LABITA v. ITALY JUDGMENT 31 that the applicant was the treasurer of a mafia-type organisation (see paragraph 10 above). According to the authorities in question, in May 1992 those statements constituted sufficient evidence to justify keeping the applicant in detention, given the general credibility and trustworthiness of the pentito concerned (see paragraph 12 above). 157. The Court is conscious of the fact that the cooperation of pentiti is a very important weapon in the Italian authorities' fight against the Mafia. However, the use of statements by pentiti does give rise to difficult problems as, by their very nature, such statements are open to manipulation and may be made purely in order to obtain the advantages which Italian law affords to pentiti, or for personal revenge. The sometimes ambiguous nature of such statements and the risk that a person might be accused and arrested on the basis of unverified allegations that are not necessarily disinterested must not, therefore, be underestimated (see Contrada v. Italy, application no. 27143/95, Commission decision of 14 January 1997, Decisions and Reports 88-B, p. 112). 158. For these reasons, as the domestic courts recognise, statements of pentiti must be corroborated by other evidence. Furthermore, hearsay must be supported by objective evidence. 159. That, in the Court's view, is especially true when a decision is being made whether to prolong detention pending trial. While a suspect may validly be detained at the beginning of proceedings on the basis of statements by pentiti, such statements necessarily become less relevant with the passage of time, especially where no further evidence is uncovered during the course of the investigation. 160. In the instant case, the Court notes that, as the Trapani District Court and Palermo Court of Appeal confirmed in their decisions acquitting the applicant, there was no evidence to corroborate the hearsay evidence of B.F. On the contrary, B.F.'s main, if indirect, source of information had died in 1989 and had, in turn, obtained it on hearsay from another person who had also been killed before he could be questioned. Furthermore, B.F.'s statements had already been contradicted during the course of the investigation by other pentiti who had said that they did not recognise the applicant (see paragraph 18 above). 161. In these circumstances, very compelling reasons would be required for the applicant's lengthy detention (two years and seven months) to have been justified under Article 5 § 3. (β) The “other reasons” for the continued detention 162. The national courts referred to the risk of pressure being brought to bear on witnesses and of evidence being tampered with, the fact that the accused were dangerous, the complexity of the case and the requirements of the investigation. They relied on the presumption created by Article 275 § 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (see paragraph 87 above).