4.  The applicant was born in 1965 and lives in Vienna. 5.  On 9 December 1998 the Vienna Regional Court (Landesgericht) ordered the applicant’s detention on remand on suspicion of having committed homosexual acts with adolescents contrary to Article 209 of the Criminal Code. 6.  On 8 April 1999 the presiding judge of the competent chamber of the Regional Court scheduled the applicant’s trial for 21 April 1999. On the first day of the trial, on 21 April 1999, the applicant was released from detention on remand and the hearing was adjourned in order to summon a witness residing in the Slovak Republic to the trial. At the hearing of 14 July 1999 the witnesses summoned in Slovakia did not appear. On 16 July 1999 the Regional Court sent letters rogatory requesting the summoning of these witnesses to the competent court in Bratislava. A further hearing was held on 24 November 1999 and the trial again adjourned. 7.  On 15 December 1999 the Bratislava District Court II informed the Regional Court that the summons could not be served on the witnesses. 8.  On 31 January 2000 the Regional Court requested the applicant to submit addresses to which the summons could be sent. On 15 May 2000 the applicant gave such information in respect of two of the witnesses. 9.  On 20 December 2000 the Regional Court again sent letters rogatory to the Slovakian judicial authority to hear one witness. It appears that the Slovakian courts did not succeed in obtaining statements of that witness. 10.  On 21 November 2001 a further hearing in the trial against the applicant took place. The Regional Court read out statements of three witnesses made at the pre-trial stage. The applicant’s counsel objected to the reading out of the statements. No witnesses were heard. 11.  On the same day, the Regional Court convicted the applicant on several counts of the offence under Section 209 of the Penal Code and sentenced him to six months’ imprisonment suspended on probation for three years. The applicant was acquitted as regards other charges. 12.  On 8 January 2002 the Public Prosecutor filed an appeal against the sentence and, on 25 January 2002, the applicant filed an appeal on points of law and fact, as well as against the sentence. The applicant argued, inter alia, that Article 209 of the Criminal Code was unconstitutional in that it did not comply with Article 8 of the Convention read in conjunction with Article 14 and that the reading out of the statement of the witnesses at the trial violated his right to a fair hearing under Article 6 of the Convention. 13.  On 8 April 2002 the Vienna Court of Appeal, after a public hearing, dismissed the applicant’s appeal but granted the Public Prosecutor’s appeal and increased the sentence to nine months’ imprisonment, out of which six months were suspended on probation.