6 COLOZZA v. ITALY JUGDMENT Appeal had wrongly declared the "late appeal" inadmissible for failure to file the grounds in time: it should first have determined whether, as the appellant alleged, the first-instance proceedings were void. However, the Court of Cassation concluded that this was not so: it considered that Mr. Colozza had rightly been declared first to be "irreperibile" and then to be "latitante". It added that the Court of Appeal should have declared the appeal inadmissible as out of time, since it had been lodged at a time when the judgment under appeal had already become final. Mr. Colozza, who had been in custody since 23 September 1977 to serve his sentence, as well as other suspended sentences previously passed on him, died in prison on 2 December 1983 (see paragraph 6 above). II. RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW A. Notification 1. General principles concerning notification to an accused person who is not in custody 18. The Code of Criminal Procedure lays down the methods for notifying an accused person who is not in custody of the various documents pertaining to the investigations and the trial. When the first procedural step involving the presence of such an accused is taken, the court, the public prosecutor’s office or the official of the criminal investigation department must ask the accused to indicate the place where notifications should be made or to elect an address for service (Article 171, first paragraph). If he does not do so, Article 169 applies; this provides, inter alia, that if the first notification cannot be made to the party concerned in person, it is to be delivered, at his place of residence or of work, to a person living with him or to the caretaker. If those two places are not known, notification is to be left where the party concerned is living temporarily or has an address, by delivery to one of the above-mentioned persons. 2. Notification to an accused who is "irreperibile" or "latitante" 19. The Code of Criminal Procedure does not define the concept of "irreperibile". Nevertheless, according to the relevant rules, it may apply to any person on whom a document concerning criminal proceedings opened against him has to be served and whom it has not been possible to trace because his address was unknown. The mere establishment of this fact - the question whether there has been a wilful evasion of the investigations being irrelevant in this context - is enough for this purpose. According to Article