims of law enforcement violence that the ECtHR found that they were wronged by the domestic judgments. Such applications should be filed for ten

DH-DD(2019)387: Rule 9.2 Communication from a NGO in Makaratzis v. Greece. Document distributed under the sole responsibility of its author, without prejudice to the legal or political position of the Committee of Ministers. of the thirteen cases of the Makaratzis group, i.e. for the cassation of the domestic judgments in the cases of Makaratzis, Sidiropoulos and Papakostas, Zontul, Bekos and Koutropoulos, Alsayed Allaham, Celniku, Karagiannopoulos, Galotskin, Stefanou, and Leonidis. In the other three cases, of Zelilof, Petropoulou- Tsairis, and Andersen, the complaints had been archived and not referred to trials.

The apology to the applicants suggested by Greek authorities and positively accepted by the CM concerns only the failures in the disciplinary investigation of those cases. The cassation of the domestic judgments on these cases is the necessary complement as a form of “apology” for the failures in the criminal investigation of those cases. The applicants would like to see both such “apologies” –where relevant.

Finally, in this section, the CM is requested to note that Yannis Papakostas and George Sidiropoulos were tortured with a taser gun in August 2002 and the domestic court considered it a felony case which has a 15- year prescription prolonged by 5 years once the case has been referred to trial. So, on 9 June 2017, when the Ombudsman assumed its role the case had not been prescribed; nor was it prescribed in January 2018 when the ECtHR judgment was published; nor is it prescribed today; nor will it be prescribed before 2022… The applicants expect the Mechanism and Greece to provide a lawful explanation as to why this case was not reopened, in its disciplinary and its criminal dimensions, or else launch the reopening(s) immediately, especially in view of the fact that the ECtHR objected also to “the leniency of the penalty imposed on police officer C.E. [that] had been manifestly disproportionate in view of the seriousness of the treatment inflicted on Mr Sidiropoulos and Mr Papakostas.”

3. General measures

Thoroughly revised draft Criminal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure were published by the Government on 8 March 2019 for public consultation which did not incorporate any of the changes requested by the CM, while on the contrary weakened the articles on torture. Currently “Torture is defined in Article 137A§2 [of the Criminal Code] primarily as the “planned” (μεθοδευμένη) infliction by a state official on a person of severe physical, and other similar forms of, pain. Under the established Greek case law and doctrine in order for the infliction of pain to be considered as “planned” it must be repeated and have a certain duration.” This article was in the section on “offenses against the regime (πολιτεύματος)”. In the draft Criminal Code this and related articles on torture were abolished and replaced with a new article 239Α in the section on “abuse of clerical status” but the definition of torture remained the same. However, the ensuing penalties for torture are reduced, from 5-20 years currently to 5-10 years in the draft code!

Hence, in the draft codes were not introduced as requested by the CM, CPT and UN CAT:  A definition of torture along the lines of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment  The suspension of the limitation period for offences related to violations similar to those in the present cases [for cases treated as ill-treatment and not as torture (which is the practice in almost all cases of law enforcement violence) the limitation period is 5 years (extended to 8 years if there is a referral to trial within 5 years); for rare torture cases it is respectively 15 and 20 years].  The exclusion of the possibility to convert terms of imprisonment imposed for torture and other ill- treatment into non-custodial sentences

Moreover, the new reinforced legislative protection against racist crime introduced in 2015 through articles 81A (on racist characteristics of crimes) and 361B (on racist behavior on public distribution of goods) of the Criminal Code is abolished in the draft code. It is replaced by article 79.5 on racist motivation as mere aggravating circumstance considered in the imposition of sentences after convictions without even defining what this aggravating circumstance will amount to (for, in the past there was such an article 79.3 which expressly called for the non-suspensive character of the sentences imposed for racially motivated crimes).

In addition, there has been no legislative initiative to provide “the overall possibility to reopen disciplinary investigations in cases where criminal or disciplinary liability has already been decided, taking into account the ne bis in idem principle enshrined in Law 4443/2016,” as requested by the CM.

DH-DD(2019)387: Rule 9.2 Communication from a NGO in Makaratzis v. Greece. Document distributed under the sole responsibility of its author, without prejudice to the legal or political position of the Committee of Ministers. It is crucial here to underline that the aforementioned suspension of the limitation period for three or five years is valid until the issuing of an irrevocable final decision by a first instance court, an appeals court of the Supreme Court, but not by the ECtHR. It is necessary to extend the scope of the suspension of the limitation period to include the examination of cases by the ECtHR (and the equivalent UN Treaty Bodies) and in such cases to not limit the extension to three or five years, as adjudication of such cases by the ECtHR (and the UN Treaty Bodies) is time consuming, but either introduce a much longer period or leave it indefinite.

GHM has serious concerns as to the “effectiveness of the new complaint Mechanism (the Ombudsman), notably in the light of the outcome of the investigations into the complaints submitted since the Mechanism started to function on 9 June 2017.”

The Ombudsman indicated in his annual report submitted to Parliament on 22 March 2019 (the relevant section is attached here in Greek) that, in 2018, 178 complaints had been submitted to the Mechanism. 20 complaints were submitted by individuals and 157 by state services responsible for investigating disciplinary offences, while 1 concerned an ex proprio motu investigation. The Mechanism found that 5 complaints were not within the scope of the Ombudsman’s competence while for another 3 the evidence provided was insufficient, whilst the remaining complaints were followed up. The Ombudsman then reported that for 22 pending cases it asked for a supplementary disciplinary investigation while another 11 were filed as they did not require any additional investigation. One may wonder what happened with the remaining 145 complaints submitted to the Mechanism... As regards the offences investigated, 6 concerned torture and 8 ill-treatment, 5 unlawful use of violence, 30 the use of firearms, 25 concerned affronts to personal freedom, 92 concerned attacks against life or physical integrity and, lastly, 13 concerned racially motivated offences.

For the 22 cases referred back for a supplementary disciplinary investigation, the Ombudsman reported: “The main reason for the referral was the inadequate and/or contradictory justification of the findings due to either non-use of evidence or incorrect assessment and evaluation of available evidence. In several cases, investigations were assigned to persons who do not offer the necessary guarantees of impartiality due to their insufficient distance from the police officers investigated. Also, in some cases, there was a lack of forensic examination or a failure to take a deposition from forensic experts who had been involved in examining injured citizens. Lastly, particular attention was paid to cases where it was not investigated, despite the existence of sufficient evidence, the probability of existence of racist motives in the development of police misconduct.” In its annual report, the Ombudsman then provides detailed documented examples of these shortcomings that led to the referrals. Additionally, even for the 11 cases it decided not to refer for supplementary disciplinary investigations, the Ombudsman provided a long list of comments made about weaknesses and insufficiencies, especially in cases concerning ill-treatment of persons in detention where there is a reversal of the burden of proof.

However, as it emerges from its own data, the Ombudsman ignores the largest number of complaints filed to the Mechanism usually not even replying to the plaintiffs or informing them merely that it wrote to the law enforcement agency which refuted the claims without any investigation and that satisfied the Ombudsman who filed the respective complaints! A very recent characteristic example is described by GHM’s partner Advocates Abroad in their 25 January 2019 press release:

Press Release on Filed Illegal Deportation Complaints

Advocates Abroad has been filing human rights complaints on behalf of refugees, with the Greek Ombudsman since 2016. The complaints have covered a diversity of issues occurring throughout the 4

DH-DD(2019)387: Rule 9.2 Communication from a NGO in Makaratzis v. Greece. Document distributed under the sole responsibility of its author, without prejudice to the legal or political position of the Committee of Ministers. country. Advocates Abroad notes with appreciation the Ombudsman’s many quality investigations into complaints submitted before and after the three complaints at hand – particularly the great success of so many other recent and past complaints.

It is therefore with great surprise that we received two letters from the Ombudsman dated 7 January 2019 in reply to two complaints, filed on 17 and 22 August 2018. The complaints concerned documented allegations about push backs and ill-treatment of two groups of refuge arrivals, numbering 27 and 47 Syrians among other nationals in the Evros area. The groups were processed by by the police on dates confirmed with recorded arrivals by the Ombudsman. Therein, the Ombudsman was informing Advocates Abroad that they had merely written to Hellenic Police which responded that on those dates “they had located respectively 11 and 35 third country nationals who were taken into custody and escorted to the regional center for reception and identification”; that “no other third country national was located, taken into custody or arrested;” and that “no push back has taken place” and “all their operations, included border surveillance, have been conducted according to the provisions of the law and with full respect to human rights of asylum seekers.” The Ombudsman concluded that it was satisfied with the answer and had filed the case.

The Ombudsman furthermore had begun investigating the third complaint, and suddenly ceased review, without explanation.

Advocates Abroad is stunned by this development, as in effect the Ombudsman did not carry out an investigation as mandated by its new role as National Mechanism for the Investigation of Arbitrary Behavior (Articles 56-58 of Law 4443/2016); instead they were all complaints were filed and thus implicitly considered as unfounded. They, however, had been submitted with the support of credible and irrefutable evidence.

Furthermore, in recent months, there is abundance of evidence demonstrating that the reality of push backs and ill-treatment is widespread in the Evros area:

* a comprehensive compilation of several NGO reports and a CPT report was published by Greek Hesinki Monitor on 9 September 2018 as “Unprecedented systematic police violence and illegal deportation of asylum seekers in Evros.”

* an “Open letter to Prime Minister Tsipras on systematic police violence and illegal deportation of asylum seekers in Evros (Greece)” was published by the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) on 20 September 2018

* “New video evidence of police violence and illegal deportation of asylum seekers in Evros” was published by Greek Helsinki Monitor on 29 September 2018 and again on 16 November 2018

* a report on “The new normality: continuous push-backs of third country nationals on the Evros river” was published by the Greek Council for Refugees, ARSIS and Human Rights 360 on 12 December 2018

* a report on “Greece: Violent Pushbacks at Turkey Border End Summary Returns, Unchecked Violence” was published by Human Rights Watch on 18 December 2018

* most importantly, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe published on 6 November 2018 her report following her visit to Greece in June 2018 concluding: “The Commissioner is deeply concerned about persistent and documented allegations of summary returns to Turkey, often accompanied by the use of violence. She underlines that collective expulsions of migrants are prohibited under Article 4 of Protocol 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights and that the non-refoulement principle is enshrined in the UN Refugee Convention.

DH-DD(2019)387: Rule 9.2 Communication from a NGO in Makaratzis v. Greece. Document distributed under the sole responsibility of its author, without prejudice to the legal or political position of the Committee of Ministers. Considering that the information available points to the existence of an established practice in this field, the Commissioner urges the Greek authorities to put an end to push-backs and to investigate any allegations of ill-treatment perpetrated by members of Greek security forces in the context of such operations.”

Advocates Abroad, via the two complaints the Ombudsman decided to file as unfounded and the third report inexplicably dropped mid-investigation, is documenting extensively such cases of what even the Commissioner for Human Rights and the CPT consider as established practice.

The dismissal of the complaints by the Ombudsman who accepted the Hellenic Police assertion that they are no pushbacks and no ill-treatment is a question of serious concern for the credibility of this state institution.

Advocates Abroad will share this development with the Commissioner for Human Rights, CPT, the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers’ Deputies for Human Rights (CMDH) and the competent UN institutions in the hope that they will ask the Greek authorities to investigate these and all similar allegations.

The GHM reports and links to several of the other NGOs reports mentioned therein are available in “Unprecedented systematic police violence and illegal deportation of asylum seekers in Evros”. For none of the hundreds documented cases of torture and ill-treatment in the Evros border area referred to by Advocates Abroad, GHM and the other NGOs has there been any disciplinary or criminal investigations, including by the Ombudsman to whom scores of related complaints were filed. GHM has on file the detailed evidence compiled by Advocates Abroad and some of the evidence provided by other NGOs.

Finally, GHM would like to request the CM to consider additionally the related extensive information provided in the GHM and REDRESS submissions prior to the December 2018 meeting, available on the CM website:

 DH-DD(2018)1151 / 21 November 2018 (CM-Public) 1331st meeting (December 2018) (DH) - Rule 9.2 Communication from a NGO (Greek Helsinki Monitor) (05/11/2018) in the case of MAKARATZIS (Makaratzis group) v. Greece (Application No. 12294/07) [Anglais uniquement]

 DH-DD(2018)985 / 15 October 2018 (CM-Public) 1331st meeting (December 2018) (DH) - Rule 9.2 Communication from a NGO (Greek Helsinki Monitor) (27/09/2018) in the group of MAKARATZIS v. Greece (Application No. 50385/99) [Anglais uniquement]

 DH-DD(2018)1099 / 12 November 2018 (CM-Public) 1331st meeting (December 2018) (DH) - Rule 9.2 Communication from a NGO (Greek Helsinki Monitor) (31/10/2018) in the case of MAKARATZIS (Makaratzis group) v. Greece (Application No. 12294/07) [Anglais uniquement]

 DH-DD(2018)1092 / 07 November 2018 (CM-Public) 1331st meeting (December 2018) (DH) - Rule 9.2 Communication from a NGO (Redress - Ending Torture, Seeking Justice for Survivors) (25/10/2018) in the case of Zontul (Makaratzis group) v. Greece (Application No. 12294/07) [Anglais uniquement]

GHM urges the CM to consider therein especially the lengthy documented “Comprehensive report on the astonishing violence and impunity of Greek police” and most importantly the “Report on follow-up to the concluding observations of the UN Human Rights Committee on Greece” with detailed analysis and recommendations to Greece. The UN HRCttee recommendations are repeated here:

Committee’s evaluation

[B]: The Committee welcomes the designation of the Ombudsman as the national mechanism for the investigation of incidents of ill-treatment committed by law enforcement and detention facility agents. It requires additional information on: (a) the mandate and actions taken by the national mechanism for the

DH-DD(2019)387: Rule 9.2 Communication from a NGO in Makaratzis v. Greece. Document distributed under the sole responsibility of its author, without prejudice to the legal or political position of the Committee of Ministers. investigation of incidents of ill-treatment committed by law enforcement and detention facility agents to investigate allegations of unauthorized and disproportionate use of force by such agents; (b) whether the State party envisages rendering the Ombudsman’s recommendations binding. [C]: The Committee regrets the lack of information on concrete measures taken after the adoption of the Committee’s concluding observations to ensure that all allegations of unauthorized and disproportionate use of force by law enforcement officials are thoroughly and promptly investigated by an independent authority. It therefore requires information on: (a) the measures taken to punish, as well as the sentences imposed on, law enforcement officials for misconduct, ill-treatment or disproportionate use of force, after the adoption of the Committee’s concluding observations; (b) the progress of investigations made into the cases of Thanasis Panayotopoulos, Yannis Bekos, Vasilis Loukas and similar ones; and (c) the number, regularity, duration and content of professional training for police officers and other law enforcement agents conducted after the Committee’s concluding observations. The Committee reiterates its recommendation. (…)

GHM represents the Roma Thanasis Panayotopoulos, Yannis Bekos, and Vasilis Loukas referred to by the UN HRCttee and updates the information provided to it. The criminal investigation into their torture allegations was recently concluded but was not really effective but mostly bureaucratic (the investigating judge had the file for three months and did not even summon the victims for testifying). Their complaint to the Ombudsman on the other hand was never investigated. Hence, the victims of torture and GHM are compelled to file an application to the ECtHR for a case that has been highlighted internationally by the UN HRCttee but also the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights on 18 April 2017: “I received information about the alleged severe beating, amounting to torture, of three Greek nationals of Roma origin who claimed that in October 2016 they were subjected to the above treatment by officers of the Western Attica Police Division, in the course of an interrogation. Reportedly one of the victims was transferred to hospital having suffered a heart attack and serious injuries on his genitals. I understand that a complaint has been lodged with the Athens Special Prosecutor on Racist Violence.”