8.  The applicant was born in 1952 and lives in Cricova, Chişinău. 9.  On 5 March 1997 he was arrested on a charge of complicity in an aggravated robbery. On 22 July 1997 the Buiucani District Court convicted the applicant of conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery and, as a dangerous recidivist, sentenced him to twelve years’ imprisonment, to be served in a labour camp with a severe regime. The applicant appealed against this decision. 10.  On 20 November 1997 the Chişinău Regional Court dismissed the appeal as unfounded and upheld the decision of the District Court. The applicant lodged an appeal in cassation against this decision. Following an oral hearing on 12 February 1998, the Appellate Court, in its final judgment, dismissed the appeal and upheld the decision of the Regional Court. 11.  The applicant lodged an application with the European Court on 28 April 1999. On 2 August 1999, he wrote to the Court, which had requested various documents from him, enclosing a request he had submitted on 16 July 1999 to the prison administration, seeking, inter alia, copies of the complaints he had sent to the Chişinău Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Prosecutor General’s Office and the replies they had sent him. At the top of his request someone had written:
“To the special unit. For action. 17 July 1999”,
and on the back of the document there was a list, hand-written, but not by him, of eleven complaints which he had addressed to various domestic authorities. The applicant also sent the Court a letter addressed to him on 20 April 1999 by the Moldovan mission of the OSCE. The letter bore a number of stamps, indicating that it had passed through various offices between 5 May and 25 June 1999. According to the applicant, it was delivered to him only on 1 July 1999. 12.  In his letter to the Court of 4 October 1999 the applicant explicitly complained that his letters had been opened by the prison administration, and asked the Court to order the Head of the prison’s Special Unit not to open letters addressed to him. The applicant returned to the Court a letter dated 2 September 1999 from the Court’s Registry, which now bore the stamp:
“Entry no. 374, on 10 September 1999”,
together with a hand-written note stating:
“The special unit. Received on 10 September 1999”.
The applicant informed the Court that he had not received the letter until 22 September 1999. 13.  On 15 March 2001 the applicant returned to the Court its letter to whom, dated 9 February 2001, which had been stamped:
“Entry no. 77, 22.02”.
Someone had also written on the letter:
“The special unit. 22.02.2001”. 14.  In a letter dated 2 September 2001, the applicant complained that about 80 pages of documents sent to him by the Court had been handed to him by the prison administration in an open envelope. 15.  On 10 June 2002 the applicant’s counsel sent to the Court a copy of a letter to him from the applicant, dated 4 December 2001 and requesting a meeting. The letter had been posted on 7 December 2001 accompanied by a written note from the prison’s Governor, stamped with a registration number, and stating:
 “We despatch the petition of the convicted prisoner Meriacre Victor Gheorghe detained in the institution OŞC 29/15 in Rîşcani district of Cricova city. Annexe 4 pages”. 16.  The applicant was released from prison on 11 November 2004, in accordance with a general amnesty enacted by Parliament.