6.  The applicant was born in 1972 and lives in Szydłowiec, Poland. 7.  On 17 January 1995 the applicant was arrested by the police on suspicion of robbery. On 18 January 1995 the Przysucha District Prosecutor (Prokurator Rejonowy) charged him with robbery and detained him on remand on the ground that there was a reasonable suspicion that he had committed the offence in question. 8.  On 13 March 1995 the applicant was indicted before the Radom Regional Court (Sąd Wojewódzki). 9.  The trial began on 17 August 1995. On 11 July 1996 the Radom Regional Court convicted the applicant as charged and sentenced him to 4 years' imprisonment. On 16 April 1997, on the applicant's appeal, the Warsaw Court of Appeal amended that judgment in part and reduced the sentence to 3 years' and 6 months' imprisonment. 10.  On an unknown date the applicant was detained in Radom Remand Centre (Areszt Śledczy). On 18 September 1995 he was placed in a cell of 12.49 square metres together with 5 other prisoners, all of whom were heavy smokers. There was no running water, no sewage system, no toilet and insufficient natural lighting. The glow-lamps were switched on from morning to night. The cell lacked adequate ventilation. The detainees were given two buckets of drinking water and one extra bucket, which was used as a toilet by all of them. 11.  The applicant many times complained about the conditions of his detention, in particular the size of his cell and the fact that he was detained together with heavy smokers. He also complained that he was deprived of any opportunity to exercise in the open air since detainees were only allowed a daily walk in a well in the prison building. 12.  On 12 March and 28 May 1996, in letters to the applicant, the Governor of Radom Remand Centre acknowledged that the prison conditions were difficult since Radom Remand Centre was one of the oldest prisons in Poland. He added that the prison was constantly overcrowded by 20%. 13.  On 17 July 1998 the applicant was released from prison. 14.  On 15 March 1996 the applicant's wrote his first letter to the Commission. The letter was opened by the authorities. In the top left hand corner of the letter there was a stamp, which read: “censored” (“ocenzurowano”). The stamp was followed by an illegible signature. 15.  Following the communication of the application, the Government enquired into the circumstances surrounding the censoring of the applicant's letter. They found that an employee of the Radom Regional Court had stamped the applicant's letter “censored”. They maintained that that had happened by mistake since the employee was an inexperienced clerk who had been unfamiliar with the rules governing the censorship of correspondence.