LABITA v. ITALY JUDGMENT 4 the form of oral testimony and there was therefore a risk of its being lost through pressure being brought to bear on the witnesses. 13. On 20 July 1992 the applicant was transferred with fifty-four other alleged mafiosi to the prison on the island of Pianosa. 14. On an unspecified date, he appealed to the Court of Cassation against the decision of 6 May 1992. He argued in particular that he had been detained solely on the basis of B.F.'s statements, which were unsupported by any factual evidence. In addition, he said that the District Court had refused to accept that he was not the manager of a financial company and had taken that allegation as evidence that he was an executive in local finance and as supporting the accusation that he was a branch treasurer for the Mafia. In fact, he was merely an employee of the company and had even been the subject of disciplinary proceedings. However, the Court of Cassation dismissed his appeal on 2 October 1992. 15. The applicant made a further application for bail to the investigating judge (giudice per le indagini preliminari), contending that there were not sufficient grounds for keeping him in detention, but it was dismissed on 29 December 1992. 16. The applicant's appeal to the Trapani District Court was dismissed on 8 February 1993 on the ground that Article 275 § 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure created a presumption that the continued detention of suspects charged with belonging to a mafia-type organisation was necessary and that it was therefore for the person seeking bail to produce specific, concrete evidence to rebut that presumption. The District Court considered that the applicant's arguments – such as that related to the length of his detention – were of a general nature and had been rejected in earlier cases. 17. On application by the prosecution, the investigating judge at the Trapani District Court made an order on 8 April 1993 pursuant to Article 305 § 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure extending the maximum permitted period of detention pending trial. 18. Meanwhile, other pentiti had stated during the course of the investigation that they did not know the applicant. 19. The applicant appealed to the District Court against the order of 8 April 1993, contending that the impugned order was null and void as the application for an extension had not been served beforehand on his lawyer and the court had given only general, not specific, reasons. 20. The Trapani District Court dismissed the applicant's appeal on 22 June 1993. It held that all the law required was that the parties should be heard at an adversarial hearing and that had been done in the instant case. There was no requirement that the application should be formally served beforehand. As to whether the impugned measure was necessary, the District Court found that although the reasoning in the order was somewhat succinct, it had pointed to the risk of evidence being tampered with, particularly in view