GIULIANI AND GAGGIO v. ITALY JUDGMENT 69 A. The issues raised by the applicants 1. Alleged shortcomings in the performance of the autopsy and the cremation of the body (a) The parties' submissions (i) The applicants 264. The applicants observed that on 21 July 2001 the public prosecutor had ordered an autopsy of Carlo Giuliani's body and had appointed two experts (Mr Canale and Mr Salvi) who were to begin work at 3 p.m. the same day. The public prosecutor had asked the police to inform M.P. and the victim's parents before 1 p.m. It had been impossible for the applicants at such short notice to appoint a forensic medical expert of their choosing to attend the autopsy. Moreover, the public prosecutor had authorised the cremation of the body on 23 July 2001, well before the results of the autopsy were known (the experts had been given sixty days in which to complete their report). 265. The applicants had at no point been “parties” to the proceedings, since under Italian law an application to join the proceedings as a civil party could only be made once the accused had been committed for trial. As injured parties, they had had only limited powers to participate in the investigation. These were even more restricted when the public prosecutor ordered technical examinations which could not be repeated, on the basis of Article 360 of the CCP (see paragraph 150 above); in that case, the injured party could only request the public prosecutor to apply to the judge for the immediate production of evidence. Only if that application was granted could the injured party request the investigating judge to put questions to the prosecuting authorities' experts. In the instant case the autopsy had been classified as a technical examination which could not be repeated. 266. Lastly, the applicants observed that the full body scan carried out on Carlo Giuliani's body (see paragraph 60 above) had revealed a metal fragment lodged in his head, but that this fragment had not been found or recorded (see Mr Salvi's statement during the “trial of the twenty-five” – paragraph 130 above). (ii) The Government 267. The Government argued that extracting the metal fragment would have been not just pointless but impossible. It would not have yielded any useful additional information regarding the circumstances in which M.P. had had recourse to lethal force. Micro-fragments of lead had already been found on the victim's balaclava, the analysis of which had confirmed the