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issued by the Registrar of the Court ECHR 293 (2016) 23.09.2016 Forthcoming judgments and decisions The European Court of Human Rights will be notifying in writing four judgments on Tuesday 27 September 2016 and 16 judgments and / or decisions on Thursday 29 September 2016. Press releases and texts of the judgments and decisions will be available at 10 a.m. (local time) on the Court's Internet site (www.echr.coe.int) Tuesday 27 September 2016 The Court will give its rulings in writing on the following cases, some of which concern issues which have already been submitted to the Court, including excessive length of proceedings. These rulings can be consulted from the day of their delivery on the Court's online database HUDOC. They will not appear in the press release issued on that day. Gontmakher v. Russia (application no. 34180/08) Miroshnikov and Others v. Russia (nos. 20750/04, 39413/07, and 39657/07) M.B. - Mak Cacak DOO and Others v. Serbia (nos. 67856/14, 69282/14, and 70253/14) Vukosavljevi v. Serbia (no. 23496/13) Thursday 29 September 2016 McKevitt and Campbell v. the United Kingdom (application nos. 61474/12 and 62780/12) The case concerns the Omagh bombing of August 1998. The first applicant, Michael McKevitt, is an Irish national who was born in 1949 and is currently imprisoned in Portlaoise, Ireland. The second applicant, Liam Campbell, is an Irish national, who was born in 1962 and is currently detained in HMP Maghaberry in Northern Ireland. On the afternoon of 15 August 1998, a 500lb bomb exploded in the centre of Omagh, Northern Ireland. The blast killed 29 people and two unborn babies, and injured more than three hundred. It was the single worst atrocity of the Troubles. Though responsibility for the explosion was claimed by the Real Irish Republican Army ("the Real IRA"), no individual has ever been convicted for causing the explosion, or the resulting deaths. However, many of the families that suffered as a result of the bomb brought a civil action against those who they believed were responsible; claiming damages for trespass to the person, intentional infliction of harm, and conspiracy to injure. The defendants in this action included the two applicants, Mr McKevitt and Mr Campbell. At the first instance hearing, Mr McKevitt chose not to give any evidence, and Mr Campbell did not attend at all. A large part of the evidence relied on by the plaintiffs had been provided by a witness who did not attend the trial, and could not be cross-examined. The court found in the plaintiffs' favour, and ordered the applicants to pay substantial damages. The applicants made an appeal, but this was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 7 July 2011. They were refused permission to appeal to the Supreme Court on 27 July 2012. Relying on Article 6 �� 1 and 3 (d) (right to a fair trial and right to obtain attendance and examination of witnesses) of the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicants allege that they were not given a fair hearing. Claiming that the proceedings against them were fundamentally criminal in nature, they maintain that they were not given the procedural protections necessary in criminal prosecutions. In the alternative, if the proceedings were indeed of a civil nature, they argue that the use of hearsay evidence violated their right to a fair trial. Ahmed v. the United Kingdom (application no. 57645/14) The applicant, Shabir Ahmed, is a British national who was born in 1953 and is detained in HMP Wakefield. Mr Ahmed was accused of being part of a group of men in Bolton that groomed young women for sexual purposes. He stood trial with ten others in 2012. The proceedings were the subject of significant media attention. Some, including the British National Party and the English Defence League, attributed a racial dimension to the case, given that the defendants were of Asian origin, and the complainants were not. The BNP protested at the preliminary court hearings. For these reasons, prospective jurors who had indicated in a jury questionnaire that they were associated with the BNP or EDL were excluded from the proceedings. In May 2012 Mr Ahmed was convicted by a jury at Liverpool Crown Court on a variety of counts, including conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with children. He was sentenced to 19 years in prison. Whilst the jury's deliberations were still ongoing, posts about their conclusions had appeared on webpages linked to far-right groups. The Chairman of the BNP at the time, Nick Griffin MEP, had also tweeted that some of the defendants had been found guilty, well before the jury had announced their verdicts in court. Mr Ahmed claimed that the jury had disseminated information about their deliberations directly to far-right organisations hostile to the defendants, and that this demonstrated that the jury had been biased. He appealed against his conviction. However, his appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 1 April 2014, on the grounds that the evidence did not suggest that a juror had deliberately disseminated the information; that, though it was possible that deliberations had been overheard outside the jury room, such accidental disclosure by the jury did not mean that their independence had been compromised; and that there was not a real possibility that the jury had been biased or impartial. Relying in particular on Article 6 � 1 (right to a fair trial) of the European Convention, Mr Ahmed complains that the jury which tried and convicted him was biased. His allegations also include the claim that the case against him was tailored by police to fit anti-Muslim prejudice; the claim that media coverage of the trial had made it unfair, and had also infringed his right to a private and family life; and the claim that he had been discriminated against on grounds of race and religion. The Court will give its rulings in writing on the following cases, some of which concern issues which have already been submitted to the Court, including excessive length of proceedings. These rulings can be consulted from the day of their delivery on the Court's online database HUDOC. They will not appear in the press release issued on that day. Gyaurova v. Bulgaria (no. 56888/10) Lazauskas v. Lithuania (no. 4964/11) Makovchuk v. Russia (no. 39350/11) Rozov v. Russia (no. 51225/08) Sokolov v. Russia (no. 16209/10) Jocic v. Serbia (no. 36186/08) Lukic v. Serbia (no. 51514/10) Pulic v. Serbia (no. 34194/09) Serhatlic v. Serbia (no. 13738/13) Ergun v. Turkey (no. 12958/05) Ers�mer v. Turkey (nos. 19501/05 and 7327/08) Skant v. Ukraine (no. 25922/09) C.P. v. the United Kingdom (no. 300/11) Gaunt v. the United Kingdom (no. 26448/12) This press release is a document produced by the Registry. It does not bind the Court. Decisions, judgments and further information about the Court can be found on www.echr.coe.int. To receive the Court's press releases, please subscribe here: www.echr.coe.int/RSS/en or follow us on Twitter @ECHRpress. Press contacts [email protected] | tel: +33 3 90 21 42 08 Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel: + 33 3 88 41 35 30) Denis Lambert (tel: + 33 3 90 21 41 09) Inci Ertekin (tel: + 33 3 90 21 55 30) George Stafford (tel: + 33 3 90 21 41 71) The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. 3