16 İLHAN v. TURKEY JUDGMENT 62. As regards a civil action for redress for damage sustained through illegal acts or patently unlawful conduct on the part of State agents (see paragraph 44 above), the Court notes that a plaintiff in such an action must, in addition to establishing a causal link between the tort and the damage he or she has sustained, identify the person believed to have committed the tort. In the instant case, the public prosecutor took no steps to identify who was present when Abdüllatif İlhan was apprehended or when his injuries were incurred. None of the documents provided by the gendarmes enabled such persons to be identified. The identity of the perpetrators or possible witnesses was therefore unknown to the applicant. Furthermore, the public prosecutor had taken no steps to find any evidence confirming or contradicting the account given by the gendarmes as to the allegedly accidental nature of the injuries. In this situation, it is not apparent that there was any basis on which Abdüllatif İlhan could have pursued a civil claim with any reasonable prospect of success. 63. With regard to the criminal-law remedies (see paragraphs 36-40 above), the Court notes that the Mardin public prosecutor had been informed that Abdüllatif İlhan had suffered serious injuries when he was apprehended by the gendarmes at his village. He was accordingly under the duty, imposed by Article 153 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, to investigate whether an offence had been committed. The Court is satisfied in these circumstances that the matter was sufficiently drawn to the attention of the relevant domestic authority. Given that Abdüllatif İlhan's circumstances would have caused him to feel vulnerable, powerless and apprehensive of the representatives of the State, he could legitimately have expected that the necessary investigation would have been conducted without a specific, formal complaint from himself or his family. The public prosecutor chose, however, not to inquire into the circumstances in which those injuries were caused. 64. Consequently, the Court also dismisses the Government's preliminary objections as regards civil- and criminal-law remedies. III. ALLEGED VIOLATIONS OF ARTICLE 2 OF THE CONVENTION 65. The applicant alleged that his brother, Abdüllatif İlhan, was unlawfully subjected to a life-threatening attack by gendarmes and that the authorities failed to carry out an adequate and effective investigation into the attack. He argued that there had been a breach of Article 2 of the Convention, which provides: “1. Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.