5.  The applicant was born in 1984 and lives in the Krasnodar Region. 6.  During the evening of 24 March 2001 the applicant, a minor at the time, was having a drink with his friends, K., V., and B.D. They then met up with a group of youths, including Z., B.C., B.B. and G., who were also under the influence of alcohol. The two groups started a quarrel which ended with a short fight. According to the applicant, when he and his friends left the scene of the fight nobody was seriously hurt. He just had some bruises on his face. However, it appears that during the fight or immediately afterwards G. was stabbed with a knife. He was taken to hospital, where he died. 7.  On the next day the applicant was questioned, charged with the murder of G. and detained in custody pending the investigation. The police searched the scene of the incident, the applicant’s house, and seized his clothes. The clothes were then sent to a forensic expert, who concluded that red stains on the applicant’s jacket were from G.’s blood. Blood stains were also found on the shoes and clothes of K. and B.B., who were also arrested in connection with the incident but were later released and the charges against them dropped. The prosecution concluded that it was the applicant who had stabbed G. 8.  According to the applicant, on 29 November 2001, shortly before the commencement of the trial in his case, he was beaten in the detention centre by one of the guards. 9.  At the first hearing before the trial court, on 30 November 2001, the defence requested the court to release the applicant pending trial. The court refused, concluding as follows:
“[The application for release should be dismissed] on the ground that the applicant has committed a serious crime, he has not produced any document that would prove [that there exists] a danger to his life or health”. 10.  At the trial the applicant pleaded not guilty. He did not deny that he had had a fight with G., but denied stabbing him with a knife. The defence requested the court to summon over a dozen witnesses. The court heard some of them but several witnesses were not summoned or failed to appear. The court questioned several witnesses to the incident. None of them had seen G. being stabbed. K. testified that before the incident of 24 March 2001 the applicant had shown him a home-made knife. He said that on leaving the scene of the incident, the applicant told him that he had stabbed G. with the knife. The court also heard the investigators in charge of the case and examined the record of the search of the scene of the incident, the results of the post-mortem examination of G.’s body, and the results of the forensic examination of the stains on the applicant’s jacket. 11.  On 10 December 2001 the Dinskiy District Court found the applicant guilty of the murder of G. and sentenced him to six years’ imprisonment. The applicant submitted that it took the court no more than one hour and forty minutes to hear the applicant’s two legal representatives and his own final submissions, then to discuss, draft and deliver the judgment, which was three pages long. 12.  The applicant appealed. The arguments by the defence were centred on the taking and interpretation of evidence in the proceedings. However, chapter 1 of the appeal brief stated: “The investigation and trial were incomplete, one-sided and tendentious, with an accusatory bias”. Point 1.3 of that chapter read as follows:
“1.3.  Yet, the most striking example of the partiality of the court and the accusatory bias of the proceedings was a ruling made by the court 10 days prior to the delivery of the judgment and before the end of the trial court’s examination of the evidence. In the ruling of 30.11.2001 the court predetermined the [applicant’s] guilt, finding that: ‘... [Mr] Romenskiy ha[d] committed a serious crime ...’ (trial hearing record, page 7)”. 13.  On 27 March 2002 the Krasnodar Regional Court, sitting as a court of appeal (кассационная инстанция), upheld the judgment. The court heard the parties and concluded that the applicant’s guilt had been sufficiently established at the trial. The Regional Court found that there had been no significant violations of the procedural or substantive law which would require a review of the judgment. The issue of the alleged impartiality was not analysed in explicit terms. 14.  According to the applicant, he brought supervisory review appeal against his conviction, referring, inter alia, to partiality on the part of the judge. However, his arguments to that end were rejected without detailed reasoning, and the supervisory review of the judgment was refused.