Amsterdamse politie schiet bewapende scooterdief dood: Mensenrechtenhof kent nabestaanden een boete van 20.000 euro wegens slecht politie-onderzoek na afloop (en)

The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing a judgment in the case of Ramsahai v. the Netherlands (application no. 52391/99).

The Court held, by five votes to two, that there had been:

no violation of Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights concerning the shooting by a police officer of Moravia Ramsahai; and,

a violation of Article 2 in respect of the investigation into his death.

Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, by five votes to two, the Court awarded the applicants 20,000 euros (EUR) for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 8,000 (less EUR 701 awarded by the Court for legal aid) for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in English.)

• 1. 

  Principal facts

The applicants, all Netherlands nationals, are: Renee Ramsahai, Mildred Ramsahai and Ricky Ramsahai, the grandfather, grandmother and father, respectively, of Moravia Ramsahai, born on 6 December 1979, who was shot dead by a policeman in July 1998. Renee and Mildred Ramsahai were both born in 1938 and Ricky Ramsahai was born in 1960. They all live in Amsterdam.

In the evening of Sunday 19 July 1998, during the "Kwakoe" festival in the Bijlmermeer district of Amsterdam (a celebration by the Surinamese immigrant community of the abolition of slavery in Suriname 135 years earlier), Moravia Ramsahai stole a scooter from its owner at gunpoint and drove off on it.

The police were notified. Two uniformed police officers on patrol, Officers Brons and Bultstra, spotted a scooter driven by a person fitting the description they had been given - later identified as Moravia Ramsahai - and tried to arrest him.

Officer Bultstra saw Moravia Ramsahai draw a pistol from his trouser belt. Officer Bultstra drew his service pistol and ordered Moravia Ramsahai to drop his weapon. Moravia Ramsahai failed to do so. Officer Brons then approached. Moravia Ramsahai raised his pistol and pointed it towards Officer Brons, who drew his pistol and fired. Moravia Ramsahai was hit in the neck. At 10.03 p.m. Officer Brons called for an ambulance. When it arrived, at about 10.15 p.m., Moravia Ramsahai was already dead.

A criminal investigation was ordered. Parts of the investigation were carried out by the force to which Officers Brons and Bultstra belonged (Amsterdam/Amstelland police force): the technical examination of the scene of the shooting, the door-to-door search for witnesses and the initial questioning of witnesses including police officers who also belonged to the Amsterdam/Amstelland police force. The Amsterdam/Amstelland police force remained in charge of the investigation for the first fifteen-and-a-half hours; after that, they were involved only under the authority of an officer of the State Criminal Investigation Department (Rijksrecherche).

Ultimately the public prosecutor, finding that Officer Brons had acted in legitimate self-defence, decided that no prosecution should be brought.

On 26 April 1999 the Court of Appeal dismissed the applicants' complaint against the public prosecutor's decision not to prosecute. Its decision was not made public.

• 2. 

  Procedure and composition of the Court

The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 8 September 1999 and declared admissible on 3 March 2005.

Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:

Bostjan M. Zupančič (Slovenian), President,

John Hedigan (Irish),

Lucius Caflisch (Swiss) [1],

Margarita Tsatsa-Nikolovska (citizen of "the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"),

Vladimiro Zagrebelsky (Italian),

David Thór Björgvinsson (Icelandic), judges,

Wilhelmina Thomassen (Netherlands), ad hoc judge,

and also Vincent Berger, Section Registrar.

• 3. 

  Summary of the judgment [2]

Complaints

The applicants complained about the circumstances surrounding the shooting of Moravia Ramsahai and the lack of an effective and independent investigation into his death. They relied on Article 2, Article 6 § 1 and Article 13.

Decision of the Court

The Court's establishment of the facts

The Court noted that the official investigation appeared to have been thorough and that its findings were recorded in considerable detail. That investigation comprised the hearing of police officers involved in the matter and a large number of civilian witnesses, including some brought forward on behalf of the applicants, as well as the collection of technical evidence. The Court based its own examination of the case on the factual information which it gleaned from the official documents submitted, qualified as necessary by information from other sources.

The Court accepted that Officers Brons and Bultstra were not initially aware that Moravia Ramsahai was armed.

When they tried to arrest Moravia Ramsahai, he was defiant and he tried to get away. Officer Bultstra attempted to grab hold of him. Following a brief struggle, Moravia Ramsahai managed to break loose. At a distance of several metres from Officer Bultstra, Moravia Ramsahai adopted a threatening stance and drew his pistol. Seeing Moravia Ramsahai's pistol and feeling threatened, Officer Bultstra drew his service pistol and, in a loud voice, ordered Moravia Ramsahai at least once to drop his gun. Moravia Ramsahai then pointed his pistol towards the ground, but in a manner which Officer Bultstra found threatening, and tried to walk away.

By that time, Officer Brons, having parked and locked the police car, came to help Officer Bultstra. He saw Moravia Ramsahai holding a pistol in defiance of the order to drop it. The pistol was in fact loaded with five live rounds and was ready to fire.

Both Officer Brons and Officer Bultstra saw Moravia Ramsahai turn and raise his hand holding the pistol. Officer Brons saw Moravia Ramsahai point the pistol in his direction. He therefore drew his pistol and fired once, without aiming at any particular part of Moravia Ramsahai's body, his intention being, not to shoot to kill, but to end a threatening situation immediately. The bullet fired by Officer Brons pierced Moravia Ramsahai's brachiocephalic (innominate) artery, an artery which branches off from the aortic arch and ultimately provides half of the brain's blood supply, and a major vein in the neck. Moravia Ramsahai lost consciousness in seconds and bled to death in minutes.

Article 2

The shooting of Moravia Ramsahai

The Court did not accept the applicants' suggestion that lethal and therefore excessive force was used by Officers Brons and Bultstra to arrest a person suspected of nothing more serious than stealing a scooter. It was apparent from the facts that the actual attempt to arrest Moravia Ramsahai led to nothing more serious than a brief scuffle between him and Officer Bultstra; it did not involve the use of firearms.

Nor could the Court accept that the police officers had failed to plan the operation correctly. It had to be accepted that Officers Brons and Bultstra were entirely unaware that Moravia Ramsahai was armed and so had no reason to believe that they would be asked to do anything other than make a routine arrest. In those circumstances, it could not be said that they ought to have requested further information or reinforcements.

Officer Bultstra drew his service weapon only after the applicant had drawn his pistol. Officer Brons drew his service weapon and fired only after Moravia Ramsahai, defying unambiguous warnings to give up his weapon, had begun to raise his pistol towards him. The Court was of the opinion that Officer Brons was entitled to consider then that a threat to his life existed; given that Moravia Ramsahai's pistol was loaded and ready to fire, that assessment could not be criticised even with hindsight.

It had to be accepted, moreover, that Officers Brons and Bultstra acted in conformity with instructions intended to minimise the danger from the use by police officers of firearms; that the firearms and ammunition issued to them were specifically designed to prevent unnecessary fatalities; and that Officer Brons was adequately trained in the use of his service firearm for personal defence.

The Court therefore considered that the use of lethal force did not exceed what was "absolutely necessary" for the purposes of effecting the arrest of Moravia Ramsahai and protecting the lives of Officers Brons and Bultstra; that being so, the shooting of Moravia Ramsahai by Officer Brons did not constitute a violation of Article 2

The investigation into the shooting

The Court considered that the public prosecutor and the Court of Appeal had not acted unreasonably in sparing Officer Brons a trial.

However, the proceedings for investigating the death of Moravia Ramsahai fell short of the applicable standards, in that part of the investigation was left to the police force to which Officers Brons and Bultstra belonged - the Amsterdam/Amstelland police force - and in that the Court of Appeal's decision of 26 April 1999 was not made available for public scrutiny.

The Court therefore found that there had been a violation of Article 2 concerning the investigation into the shooting.

Articles 6 § 1 and 13

The Court considered that Article 6 did not apply in the applicants' case and that no separate issue arose under Article 13.

Judges Thomassen and Zagrebelsky expressed a partly dissenting opinion which is annexed to the judgment.

***

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The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. Since 1 November 1998 it has sat as a full-time Court composed of an equal number of judges to that of the States party to the Convention. The Court examines the admissibility and merits of applications submitted to it. It sits in Chambers of 7 judges or, in exceptional cases, as a Grand Chamber of 17 judges. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe supervises the execution of the Court's judgments.

[1] Judge elected in respect of Liechtenstein.

[2] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.