16 GIULIANI AND GAGGIO v. ITALY JUDGMENT by Mr Lauro despite the risks entailed by the small size of the detachment and the fact that the men were tired. 69. The experts agreed on the following points: two shots had been fired from M.P.'s pistol, the first of which had killed Carlo Giuliani; the bullet in question had not fragmented solely as a result of striking the victim; and the photograph of Carlo Giuliani holding the fire extinguisher had been taken when he was approximately three metres away from the jeep. 70. However, they differed on the following points: (a) according to the prosecuting authorities' experts, Carlo Giuliani had been 1.75 metres from the jeep when the bullet struck him (approximately three metres away according to the Giuliani family's experts); (b) according to the Giuliani family's experts, the shot had been fired before the stone could be seen on the video, contrary to the view of the prosecuting authorities' experts. 71. As the parties agreed that the bullet had fragmented before striking the victim, the public prosecutor concluded that they were also in agreement as to the causes of the bullet's fragmentation, and that the applicants subscribed to the “intermediate object theory”. Other possible explanations for the fragmentation of the bullet advanced by the applicants – such as the manipulation of the bullet or a manufacturing defect – had been considered by the applicants themselves to be much less likely. They could not therefore be regarded as valid explanations in the public prosecutor's view. 72. The investigation had been lengthy, in particular owing to delays with some of the forensic reports, the “superficial nature” of the autopsy report and the errors committed by one of the experts, Mr Cantarella. However, it had addressed all the relevant issues in detail and led to the conclusion that the hypothesis of the bullet having been fired upwards and deflected by a stone was “the most convincing”. Nevertheless, there was insufficient evidence in the file to determine whether M.P. had fired with the sole intention of dispersing the demonstrators or had knowingly run the risk of injuring or killing one or more of them. There were three possibilities, and “the matter [would] never be resolved with certainty”. The possibilities were as follows: – the shots had been designed to intimidate the demonstrators and it was therefore a case of causing death by negligence; – M.P. had fired the shots in order to put a stop to the attack and had accepted the risk of killing someone; that would mean that it was a case of intentional homicide; – M.P. had aimed at Carlo Giuliani; this would also be intentional homicide. In the public prosecutor's view, the evidence in the file was such that the third possibility could be ruled out. 73. The public prosecutor further considered that the fact that the bullet had collided with the stone was not capable of severing the causal link