Human rights – Right to fair trial. The applicants complained that the admission of witness statements of absent victims in domestic proceedings leading to their convictions violated their right to cross-examine witnesses who gave the sole or decisive evidence against them. The European Court of Human Rights rejected their argument that the decisive evidence had to be reliable or, at the very least, shown not to be unreliable to any significant extent before it could be fairly admitted. It then held that there had been no violation of art 6(1) or 6(3)(d) of the European Convention on Human Rights in respect of the applicants.