LABITA v. ITALY JUDGMENT 26 degrading treatment and punishment would, despite its fundamental importance (see paragraph 119 above), be ineffective in practice and it would be possible in some cases for agents of the State to abuse the rights of those within their control with virtual impunity (see the Assenov and Others judgment cited above, p. 3290, § 102). 132. The Court notes that after the investigating judge had informed the relevant public prosecutor's office of the allegations of ill-treatment made by the applicant at the preliminary hearing, the State authorities conducted certain investigations into those allegations (see paragraphs 37-41 above). It is not, however, satisfied that those investigations were sufficiently thorough and effective to satisfy the aforementioned requirements of Article 3. 133. The Court observes at the outset that the investigation by the Livorno public prosecutor's office was very slow: after the applicant was interviewed by the carabinieri on 5 January 1994, fourteen months elapsed before he was given a further appointment with a view to identifying those responsible. Yet the file shows that the only action taken during that interval was the obtaining of photocopies (not prints) of photographs of the warders who had worked at Pianosa. It will be recalled that throughout that period the applicant remained a prisoner at Pianosa. 134. The Court finds it particularly striking that although the applicant repeated on 9 March 1995 that he would be able to recognise the warders concerned if he could see them in person, nothing was done to enable him to do so and, just nine days later, the public prosecutor's office sought and was granted an order for the case to be filed away on the ground not that there was no basis to the allegations but that those responsible had not been identified. 135. The inactivity of the Italian authorities is made even more regrettable by the fact that the applicant's complaint was not an isolated one. The existence of controversial practices by warders at Pianosa Prison had been publicly and energetically condemned even by authorities of the State (see paragraphs 42-45 above). 136. In these circumstances, having regard to the lack of a thorough and effective investigation into the credible allegation made by the applicant that he had been ill-treated by warders when detained at Pianosa Prison, the Court holds that there has been a violation of Article 3 of the Convention. C. Allegedly inhuman and degrading nature of transfers from Pianosa 137. The applicant also alleged that the conditions in which prisoners were transferred from Pianosa to other prisons were inhuman and degrading.