SECOND SECTION

Application no . 36568/07 Simon BENJAMIN against Hungary lodged on 16 August 2007

STATEMENT OF FACTS

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Simon Benjamin (alias Imre Sándor Virág ), is a Hungarian national who was born in 1972. Currently he is serving a prison sentence in Szombathely Prison. He is represented before the Court by Mr Róbert Papp, a lawyer practising in Szeged .

A. The circumstances of the case

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.

On 31 March 1998 the applicant escape d from the Pálhalma Prison where he was serving a sentence for robbery. While on the run, he shot a prison guard twice in the leg. A third shot would have reached the guard ’ s che st and may have killed him if he had not jumped away . The applicant was caught within a few hours and transferred back to prison. He claims that the prison officers beat him on arrival, which apparently caused a rupture in his abdominal wall . This injury was operated in February 2000.

On 9 December 1999 the Pest County Regional Court found the applicant guilty of attempted murder of a public official , escape from imprisonment and other crimes and sentenced him to life imprisonment in a strict-regime prison . The Supreme Court, acting as a second-instance court, upheld th is judgment on 15 January 2001.

The applicant was initially committed to Szeged Prison and then transferred to Budapest Prison in 2003.

He submits that he is serving his term in a special security department ( ‘ KBK ’ ), in a single-occupancy cell illuminated only by artificial light. He is excluded from any courses or social events organised within the prison, and he has difficulties in receiving visitors; in particular, he can be visited by his family, apparently living in Germany, only once a year due to the circumstances. Moreover, he is always handcuffed whenever outside of his cell. Due to lack of natural light, his eyes have become sensitive and his eyesight has significantly deteriorated.

On 28 February 2004 the applicant escaped from Budapest Prison. He was caught and returned to prison within a couple of hours. On his retrieval, the prison officers allegedly handcuffed him and fettered his legs, tore his clothes off, forced him down on the ground, knelt on his head and beat him. They interrogated him for thirty to forty-five minutes about his escape while he lay naked on the cold floor. This happened in the medical ward of the prison in the presence of a female doctor and a nurse. After having been interrogated, the applicant was led to a prison office barefoot and then placed in a special security cell where he spent 40 days in total isolation with his hands tied to his belt and his legs fettered day and night. During this entire period he was allowed to wash himself only six times altogether, and the cuffs and fetters seriously lacerated his skin. His complaint about these ordeals, sent to an unspecified authority, was to no avail.

The beating by the prison officers during the interrogation apparently caused a recrudescent rupture in the applicant ’ s abdominal wall, so he had to undergo further surgery. He submits that he still suffers from residual inguinal hernia.

In relation to his second escape, on 28 March 2006 the Pest Central District Court found the applicant guilty of vandalism and escape from imprisonment and sentenced him to one year and six months of imprisonment, non-executable due to his ongoing life term.

On 12 June 2008 the President of the Republic dismissed the applicant ’ s plea for clemency.

On 13 August 2008 the applicant attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself in his prison cell, but his life was saved. After this attempt the prison psychologist recommended, but in vain, that he be transferred to a less strict department in order to reduce his social isolation.

In December 2009 the applicant was transferred again to Szeged Prison. On admission, he was stripped in the medical ward in front of five prison officers, a doctor and a nurse, and he was required to bend over a bed with his hands handcuffed. In this position the doctor performed a cavity search on him, inserting a gloved finger into the applicant ’ s anus . When the applicant complained that he found this humiliating in front of several spectators, the prison officers laughed at him, threatening him that they would ‘ assist ’ the doctor in the anal search using their telescopic metal batons if he kept complaining.

Subsequently the applicant was transferred to another penitentiary institution, but in June 2011 he was returned to Szeged Prison for a three-week period, in order to make him available to local justice as a witness in a criminal case. On admission, the – otherwise routine – anal cavity search was again carried out in the presence of several prison officers. He complained about this to the governor of the prison and the public prosecutor in charge of penitentiary supervision, but to no avail.

COMPLAINTS

The applicant complains under Article 3 of the Convention that the conditions of his incarceration and the discriminatory harassment suffered in prisons amount to inhuman and degrading treatment. Moreover, under Article 6 § 1 he complains about wrongful assessment of evidence and challenges the outcome of the criminal proceedings which were concluded by the final judgment of the Supreme Court on 15 January 2001.

QUESTIONS

1. Has the applicant exhausted all effective domestic remedies, as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention? Has he complied with the six- m onth time-limit laid down in Article 35 § 1 of the Convention?

2. If so, do the conditions of the applicant ’ s incarceration and his treatment by prison officers amount to inhuman or degrading treatment in breach of Article 3 of the Convention?