4.  The applicant was born in 1970 and lives in Sarkad. 5.  On 30 March 1992 criminal proceedings were instituted against the applicant for fencing and other crimes.  On 6 December 1994 a bill of indictment was preferred against him and ten others. 6.  The Budapest XVIII/XIX District Court held several hearings, at several of which the applicant did not appear. For his absconding, an arrest warrant was issued against him. 7.  On 5 October 2007 the District Court convicted the applicant of fencing and forgery of private documents, but refrained from imposing a sentence on him for a two-year probation period. The applicant waived his right to appeal, so the judgment’s reasoning was shortened, and it became final on the same day. 8.  On the basis of the same investigation an additional bill of indictment was preferred against the applicant for further accounts of fencing and forgery of private documents on 17 March 1995. 9.  After holding several hearings, the Nyíregyháza District Court delivered a judgment on 5 November 1997 which was quashed by the Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County Regional Court on 18 March 1998. 10.  The applicant did not appear at several hearings, so an arrest warrant was issued against him. 11.  On 6 October 2006 the District Court found the applicant guilty as charged and sentenced him to eight months of imprisonment. Due to the applicant’s withdrawal of his appeal, the judgment became final on 25 January 2007.
The extraordinary protraction of the proceedings was mentioned in the judgment as an aggravating circumstance. The Government, however, claimed that the length had actually been taken into account as a weighty mitigating factor.