5.  The applicant was born in 1973 and lives in Zabrze. He is currently detained in Włocławek Prison. 6.  On 29 September 2003 the applicant was arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking, committed while acting in an organised criminal gang. 7.  On 1 October 2003 the Bytom District Court remanded him in custody, relying on the reasonable suspicion that he had committed the offence in question. It also considered that keeping the applicant in detention was necessary to secure the proper conduct of the proceedings, given the risk that he might induce witnesses to give false testimony. The court pointed out that other persons involved in the crime were still at large. The court also stressed the severity of the anticipated sentence. 8.  Later, several other members of the same criminal gang were detained and charged in connection with the investigation against the applicant. 9.  The applicant's appeal against the detention order, like his further appeals against decisions prolonging his detention and all his subsequent numerous applications for release and appeals against refusals to release him, were unsuccessful. In his applications and appeal, he argued that the authorities had failed to justify his continued detention by relevant and sufficient reasons. He stressed that the measure complained of should be imposed only at the initial stage of the proceedings and that his continued detention constituted in practice deprivation of liberty. He also relied on his personal circumstances, in particular on the difficult financial situation of his family. 10.  In the course of the investigation, the applicant's detention was prolonged on 3 December 2003, 8 March 2004, 3 June 2004 and 22 September 2004. In all their detention decisions the authorities repeatedly relied on the original grounds given for the applicant's detention. 11.  On 22 December 2004 a bill of indictment was lodged with the Katowice District Court. The applicant was charged with drug trafficking, illegal arms trading, unlawful possession of a firearm and acting in an organised criminal gang. There were fifteen defendants in the case, all charged with numerous counts of drug trafficking committed in an organised criminal gang. 12.  On 25 August 2005 the trial court held the first hearing. It subsequently held some sixty-one hearings in the case. 13.  During the court proceedings the authorities further prolonged the applicant's detention (on 30 December 2004, 17 March 2005, 14 June 2005, 24 August 2005, 8 March 2006, 17 August 2006, 20 December 2006 and 23 March 2007). The courts repeated the grounds previously given for his continued detention. 14.  On 15 May 2007 the Katowice District Court gave judgment. The applicant was convicted of drug trafficking, unlawful possession of a firearm and acting in an organised criminal gang and sentenced to nine years' imprisonment. 15.  The applicant appealed against that judgment. 16.  On 7 May 2008 the Katowice Regional Court heard the applicant's appeal. It partly quashed the first-instance judgment and remitted the case in respect of the charges concerning drug trafficking and acting in an organised criminal gang. The court upheld the first-instance judgment in respect of the charge concerning unlawful possession of a firearm for which the applicant had been sentenced to three years' imprisonment. It held that the applicant's detention from 29 September 2003 to 29 September 2006 should be counted towards his sentence. 17.  The retrial started on 13 June 2008. On 30 June 2008 the Katowice Regional Court ordered that the applicant's detention should continue until 15 January 2009. 18.  In the retrial proceedings the applicant made numerous unsuccessful applications for release and appealed, likewise unsuccessfully, against the decision of 30 June 2008 prolonging his detention. 19.  The applicant was released on 17 February 2009. The Katowice Regional Court prohibited him from leaving the country and placed him under police supervision. The proceedings are currently pending before the Katowice Regional Court.