DRAGOJEVIĆ v. CROATIA JUDGMENT 7 presided over the panels extending the applicant’s detention could not raise any issue of his impartiality since the questions to be decided when the detention was extended differed from those which the judge had to decide when examining the case on the merits. There were also no reasons to doubt the impartiality of Judge Z.Č. within the meaning of Article 36 § 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (see paragraph 55 below). 41. The applicant’s detention was further extended on 1 October 2009 by a three-judge panel in which Judge Z.Č. sat as a member of the panel, relying on Article 102 § 1 (3) and (4) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (risk of reoffending and gravity of charges) and reiterating the reasons from the previous decisions on detention. 42. At a hearing on 26 November 2009 the trial bench questioned several witnesses and the defence again sought to have the evidence obtained by secret surveillance excluded from the case file as unlawfully obtained evidence. Ruling out the possibility of appeal, the president of the trial bench dismissed the request as ill-founded. The trial bench thus examined the evidence obtained by the use of secret surveillance measures. 43. On 3 December 2009 a three-judge panel of the Dubrovnik County Court, composed of judges P.M., S.V. and M.V., extended the applicant’s detention under Article 102 § 1 (3) and (4) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (risk of reoffending and gravity of charges), reiterating the reasons stated in the previous decisions. 44. At a hearing on 17 December 2009 the applicant pleaded not guilty and denied all the charges against him. The parties gave their closing statements and the trial bench concluded the hearing. 45. On 18 December 2009 the Dubrovnik County Court found the applicant guilty on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering and sentenced him to nine years’ imprisonment. The judgment was based on an analysis of the applicant’s defence and the statements of his co-accused, as well as on the statements of witnesses, evidence obtained through numerous searches and seizures and the use of secret surveillance measures. 46. As to the refusal to exclude the latter evidence from the case file, the Dubrovnik County Court noted: “The court found that the defence of the accused Ante Dragojević was unconvincing, contradictory and aimed at avoiding his criminal responsibility .... The court examined the audio recordings (CD) of the conversations between the accused and witnesses I.Ž. and M.R. after it had found that the recordings had been made pursuant to the orders of the investigating judge of the Zagreb County Court no. KirUs-14/07 authorising the telephone tapping. These were the reasons why the court dismissed the request made during the proceedings that these recordings be excluded from the case file as unlawfully obtained evidence. [Moreover] the court considered them to be lawful and acceptable evidence obtained pursuant to valid court decisions. This court also refused the request by the defence to examine the case files of the Rijeka County Court no. Kir-Us-1/09 and the Zagreb County Court no. Kir-Us-14/07 [concerning the use of secret surveillance], because it considered those requests irrelevant and obsolete for the same reasons referred to in the decisions concerning the