Kucheruk v. Ukraine (Application no. 2570/04)

A selection of key paragraph(s) can be found below the document.

132. In the instant case the applicant was injured when the prison guards attempted to put an end to his agitated behaviour by beating him with rubber truncheons. It is to be noted that after the applicant’s assault on one of the detainees on 2 July 2002 the duty shifts of the SIZO were regularly informed about the possibility of his violent outbursts. The applicant’s agitated behaviour, therefore, was by no means an unexpected development to which the authorities might have been called upon to react without prior preparation. The three guards who were involved outnumbered the applicant. Furthermore, at no stage of the proceedings did any witnesses state that the applicant attempted to attack the officers or fellow inmates (see, mutatis mutandis, Rehbock v. Slovenia, no. 29462/95, § 72, ECHR 2000‑XII) or that his erratic movements, classified by the guards as “outrage” (буйство), constituted any danger to their health or that of the applicant’s cellmates. Against this background the Court finds that the use of truncheons in the present case was unjustified and amounted to inhuman treatment.

145. In the instant case the Court finds that the handcuffing of the mentally ill applicant [suffering from chronic schizophrenia] for a period of seven days without any psychiatric justification, or any medical treatment for injuries sustained during his forced restraint and self-inflicted during the confinement in the disciplinary cell, must be regarded as constituting inhuman and degrading treatment.