PARTLY DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGES KOVLER AND GYULUMYAN

We do not share the opinion of the majority expressed above that there has not been a violation of Article 3 of the Convention.

We believe that the applicant ’ s allegation that his continued detention under the special prison regime amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment in view of his state of health is well - founded. As regards the supposedly similar situations of other Italian prisoners detained under the special regime ( see paragraphs 64 to 66 of the judgment ), the fact that Mr Enea used a wheelchair and had to remain in the prison hospital between June 2000 and February 2005 leads us to conclude that his situation was not comparable to theirs. We are more inclined to follow the conclusions of the Mathew judgment, especially the Court ’ s concern “that, despite a request to that effect from the applicant, no attempt appears to have been made to find a place of detention appropriate to the applicant ...” (see Mathew v. the Netherlands , no. 24919/03, § 204, ECHR 2005-IX). The prison hospital was not, to our mind, an appropriate place in which to detain Mr Enea for several years, even taking into account the potential danger posed by the applicant as a member of a m afia-type criminal organisation (compare Farbtuhs v. Latvia , no. 4672/02, § 53, 2 December 2004, and Sakkopoulos v. Greece , no. 61828/00, § 38, 15 January 2004).

The Court ’ s conclusion that the national authorities fulfilled their obligation to protect the applicant ’ s physical well-being by monitoring his state of health carefully (see paragraph 62 of the judgment ) is not a sufficient basis on which to find that there has been no violation of Article 3 , because it does not take into account other aspects of the applicant ’ s conditions of detention such as his real and long-term isolation in the prison hospital and the restrictions on his correspondence, all of which, taken together, aggravated the applicant ’ s suffering due to his illness. The assessment of the minimum threshold of severity required in order to fall within the scope of Article 3 of the Convention is a matter of subjective opinion. In our opinion, this threshold was attained.