CASE OF SHIYANOV v. UKRAINE
Violation of Article 2 - Right to life (Article 2-1 - Effective investigation) (Procedural aspect)
André Potocki;Ganna Yudkivska;Síofra O’Leary
4. The applicant was born in 1951 and lives in Kremenchuk. 5. On 19 June 1998 the applicant’s 17-year-old daughter, M., was found dead in a field in the Kharkiv region. Her body was naked and had numerous injuries. 6. According to the information submitted by the Government, on 20 June 1998 a post mortem was carried out. It established that M. had been strangled and that her body had been dragged to the place where it had been discovered. There was no indication that she had been raped. She had not been pregnant. Nor had she been under the influence of alcohol or drugs. 7. On 22 June 1998 the Kharkiv inter-district prosecutor’s office opened a criminal case in respect of the murder. 8. On 24 June 1998 the applicant was admitted to the proceedings as an aggrieved party. 9. On 28 June 1998 the police inspected the scene of the crime. They discovered the remnants of a fire and two plastic bags not far from the place where M.’s body had been found. Samples of the coal and the bags were collected as material evidence. 10. On 30 June 1998 another examination of the crime scene was carried out and the following objects were found: some matches, two cigarette ends, two plastic bags, a burnt notepad with some notes written by M. (her parents identified her handwriting later). Furthermore, the police discovered the burnt remains of a calendar, some tampons, a student ID with a stamp containing the word “Law” (M. was a student at the Kharkiv Law Academy), and a lighter. 11. On 24 August 1998 a forensic cytological examination established that it was not M. who had smoked the cigarettes. 12. On 1 October 1998 the police seized one of M.’s shoes, which had been discovered by a villager at some distance from the crime scene. 13. On 18 January 1999 a witness stated that on the evening of 18 June 1998 she had twice seen a beige car belonging to a certain B., with two male passengers and a girl resembling M., near the crime scene. The witness also submitted that B. had apparently had the car seat covers changed shortly thereafter. 14. On 14 April 1999 the investigator in the case instructed the police to verify whether B. and his two passengers of 18 June 1998 could have been involved in the murder and to identify the girl who had been seen with them. The police questioned those seen in the car and concluded that sufficient grounds did not exist to treat them as suspects. As regards an inspection of the car and the covers of the seats, it appears that none was carried out at the time as the investigator had to order one again on 22 February 2010. That belated inspection produced no tangible results. 15. The investigation of M.’s murder has been unsuccessful. Between 1998 and 2010 it was suspended at least thirteen times for failure to establish who had committed the murder. At least five of those decisions were quashed as premature and as not based on a comprehensive investigation. In the remaining instances the investigation was resumed without any further details being given in the respective decisions. At least four times (in particular, in 1998, 2001 and 2009) the investigator complained to his supervisors that his instructions to the police had not been complied with. In particular, on 20 January 2009 the investigator, when instructing the police to undertake certain investigative measures, noted that earlier instructions to that effect, given in 2000, had not been followed up. Overall, throughout the period in question, the investigator’s instructions to the police remained the same: to identify all the possible witnesses to the murder and to verify whether any of M.’s acquaintances, or any people with a criminal record living nearby, could have been involved in it. 16. The applicant submitted numerous complaints to the prosecution authorities about the length and ineffectiveness of the investigation. He also put forward his own version of events and mentioned the names of several people whom he suspected of being involved in the crime. He was informed on at least four occasions that there had indeed been omissions in the investigation and that the police officers responsible had been disciplined. As regards the applicant’s requests for access to the case file, they were rejected on the grounds that under the applicable procedural legislation, an aggrieved party could only have such access after the pre-trial investigation had been completed. 17. The applicant also brought a civil claim against the prosecution authorities, but courts at three levels of jurisdiction found against him. 18. There is no information in the case file about any developments in the investigation after 2010.