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2 Hum. Rts. Case Dig. 56 (1991)
Stocke v. Germany

handle is hein.journals/hurcd2 and id is 70 raw text is: HUMAN RIGHTS CASE DIGEST SUMMARIES OF JUDGMENTS OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS STOCKE v GERMANY In a judgment delivered at Strasbourg on 19 March 1991 in the Stocke case the Court held unanimously that there had been no breach of Articles 5 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. BACKGROUND TO THE CASE Principal facts Mr Walter Stocke is a German citizen. In 1975, following the bankruptcy of his building firm, he was the subject of an investigation in the Federal Republic of Germany where he was suspected of fraud and tax offences. He fled abroad. While living in Strasbourg in France he was, he claimed, lured into a trap in collusion with the German authorities by a police informer, Mr Koster, who induced him to board an aircraft that was supposed to land in Luxembourg but in fact landed at Saarbrucken. On arrival there on 7 November 1978 he was arrested by the German police. After being held in custody pending trial he was convicted in 1982 and sentenced to six years' imprisonment by the Kaiserslautem Regional Court for fraud and tax evasion; appeals by him to the Federal Court of Justice and the Federal Constitutional Court failed. Proceedings before the European Commission of Human Rights The application made on 20 September 1985 was declared admissible by the Commission on 9 July 1989. Having attempted unsuccessfully to achieve a friendly settlement, the Commission drew up a report on 12 October 1989 in which it established the facts and expressed the opinion (by 12 votes to 1) that there had been no violation of Article 5(1) and Article 6(1). The Commission referred the case to the Court on 13 December 1989. SUMMARY OF THE JUDGMENT The applicant had alleged that the authorities had been acquainted in minute detail with the plan to kidnap him in Strasbourg. Notwithstanding doubts about the lawfulness of Mr Koster's methods, the prosecuting authorities had instructed the police to arrest the applicant and they had thus endorsed the kidnapping. The reimbursement of Mr Koster's expenses and the way in which the proceedings brought by Mr Stocke against Mr Koster for false imprisonment had been conducted were, he claimed, evidence of this. The Government had denied these allegations. Not only had the authorities not been warned of Mr Koster's intentions but they bad done their best to clarify, the situation. As to Mr Koster, the German judicial authorities had neither shielded him nor dealt leniently with him: he had been arrested in February 1988 and had been sentenced to nine years' imprisonment for other offences.

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