world […] it cannot satisfy the needs of an extensive detention”.15 In regard to this
case, and within the framework of the general measures for the compliance of
Greece with the Court’s decision, the Committee of Ministers has requested
information from Greece as for the measures that it intends to take on the issue of
the long stay of detainees in police stations, including aliens under deportation and
it will examine the case in a subsequent session.
In the case of Siasios and others16 the complainants were held under custody
for a time period of approximately 3 months in the Katerini Police Department until
their transfer to the Prisons of Thessalonica. The ECtHR repeating its line of
thinking from the Kaja case, it held that the detention of the complainants
constituted humiliating treatment.17
In the case of Vafiadis the complainant –a drug addict- was held in the
Thessalonica Police Department for approximately one hundred days due to no
availability in the prisons. The ECtHR after repeating what it had already
mentioned in the cases of Kaja and Siasios and underlining the fact that “the
money of 5,87 euros per day that the petitioner was afforded for his food was
minimal and it could not ensure adequate and appropriate daily food, since he had
to order his food from restaurants at market’s prices”, it concluded that the long
detention under these conditions constituted inhuman and degrading treatment.18
The Court in its most recent decision, in the case of Tabesh,19 held once again
that the detention for approximately three months of the complainant who was
under expulsion in the Alien Sub-Division of Thessalonica under the same
conditions as in the previous cases constituted humiliating treatment in breach of
article 3 of the ECHR. 20
Ibid., par. 49.
Siasios and Others v. Greece, Judgment of 4 June 2009. The Committee of Ministers will examine
this case on March of 2010.
17 Ibid., par. 32-33.
18 Vafiadis v. Greece, Judgment of 2 July 2009, παρ. 35-38. The Committee of Ministers will examine
this case on March of 2010.
19 Tabesh v. Greece, Judgment of 26 November 2009.
20 We note that there is one more case pending: Efraimidi v. Greece (Application No 33225/2008)
regarding detention conditions in police stations.
15
16
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