4.  The applicant was born in 1972 and lives in St Petersburg. 5.  On 15 April 2004 the applicant was apprehended. 6.  On 17 April 2004 the Kuybyshevskiy District Court of St Petersburg authorised his detention on remand. The court based its decision on the grounds that the applicant had a criminal record and was suspected of having committed several serious criminal offences, notably robbery and participation in a criminal gang, that he was unemployed and had no income to support himself and his family. Moreover, as some accessories to robbery had not yet been identified, the applicant, if remained at large, could have alerted his accomplices and thus interfere with the investigation. 7.  It appears that by decisions of 10 June and 17 August 2004 the District Court extended the applicant's detention. On the latter occasion it did so until 21 October 2004. According to the applicant, the court relied mainly on the gravity of charges against him. 8.  On 21 October 2004 the case against the applicant and his fourteen co-defendants was referred to the Leningrad Regional Court for trial. 9.  On 5 November 2004 the trial court in a closed meeting decided to fix a date for the preliminary hearing. Besides, without referring to any grounds, it ordered that the detention measure imposed on the applicant and his co-defendants “should remain unchanged”. 10.  On 28 December 2004 the Regional Court held the preliminary hearing. The applicant and his counsel pleaded for his release on factual and legal grounds. They submitted that the applicant's criminal record had been purged and that he had dependants, namely a disabled mother and under-age daughter. They also asserted that the authorised detention had expired on 21 October 2004 and that a further detention – from 5 November 2004 afterwards – had been extended unlawfully, that is outside the time-limit and in the absence of the applicant and his representative. The court acknowledged that the applicant's previous conviction had expired and that he had two dependants. However, it attached decisive weight to the gravity of the charges and found no reason to vary the preventive measure because “the initial grounds for detention still obtained”. The court thus authorised the applicant's further detention. It did not set any time-limit. On the same occasion, the Regional Court returned the case to the prosecutor for remedying defects of the bill of indictment. 11.  Counsel for the applicant filed an appeal, maintaining that any extension of the custodial measure after the initial detention period had expired on 21 October 2004 had been unlawful. 12.  On 21 April 2005 the Supreme Court of Russia dismissed the appeal. The relevant part of its decision reads:
“... It appears from the materials that the case against [the applicant and others] was received by the [Regional] Court on 21 October 2004. The authorities in charge of the preliminary investigation had authorised their detention until that date.
Neither at the directions hearing, nor at the preliminary hearing did the [Regional] Court detect any violations of law in the application of the preventive measure to the defendants and its extension during the pre-trial investigation.
There existed no grounds for revoking or varying the chosen measure.
Taking into account those considerations and also the gravity of the charges against the defendants, the [Regional] Court correctly decided not to vary the preventive measure in the form of placement in custody.
Since 5 November 2004 the defendants have been held in custody on the basis of a lawful and justified judicial decision ...” 13.  On 19 April 2005 the Regional Court examined and granted the prosecutor's application for the extension of the defendants' detention until 21 July 2005. The court relied on the same grounds as in its decision of 28 December 2004 (see paragraph 10). 14.  The applicant's lawyer appealed. He submitted that the Regional Court by its decision had violated the right of the defence because it extended the detention period in the absence of the case materials which had been at that time at the Supreme Court. He also reiterated the argument that the applicant's detention after 21 October 2004 had been unlawful. 15.  By a decision of 29 June 2005, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. It held that the Code of Criminal Procedure did not prevent the decision on extending detention from being made at the time when the case-file was with the appeal court. Referring to its earlier decision of 21 April 2005, it declined to examine again the lawfulness of the applicant's detention after 21 October 2004. 16.  On 15 June 2005 the case against the applicant and his co-defendants was again referred to the Regional Court for trial. 17.  By a decision of 12 July 2005, it extended the applicant's detention until 21 October 2005. The court stated as follows:
“... Pelevin S.V. does not have a criminal record, has a minor dependent and a disabled mother ... However, the court has a regard to the gravity of the charges levelled against Pelevin S.V. The grounds which the court relied upon when it decided to place Pelevin S.V. in detention still obtain, therefore the [Regional] Court finds no reasons for varying ... the preventive measure [in question] ...” 18.  From the material submitted to the Court, it follows that the Leningrad Regional Court, paraphrasing the grounds set out in the decision of 12 July 2005, extended the applicant's detention yet six times, notably by decisions of 17 October 2005, 17 January, 18 April, 11 July, 20 October 2006 and 19 January 2007. By the latter detention order, it maintained the custodial measure until 21 April 2007. 19.  The applicant was convicted on 16 April 2007. No particulars about the conclusions in his criminal case have been provided to the Court.