6. The applicant was born in 1954 and lived in Czarne, Poland. 7.  The applicant was arrested by the police on 12 September 2001 on a charge of murder and by a decision of the Bytów District Court of 14 September 2001 he was detained on remand. 8. Subsequently, the applicant’s pre-trial detention was prolonged on several occasions by the Słupsk Regional Court (decisions of 6 December 2001, 2 January 2002, 22 March 2002, 20 December 2002, 18 March 2003 and 16 June 2003). 9. The applicant on several occasions unsuccessfully applied to be released and to have the preventive measure imposed on him changed into a more lenient one. 10. The courts justified their decisions prolonging the applicant’s detention on remand and their refusals to release him by the existence of a reasonable suspicion that he had committed the offence concerned and by the severity of the anticipated sentence. 11. On 22 March 2002 the Słupsk Regional Court convicted the applicant and sentenced him to eight years’ imprisonment. On 5 September 2002 the Gdańsk Court of Appeal quashed the first-instance judgment and remitted the case to the lower court. 12. On 16 September 2003 the Słupsk Regional Court convicted the applicant and sentenced him to seven years’ imprisonment. On 10 February 2004 the Gdańsk Court of Appeal quashed the first-instance judgment and remitted the case to the lower court. 13. On 7 February 2005 the Słupsk Regional Court convicted the applicant and sentenced him to seven years’ imprisonment. On 23 June 2005 the Gdańsk Court of Appeal reduced the sentence to six years’ imprisonment. A cassation appeal against the second-instance judgment was available. 14. On 23 June 2005 the applicant was released because of his health which had prevented him from serving a term of imprisonment. The applicant submitted that from August 2005 he had been examined several times by psychiatrists and that he had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital for short periods on five occasions. He had been diagnosed with nervous depression. 15. On 5 March 2003 the Court received a letter from the applicant dated 9 February 2003. The envelope bore the following stamps: “the Słupsk Regional Court (...)” and “Censored on 18 February” (Ocenzurowano dnia 18.02) and an illegible signature.