4. The applicant was born in 1977. He is currently serving a life sentence in Penitentiary no. 47 in the town of Zhvyrka, Lviv Region. 5.  The applicant was arrested on 7 December 1999. 6.  On 8 December 1999 the Pridnirpovsky District Court of Cherkassy (Придніпровський районний суд м. Черкаси) sentenced him to ten days' administrative detention (адміністративний арешт) for swearing in public, an act which the court qualified as petty hooliganism, an offence under Article 173 of the Code of Administrative Offences. The detention period was calculated to run from 7 December 1999. 7.  On 9 December 1999 the applicant confessed to having participated in the murder of a certain K. On the same day he was placed in police custody. 8.  On 10 December 1999 a prosecutor from the Cherkassy Regional Prosecutor's Office (Прокуратура Черкаської області) instituted criminal proceedings against the applicant for murder. 9.  On 11 December 1999 the Prosecutor of the Cherkassy Region (Прокурор Черкаської області, hereafter “the Regional Prosecutor”) ordered the applicant's pre‑trial detention. The reasons given by the prosecutor for issuing the order were that:
“.. the [applicant] has committed a serious offence and may attempt to evade the investigation and trial, and to obstruct the establishment of the truth in the case.” 10.  From 11 to 17 December 1999 the investigator (слідчий) appointed to deal with the case charged the applicant and his three co-defendants with further counts of murder, armed robbery, arson and participation in a criminal gang. 11.  On 31 January 2000 the Regional Prosecutor decided to extend the length of the applicant's detention on remand for up to a maximum of five months on the ground that he was suspected of particularly serious criminal offences. Citing the same reason, on 28 April 2000 the Regional Prosecutor extended the length of the applicant's detention up to a maximum of six months. 12.  On 31 May 2000 the investigator declared that the pre-trial investigation was complete and granted the defendants access to the case file. 13.  On 19 July 2000 the Regional Prosecutor approved the bill of indictment and sent it with the case file to the Cherkassy Regional Court (Черкаський обласний суд, hereafter “the Regional Court”) in readiness for the trial proceedings. 14.  On 2 October 2000 the Regional Court found that the investigator's conclusions were contradictory and did not correspond to the charges that had been brought against the applicant. It remitted the case for further investigations and decided – without stating any reasons – that the applicant should remain in pre-trial detention. 15.  On 25 October 2000 the Regional Prosecutor's Office resumed the pre‑trial proceedings in the applicant's case. 16.  On 21 November 2000 the additional pre-trial investigations were completed and the applicant and his co-accused were allowed to consult the case file. Their consultations continued – with a short interruption on 7‑8 February 2001 – until 23 February 2001. On the latter date the Regional Prosecutor approved the bill of indictment and submitted the case to the Regional Court for trial. 17.  On 28 March 2001 the Regional Court remitted the case to the Regional Prosecutor's Office on the ground that the case file was incomplete. 18.  On 29 March 2001 the case file was resubmitted to the court in readiness for the trial proceedings. 19.  On 25 December 2001, following an adversarial trial during which the applicant was represented by a lawyer, the Cherkassy Regional Court of Appeal (Апеляційний суд Черкаської області, the Cherkassy Regional Court, as renamed on 29 June 2001, hereafter “the Court of Appeal”), found the applicant guilty as charged and sentenced him to life imprisonment. His conviction was based on his and his co-defendants' confessions during the pre-trial proceedings, the statements of two of his co-defendants at the trial, and the evidence of various witnesses and experts. 20.  On 16 July 2002 the Supreme Court rejected the applicant's appeal and upheld the judgment of 25 December 2001. 21.  On 9 September 2005 the Sosnivsky District Court of Cherkassy (Соснівський районний суд м. Черкаси) rejected a defamation claim by the applicant against the newspapers Misto and Vechirni Cherkassy. The applicant, who was represented by a lawyer, alleged that in November 2001 and May 2002, i.e. before his conviction became final, the newspapers had published articles in which he had been referred to as a “criminal” and a “murderer”. The applicant claimed that that information was libellous and abusive. 22.  The court found that the statements in the newspaper articles had been substantiated by the Cherkassy Regional Court of Appeal's judgment of 25 December 2001 and that in any event the applicant's claim was time‑barred and he had not applied for an extension of time. The applicant appealed. 23.  On 8 December 2005 the Court of Appeal upheld the judgment of 9 September 2005.