LABITA v. ITALY JUDGMENT 21 THE LAW I. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 3 OF THE CONVENTION 112. The applicant complained that during the first months of his detention in Pianosa Prison he had been subjected to treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention, which provides: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” A. Allegation of ill-treatment at Pianosa Prison 113. The Government acknowledged that the situation in Pianosa Prison during the summer and autumn of 1992 was very difficult, in particular because of the extremely tense atmosphere at the time. 114. Initially, the Government had affirmed before the Commission: “These deplorable acts were committed by certain warders on their own initiative; such transgressions cannot be regarded as forming part of a general policy. Such reprehensible conduct, unforeseen and unwanted – just the reverse: it constituted a criminal offence – cannot engage the responsibility of the State, which on the contrary has responded through the judicial authorities in order to re-establish the rule of law that such episodes serve to undermine.” 115. However, at the hearing before the Court, the Government made a preliminary submission that, in the absence of any cogent medical evidence, the level of severity required for a violation of Article 3 of the Convention could not be regarded as having been attained in the instant case. 116. In any event, the Government disagreed with the Commission's conclusion that the Italian State had failed to react to the acts of violence committed by its agents. The Government argued that the fact that the investigation to identify the warders allegedly responsible for the ill-treatment had been unsuccessful did not amount to a violation of Article 3, as the Court's case-law on the subject could not be construed as meaning that a State failed to satisfy its obligations under Article 3 of the Convention unless the investigation led to a conviction. The issue was rather whether the investigation had been conducted diligently or whether the authorities had been guilty of errors or omissions. In the present case, the authorities conducting the investigation had shown resolve and spared no effort to identify those responsible. On the contrary, it was the applicant who had been responsible for the failure of the investigation by not requesting a medical examination immediately after being subjected to the ill-treatment in question. Furthermore, the fact that the applicant, the only