MAKARATZIS v. GREECE JUDGMENT 29 methods have been exhausted” (see paragraph 25 above). No other provisions regulating the use of weapons during police actions and laying down guidelines on the planning and control of police operations were contained in Greek law. On the face of it, the above – somewhat slender – legal framework would not appear sufficient to provide the level of protection “by law” of the right to life that is required in present-day democratic societies in Europe. 63. This conclusion as to the state of Greek law is confirmed by the evidence before the Court of the bearing which the legal and administrative framework at the material time had on the way in which the potentially lethal police operation culminating in the applicant’s arrest was conducted. 64. Turning to the facts of the present case, and having regard to the findings of the domestic court (see paragraphs 19 and 48 above), the Court accepts that the applicant was driving his car in the centre of Athens at excessive speed in an uncontrolled and dangerous manner, thereby putting the lives of bystanders and police officers at risk; the police were thus entitled to react on the basis that he was in charge of a life-endangering object in a public place. Alternative means to stop him were tried but failed; this was accompanied by an escalation of the havoc that the applicant was causing and by the lethal threat that he posed by his criminal conduct to innocent people. Further, the police officers pursuing the applicant had been informed by the control centre that he might well be armed and dangerous; they also believed that the movements which they saw the applicant make when he stopped his car were consistent with his being armed (see the accused police officers’ statements, paragraph 17 above, and Mr Ventouris’s and Mr Davarias’s statements, paragraph 18 above). 65. Another important factor must also be taken into consideration, namely the prevailing climate at that time in Greece, which was marked by terrorist activities against foreign interests. For example, a group called the “Revolutionary Organisation 17 November”, established in 1975, had committed, until it was dismantled in 2002, numerous crimes, including the assassination of United States officials (see paragraph 26 above). This, coupled with the fact that the event took place at night, near the American embassy, contributed to the applicant being perceived as a greater threat in the eyes of the police. 66. Consequently, like the national court, the Court finds in the circumstances that the police could reasonably have considered that there was a need to resort to the use of their weapons in order to stop the car and neutralise the threat posed by its driver, and not merely a need to arrest a motorist who had driven through a red traffic light. Therefore, even though it was subsequently discovered that the applicant was unarmed and that he was not a terrorist, the Court accepts that the use of force against him was based on an honest belief which was perceived, for good reasons, to be valid at the time. To hold otherwise would be to impose an unrealistic burden on