LABITA v. ITALY JUDGMENT 3 THE FACTS I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE A. The applicant's detention and the proceedings against him 10. The applicant was arrested on 21 April 1992 in connection with an investigation involving forty-six people under a warrant issued by the Trapani District Court on 18 April 1992. He was suspected of being a member of a mafia-type organisation in Alcamo and of running a financial company on behalf of his brother-in-law, who was believed to be the leader of the main mafia gang in the area (Article 416 bis of the Criminal Code makes it an offence to be a member of a mafia-type organisation). The accusations against the applicant were based in particular on statements made by one B.F., who also stood accused of being a member of a mafia-type organisation but had become a pentito (a former mafioso who has decided to cooperate with the authorities). B.F.'s information about the applicant had been obtained from one G.D., who had been killed by the Mafia on 25 October 1989, and had, in turn, received the information from another deceased victim of the Mafia, F.M. 11. The applicant was initially detained at Palermo Prison, where he spent thirty-five days in isolation. 12. His first application for bail was dismissed by the Trapani District Court on 6 May 1992. The District Court found in particular that although the statements made by B.F. regarding the applicant's involvement in the Mafia had provided no information or objective evidence about the applicant's actual role and activity, they could nonetheless constitute sufficient grounds to justify his detention, having regard to the credibility and reliability of the various statements B.F. had made concerning other people or events connected with the Mafia (it applied the “global credibility” criterion – attendibilità complessiva). It added that B.F. had identified the applicant from a photograph and provided information concerning his exact role in the mafia-type organisation. He had indicated that the applicant, who was the brother-in-law of the head of one of the Alcamo mafia clans, ran a financial company and, along with another person whom B.F. had previously identified as being a member of the Mafia, was a co-owner of a management company that ran a discotheque. The Trapani District Court also found that the applicant's detention was warranted by the need to protect witnesses, since most of the evidence took