CEDH · CASELAW;DECISIONS;ADMISSIBILITY;ENG — 26 novembre 2024

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He was represented before the Court by Mr   H.B. Vural, a lawyer practising in Ankara. The circumstances of the case The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows. Background 1.     On the night of 15 July 2016 a group of members of the Turkish armed forces (also referred to as “the TAF”) calling themselves the “Peace at Home Council” attempted to carry out a military coup aimed at overthrowing the democratically elected parliament, government and President of Türkiye. 2.     The criminal proceedings at issue in the present application concerned the deployment on the night of 15 July 2016 of fifteen tanks and personnel of the Tank Battalion of the Mamak Twenty-Eighth Mechanised Brigade (“the Tank Battalion”), which was assigned to the Fourth Corps Command of the Land Forces Command, to the General Staff Building ( Genelkurmay Başkanlığı Karargâh Binası ) with the aim of carrying out a military coup. The defendants were charged with various offences committed during the operation and at the main headquarters in question, namely attempting to overthrow the constitutional order, murder, attempted murder and criminal damage, which resulted in the killing of five people, the injury (including grievous bodily harm) of seventy-two others and criminal damage to public and private property, police cars and private vehicles. 3.     The applicant was a first lieutenant ( üsteğmen ) of the Tank Battalion and, on the night in question, he was the commander of a tank with registration number 092662. He was arrested the following day and remained in police custody until 27 July 2016, when he was placed in pre ‑ trial detention. Trial against the applicant and sixty-three other defendants 4.     On 9 April 2018 the Ankara Eighteenth Assize Court (“the trial court”) issued a 745-page judgment convicting the applicant, inter alia , of (i) attempting to overthrow the constitutional order (Article 309 § 1 of the Criminal Code) and (ii) causing criminal damage (Article 152 § 1 (a)). The trial court accordingly sentenced him to aggravated life imprisonment for the offence under (i) and to nine years’ imprisonment for the offence under (ii). However, it acquitted him of murder, attempted murder and the remaining charges of criminal damage on the ground that it had not been established that he had committed those offences. 5 .     The evidence on which the trial court based its decision was listed as follows: (i) the tanks seized at the General Staff Building; (ii) statements made by victims; (iii) medical and forensic reports; (iv) photographs and videos taken by victims and witnesses; (v) forensic examination and autopsy reports; (vi) video surveillance footage of the entrance to the military barracks of the Mamak Twenty-Eighth Mechanised Brigade; (vii) CCTV footage; (viii) videos taken by citizens; (ix) images obtained from open sources; (x) video footage and photographs provided by the police department responsible for filming and photography; (xi) enhanced security camera footage of the General Staff building produced by the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (“the TRT”); (xii) witness statements; (xiii) correspondence with the Mamak Twenty-Eighth Mechanised Brigade; (xiv) statements made by the defendants during the investigation and trial stages; (xv) arrest records and body search reports relating to the defendants; (xvi) civil-status and criminal records of the defendants; (xvii) search and seizure records; (xviii) seized aerial photographs and a city map of Ankara; (xix) historical traffic search records; (xx) ByLock reports; (xxi) police reports on investigations into the defendants’ links with the “Fetullahist Terror Organisation/Parallel State Structure” ( Fetullahçı Terör Örgütü/Paralel Devlet Yapılanması – “the FETÖ/PDY”); (xxii) a map of the tank route; (xxiii) a police investigation report; (xxiii) statements made by suspects in the course of various investigations; and (xxiv) the crime scene examination report and its annexes. 6.     The applicant did not submit to the Court copies of the statements he had made during the investigation and trial. In those statements, which are reproduced in the trial court’s reasoned judgment, the applicant gave a detailed account of the events of the night of 15 July 2016 and of the actions he had taken in the period leading up to his arrest the next day, stressing that he had not been carrying his pistol on that day. The applicant submitted, in essence, that he had had no connection with the coup attempt, arguing that he had received an order to ensure the security of the General Staff Building because it had been attacked by terrorists and that he had carried out the orders of his hierarchical superiors, who had been appointed by the State. Arguing that he had done so in the manner prescribed by law, the applicant admitted that he had fired at the lorries in order to disperse the crowd, but denied that he had fired at the headquarters of the Turkish Air Force, arguing that he had only fired at an empty space in accordance with the orders of his superiors. In the applicant’s view, he had not received any unlawful order or any other order the subject of which constituted an offence, and none of his actions on the night of 15 July 2016 could be considered to have been carried out outside the military chain of command. He further argued that he had had no connection with the FETÖ/PDY, submitting that he had never studied in schools affiliated to the organisation, read its publications, sent money to its members, used its secret communication application or had a bank account at Bank Asya. Lastly, in his statements reproduced in the reasoned judgment, the applicant alleged, without providing any details, that he had been subjected to torture by police officers, who had kept him handcuffed with his arms behind his back from 12 noon on 16 July until 26   July 2016. In his application to the Court, the applicant did not elaborate on this, nor did he submit any other document in this regard. The trial court’s conclusions regarding the attempted coup 7.     The trial court’s considerations in the part of its judgment entitled “the manner in which the incident took place” dealt with the coup attempt and may be summarised as follows. According to the trial court, members of the FETÖ/PDY had infiltrated virtually all state institutions, such as the judiciary, the military, the police, the civil service, the Ministry of Treasury and Finance and the intelligence services, and had initiated an attempted military coup with a view to establishing a dictatorial regime of the cemaat (“community”) by subverting the political system provided for in the Turkish Constitution. In the court’s view, they had done so by using force and violence and methods of pressure, terror, intimidation, oppression or threat with the aim of changing the characteristics of the Republic as specified in the Constitution, its political, legal, social, secular and economic system, damaging the indivisible unity of the Turkish State with its country and nation, endangering the existence of the Turkish State and Republic, weakening, destroying or seizing the authority of the State, undermining fundamental rights and freedoms or damaging the internal and external security of the State, public order or general health. 8.     On 15 July 2016 Fetullahist armed military units nestled in the TAF and under the command of the organisation’s “private” ( mahrem ) structure had attempted to carry out a military coup against the nation and the government using military aircraft, tanks, explosives, combat weapons and warships. 9.     At around 8.30 to 9 p.m. certain military units had begun unexpected activities in the General Staff Building, with certain units from the Special Forces, which had been designated to carry a military coup, storming the building and eventually taking control of it with the help of Fetullahist soldiers. At 9 p.m. fighter jets had flown at low altitude in order to intimidate the civilian population and informing them that a military coup had begun, and military helicopters had taken off and attacked public institutions. In that context, the trial court noted the following incidents: (a) military units had arrived by helicopters at the headquarters of the National Intelligence Agency of Türkiye ( Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı – “the MİT”) in Yenimahalle, Ankara – which had provided the authorities with valuable information in connection with investigations against FETÖ/PDY members – and besieged it, resulting in an armed conflict; (b) armoured land forces had left the military barracks with armoured combat vehicles and besieged the buildings of public institutions; (c) public officials had been shot dead; (d) military helicopters had carried out air strikes on the Intelligence Department of the General Directorate of Security; (e) fighter jets had bombed the Special Operations Department of the General Directorate of Security based in Gölbaşı, Ankara, resulting in deaths; (f) armoured combat vehicles had besieged and attacked the Ankara Security Directorate, which had allowed them to enter the building; (g) the Anti-Terrorism Branch and the Intelligence Branch of the Ankara Security Directorate, which had played an active role in the fight against the FETÖ/PDY, had been specifically targeted and bombed; (h) The presidential palace had been besieged by certain members of the armed forces and the targets around the palace had been bombed by fighter jets, resulting in civilian deaths; (j) Television stations had been besieged and their streaming services had been shut down; (i) pro-coup forces had besieged and attempted to take control of the headquarters of the TÜRKSAT Satellite Communication Cable Television and Management Public Company (“TÜRKSAT”) in Gölbaşı, and fighter jets had bombed satellite dishes; (j) armed clashes had taken place between the pro-coup forces and the members of the TAF resisting them, resulting in deaths and injuries among the latter; (k) Fighter jets had bombed the Turkish Grand National Assembly (“the National Assembly”) at midnight when members of parliament were holding an emergency session concerning the coup attempt; (l) Armed military officers had stormed the TRT building and forced its staff to read out the so-called coup declaration live in an attempt to show to the public that a military coup was being carried out within the entire army’s chain of command and declaring that the military had seized power; (m) military helicopters and putschist soldiers had fired on and shot dead or injured civilians attempting to regain control of the General Staff Building from the putschist soldiers who had taken control of it; (n) armoured vehicles, including tanks, had arrived at the entrance of the General Staff Building and massacred civilians by either shooting at them or attempting to run them over; (o) Fetullahist soldiers, with the help of helicopters, had brought armed and equipped trainee second lieutenants, students at the Turkish Military Academy, to the General Staff Building with a view to succeeding in the coup attempt; (p) putschist soldiers had captured the military command centre based in the General Staff Building, directed the coup attempt from there, given orders, declared martial law and assigned their supporters to certain positions within the armed forces and other key public institutions. 10.     Accordingly, the trial court held that a group of members of the Turkish Armed Forces calling themselves the “Peace at Home Council” had instigated an attempt to carry out a military coup to seize power in the country and overthrow the democratically elected government at around 8.30 p.m. on 15 July 2016. A press release had been published on the official website of the TAF, which had been read on the TRT national television channel announcing that the army had taken over the administration of the State and had declared martial law and a curfew all throughout Türkiye. The coup attempt had therefore been carried out by the “Peace at Home Council”, which had acted outside the chain of command of the TAF and used approximately 9,000 military personnel, thirty-five fighter jets, thirty-seven military helicopters, seventy-four tanks, 162 other armoured combat vehicles and 4,000 small arms and light weapons, resulting in 249 deaths and thousands of injuries. 11.     The trial court found that citizens from all over Türkiye, determined to save the country’s future, had held protest demonstrations in almost every city, that political parties had taken a united stance against the coup attempt and issued statements in support of the government in power, that the national media had sided with the State and the democratically elected institutions by reporting against the coup attempt, that members of the Turkish Armed Forces and the General Directorate of Security loyal to the country and the nation had made efforts to suppress the coup attempt and that civilians had attempted to regain control of the public institutions from the putschists. Consequently, civilians, members of the TAF and the police had cleared the buildings of the public institutions from the putschists and had regained control of them, and had finally suppressed the coup attempt at around 12   noon on 16 July 2016, resulting in the surrender of the putschists. Specific incident forming the basis of the applicant’s conviction 12.     According to the trial court, preparations for the military coup had already begun in the Tank Battalion at the end of May 2016. Malfunctioning tanks had been repaired, weapons installed in the tanks had been serviced, shortages and equipment needs had been addressed and the Tank Battalion had given the impression to the outside world that such preparations were being made because it was carrying out drills or preparing for a possible deployment on the Syrian border. In reality, it had been preparing to provide tanks and armoured combat vehicles for the military coup, as evidenced by the fact that tanks had been refuelled the day before the coup attempt. 13.     During a search of the office and the locker of the defendant A.Ö., several items had been found, including (i) four copies of a map of Ankara, which divided the city into three sections marked red and blue and indicating the number of tanks to be placed at certain intersections; (ii) aerial photographs of Ankara on which certain major intersections, the headquarters of the Intelligence Department and the Special Operations Department of the General Directorate of Security and the former Presidential Palace ( Çankaya Köşkü ) had been marked, and (ii) six copies of a map of the Altındağ district. A search at defendant N.B.’s office had resulted in the discovery of handwritten notes such as “how many trustworthy personnel are needed?”, “vehicle + driver + gunner + three crew members, 9 x 3 = 27” and certain other notes indicating the number of tanks to be placed at various intersections in Ankara. Similarly, 1,400 plastic handcuffs were found during the search of his private car. 14.     On 15 July 2016, a certain A.K. and O.Ü., who had been “appointed” by the putschist soldiers as the brigade commander of the Mamak Twenty ‑ Eighth Mechanised Brigade and the commander of the Fourth Corps respectively, had taken over the command of the Brigade and the Corps by force and with the help of other putschist soldiers. Subsequently, they had declared a false state of emergency, ordering all soldiers to return to their barracks (as the incidents had taken place outside normal working hours). Upon the arrival of the soldiers from the Mamak Twenty-Eighth Mechanised Brigade, Lieutenant Colonel N.B., who had been the commander of the Tank Battalion, had begun leading the military coup. Captains A.B., H.N. and A.Ö., who had already been aware of the coup attempt, had under the command of N.B. taken out the tanks and other armoured combat vehicles from the military equipment storage facility, equipped them with anti-aircraft artillery shells and distributed rifles to the personnel. The accused soldiers were then loaded onto the tanks on the pretext that the National Assembly and the General Staff Building had been attacked by terrorists and that they had to ensure the security of these places. Accordingly, on 15 July 2016 at 11.45   p.m., fifteen tanks, each with its crew members, had left the military barracks on the orders of Lieutenant Colonel N.B and had eventually arrived at the entrance to the General Staff Building. The applicant had assumed the role of tank commander and had been in the tank with the registration number 092662. 15.     The trial court further observed that while the defendants, tank crew members acting “in unity of thought and action” under the command of N.B., had been on their way to the General Staff building, civilians had started protesting against them around the Ulus neighbourhood and had tried in vain to persuade them to stop their actions. Despite knowing why the crowds had gathered in the Sıhhiye neighbourhood and in front of the Ankara Courthouse, the defendants had continued their actions, disregarding the civilians’ warnings and opening fire on them. In the Kızılay neighbourhood, the defendants had broken the barricades by running over cars, firing at civilians and driving into crowds. According to the trial court, civilians had frequently stopped the defendants on their way to the General Staff building and warned them that their actions were wrong, that it was a coup attempt and not a terrorist attack as claimed, and that they should therefore return to their barracks and not kill or injure any civilians or damage property. Nevertheless, the accused had ignored these warnings and had continued with their actions in order to achieve their aim of carrying out a military coup. They had arrived at the General Staff building at 1 a.m. on 16 July 2016 and forced their way inside by breaking down the barricades, walls and barbed wire and damaging buildings. Subsequently, however, the coup attempt had been suppressed by civilians and law enforcement officers, and the accused, realising their defeat, had surrendered at 1 p.m. on 16 July 2016. 16.     The trial court further found that after the coup attempt had failed, the accused had removed the hard drives from the CCTV cameras in the Chief of Staff’s office, which had contained video footage of the incidents that formed the basis of the accusations. The court found that the applicant had had them destroyed with the help of a tank after placing them on the ground. With regard to the applicant, the trial court further found that between 5.30 and 6   a.m. on 16 July 2016 he had fired at the upper parts of trucks on İnönü Avenue in order to disperse civilians resisting the coup attempt. The court also found that when civilians tried to enter the General Staff building, he had dispersed them by firing at the headquarters of the Turkish Air Forces using the machine gun mounted on the tank with the registration number 092662 and damaged the building. 17.     In assessing the situation of each of the defendants who were in the same tank as the applicant, the trial court found that the messages on defendant S.K.’s mobile telephone showed that he had been aware of the coup attempt and that he had been in contact with a director of the FETÖ/PDY. As regards the applicant, the trial court took note of the fact that he had spoken against the government and the State before the coup attempt and that there were witness statements according to which he had a strong dislike for the President of the Republic of Türkiye. 18.     Accordingly, the trial court held that the defendants’ (i) deployment of the tanks to the General Staff building with a view to carrying out a military coup and (ii) actions on their way there, such as disregarding the warnings of civilians and firing at them, and damaging public and private vehicles, showed their determination to commit offences and achieve their unlawful goals. In the trial court’s view, items (i) and (ii) had constituted the offence of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order under Article   309   §   1 of the Criminal Code. Moreover, the actions in question had also given rise to the offence of murder (five counts), as they had resulted in the killing of five people, attempted murder, as they had resulted in seventy-two people being injured, and damage to public and private property, police cars and private vehicles. As regards the injuries, the trial court held that if the injuries sustained by the victims could be treated with basic medical intervention, the defendants would not be criminally liable as those acts would be subsumed under the use of “force and violence” element of the offence of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order. However, if the injuries in question had not been of that nature, they would be regarded as grievous bodily harm and constitute the offence of attempted murder in respect of each victim. That assessment took into account the nature of the injuries, the means used to inflict them, the defendants’ intent and the fact that those offences had been committed either simultaneously with the offence under Article 309 § 1 of the Criminal Code or to facilitate its commission. 19.     In the trial court’s view, the preparatory acts carried out by the defendants at the initial stage of their actions and the fact that they had proceeded to the acts of execution showed that they had acted with unity of thought and action from the outset and had carried out the material elements ( actus reus ) of the offences in complicity with each other. It held that each defendant should be held criminally liable as a principal offender for the offence of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order, in accordance with the domestic legal provisions on complicity. Assessment of the defendants’ submissions that they had acted in the belief that a terrorist attack had taken place at the General Staff Building 20 .     The trial court observed that at the initial stages of the proceedings, some of the defendants alleged that they had acted in the belief that a terrorist attack had taken place at the General Staff building, some of them claiming that “Daesh” (the so-called “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant” or “ISIL”, also known as “ISIS”) had been responsible. However, they had changed those statements after being placed in pre-trial detention and had categorically stated that the FETÖ/PDY had carried out an attack on the General Staff building and that they had gone there to provide security. According to the trial court, those allegations did not reflect the truth for the following reasons. Taking into consideration the developments that took place on the night of the incident, the trial court found that members of the FETÖ/PDY armed terrorist organisation had initiated the coup attempt at 9   p.m. by taking control of the General Staff Building, taking the Chief of Staff and other commanders who had opposed the coup as hostages and transferring them to the Akıncı Air Base. At about the same time, fighter jets were flying at low altitude in Ankara and the sound of gunfire, similar to that of an armed conflict, had been heard coming from the General Staff building. At 11 p.m. the Prime Minister had appeared on a nationwide television programme and declared the incident to be an attempted coup, and the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office had issued arrest warrants for those taking part. At 11.45   p.m. certain putschist soldiers had stormed the TRT building and read out the so-called coup declaration. At 12.25 a.m. the President of the Republic had appeared on a nationwide television channel and denounced the move as a coup attempt conducted by a small group in the TAF incited by the “parallel structure”. Subsequently, many important public institutions, such as the General Assembly, the MİT, the General Directorate of Security, the Special Operations Department of the General Directorate of Security, TÜRKSAT and the Presidential Palace had been bombed and shelled. Against the above background, and bearing in mind that it was undisputed that the tanks had left the military barracks at 11.45   p.m. on 15 July 2016, at a time when even the entire civilian population had been aware of an ongoing coup attempt, the trial court found it unlikely that the defendants, who had also had their mobile phones in their possession, had not been aware of it. 21.     In the trial court’s view, even assuming that the defendants had acted in the belief that there had been a terrorist attack, they had been repeatedly stopped on their way to the General Staff Building by civilians, who had consistently tried to convince them to stop their actions or had physically resisted them. Nevertheless, the defendants had continued their actions, driven tanks over them and fired at them, as could be seen from the video footage in the case file. In any event, no military order could justify killing or injuring civilians in the middle of Ankara and destroying or damaging private and public vehicles. Consequently, the defendants had known that there had been no terrorist attack; on the contrary, they had acted in order to protect the putschist soldiers who had taken control of the General Staff Building, as demonstrated by the fact that, upon their arrival, they had positioned the tanks in such a way that their barrels had been pointed at civilians, and that they had seen that (i) the Special Forces units stationed around the building in question had been supporting the coup and had fired at civilians and the police, and (ii) helicopters had consistently landed there in order to provide the putschists with ammunition and reinforcements and had fired at civilians. The trial court stated that the defendants, as commissioned officers, had been aware that the use of tanks against unarmed civilians, even of a hostile state, constituted an offence even in peacetime, but had continued their actions and either killed or injured them, which showed that they had had the necessary intent to commit the offence under Article 309 § 1 of the Criminal Code. The defendants had failed to comply with any of those conditions and had hastily taken out the tanks from the barracks, which could only be done in exceptional situations, such as during a coup attempt. It was also clear that if they had not provided security for the putschist soldiers who had taken control of the General Staff Building, the coup attempt would have been brought to an end much more swiftly. According to the trial court, all the mechanised military units had been trained in the procedure and modalities for the dispatch and deployment of tanks into traffic and had been aware, in particular, of the need to obtain permission from the Governor, to be accompanied by the police and to stop traffic in order to use the tanks in traffic at night. In view of the foregoing considerations, the trial court found it unlikely that the defendants had been unaware of the coup attempt, at a time when the entire civilian population had even been aware of the coup attempt taking place and had taken to the streets. Assessment of the plea of obedience to superior orders 22.     The trial court further noted that most of the defendants, in their defence against the charges against them, had argued that they had acted lawfully by following orders in accordance with the strict obedience prevailing in the military. According to the court, several criteria had to be met in order to accept the defence of obedience to superior orders, which was set forth in the Criminal Code as a circumstance that extinguished or reduced the criminal responsibility of an accused. In that regard, no lawful order had been given to the defendants requiring them to save the General Staff Building from a terrorist attack on the night of 15 July 2016. In the absence of such an order, the defendants had not been in a position to assess its formal requirements. Moreover, a binding order could only be lawfully issued by a competent body or superior authorised by law, and an order to deploy armoured fighting vehicles with live weapons in the capital at night could only have been issued by the Committee of Ministers and not by a brigade commander. Assuming that there had been a lawful order, its object and the reasons for it had not been lawful. In any event, even in a system requiring absolute obedience to superior orders, such as in the military and the police, no officer had been under an obligation to carry out an order the subject of which constituted an offence. In such cases, both the subordinate who carried out the order and the superior who issued it would be criminally liable and a plea of obedience to superior orders would not relieve the former of such liability. In view of the foregoing, the trial court observed that the defendants had known that they had not been authorised to carry out a night operation at the General Staff Building on 15 July 2016. 23.     Even assuming that the building in question had been attacked by terrorists, the question of how to intervene in such an attack would have had to be decided by the civilian authorities, which were empowered by law in the fight against terrorism, and not by the military forces, as the law clearly regulated the circumstances and the manner in which the military could intervene in terror attacks. Therefore, it was not legally possible for the Mamak Twenty-Eighth Mechanised Brigade to intervene in a so-called terrorist attack by assuming itself authorised to do so in the absence of a written order to that effect. In fact, none of the competent authorities had authorised the Brigade to use armoured combat vehicles, including tanks. Even though there had recently been other terrorist attacks in Ankara, the military had not been asked to intervene in them, and it was against logic in the circumstances prevailing in Türkiye for the military to have been abruptly authorised to do so at midnight at the capital. Accordingly, the deployment of armoured vehicles, including tanks, into traffic at night without the presence of police officers and without informing or receiving instructions from the civilian authorities showed that there had been a coup attempt. On that basis, the trial court found it impossible to accept the defendants’ plea of obedience to superior orders. Proceedings before the Ankara Regional Court of Appeal 24.     According to the documents provided by the applicant, his lawyer filed a short notice of appeal ( süre tutum dilekçesi ) dated 14   April 2018 (one-page submission) against the trial court’s judgment, submitting that it was contrary to the facts and law, without however substantiating this argument. The lawyer further specified that he would submit detailed appeal submissions following the service of the trial court’s reasoned judgment. In the top right ‑ hand corner of the first page of the appeal, the words “Hearing requested” were written. The case file submitted by the applicant to the Court does not include any other, more detailed appeal filed by or on behalf of the applicant to the Ankara Regional Court of Appeal. 25.     On 19 June 2020 the Nineteenth Criminal Division of the Ankara Regional Court of Appeal gave its fifty-four-page judgment, upholding the first-instance court’s judgment as far as the applicant was concerned. In the court’s view, the first-instance court’s judgment did not contain any inaccuracies, as evidenced by (i) its legal, adequate and lawful reasoning contained therein, (ii) the court’s acceptance of the commission of the offences and their nature, (iii) its assessment and application of the nature and degree of the aggravating and mitigating factors in imposing the sentences, (iv) its dismissal of the defence submissions on credible grounds, and (v) its consideration of the lawful and sufficient evidence presented and discussed in the presence of the parties. 26.     Furthermore, the court decided not to hold a hearing in view of the fact that (i) the evidence in the case file, assessed as a whole, was sufficient to warrant the conclusion that the defendants had committed the offences attributed to them, (ii) the first-instance court’s assessment of the facts and its interpretation and application of the law did not contain any inaccuracies and (iii) the reading of the documents added to the case at the appellate stage at a public hearing would have no impact on the outcome. Proceedings before the Court of Cassation 27.     According to the documents provided by the applicant, his lawyer filed a short notice of appeal ( süre tutum dilekçesi ) dated 20 July 2020 (one ‑ page submission) against the judgment of the Ankara Regional Court of Appeal. The lawyer argued that the applicant had had no intention of taking part in the coup attempt, and had merely been following orders as military personnel and that, in any event, none of his actions had caused any physical harm to anyone. He also stated that he would submit more detailed appeal submissions, arguing that the statutory time-limit of fifteen days to do so was insufficient given the scope of the case and the level of detail involved. In the top right-hand corner of the first page of the appeal, the words “Hearing requested” were written. The application as submitted by the applicant did not contain any other submissions made to the Court of Cassation by the applicant or his lawyer. 28.     On 14 June 2022 the Sixteenth Criminal Division of the Court of Cassation delivered its judgment, which, inter alia , upheld the applicant’s conviction. In dismissing the requests for a hearing, the Court of Cassation held that, in the proceedings before the trial court and the Regional Court of Appeal, the defendants had been provided with sufficient means to effectively exercise their defence rights in accordance with the principles of equality of arms and adversarial proceedings. Moreover, the Court of Cassation also found that the defendants had been entitled to submit an unlimited number of written submissions in the proceedings before it. Proceedings before the Constitutional Court 29.     On 19 September 2022 the applicant lodged an application with the Constitutional Court alleging violations of Articles 2, 3, 5, 6, and 13 of the Convention. He raised almost identical complaints before the Court, which were also worded identically to those before the Constitutional Court. 30.     Under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention, the applicant submitted that he had been subjected to torture and ill-treatment while in police custody and in prison, as detailed in his defence submissions. In the same vein, he contended that complaints of ill-treatment made by other accused had gone unheeded due to the lack of an effective legal remedy and the impunity provisions in the legislative decrees. The applicant also complained of various breaches of Article 5 of the Convention, arguing, inter alia , that his pre-trial detention had been unlawful, arbitrary and disproportionate and that the decisions relating to it had lacked reasons. He further complained, under Article 6 of the Convention (i) about the outcome of the criminal proceedings against him; (ii) that the domestic courts had refused to grant his requests for the collection of evidence and the examination of digital material and witnesses who had been present at the scene; (iii) that they had failed to deliver reasoned judgments, to take into account or assess any points, arguments and statements favourable to him and the defence submissions made by him, and to upload the entirety of documents in the case file to UYAP (the National Judiciary Informatics System); (iv) that their judgments contained manifest errors of assessment; (iv) of several breaches of the presumption of innocence; (v) that the Ankara Regional Court of Appeal and the Court of Cassation had refused his requests for a hearing without giving reasons; (vi) about the audiovisual recording of lawyer-client meetings in prison and the imposition of time-limits on such meetings; and (vii) that he had not been allowed to examine the case file in prison conditions. Lastly, the applicant submitted, under Article 13 of the Convention, that no effective remedy had been available to him against the judgment of the Ankara Eighteenth Assize Court, and that the judgments of the Ankara Regional Court of Appeal and the Court of Cassation also demonstrated the absence of such a remedy. 31.     On 6 April 2023 the Constitutional Court declared the application inadmissible by way of a summary decision. It found that the applicant’s complaints concerning the fairness of his trial concerned the assessment of evidence and the application of domestic law; the application was thus in the nature of a further appeal and had to be declared inadmissible given that the domestic courts’ decisions did not contain any manifest errors of assessment or arbitrariness. As regards his allegation of a breach of his right to have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence, the Constitutional Court found that the proceedings, taken as a whole, did not disclose a violation of the right in question. The court also declared the applicant’s complaints under Article 5 inadmissible, either because they had been lodged outside the statutory thirty-day time-limit or because they were manifestly ill-founded. As regards the remainder of the applicant’s complaints, the Constitutional Court found that they did not satisfy the admissibility criteria. 32.     The applicant was deemed to have been notified of the above ‑ mentioned decision on 11 April 2023, five days after its service on the applicant’s lawyer via the electronic notification system. RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND PRACTICE 33.     The domestic courts’ detailed assessment of the FETÖ/PDY has been summarised in Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Türkiye ([GC], no.   15669/20, §§   161-63 and 172, 26 September 2023). 34.     Article 309 § 1 of the Criminal Code provides as follows:   “Anyone who attempts, by force and violence, to overthrow the constitutional order provided for in the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, to establish a different order in its place or to prevent its actual implementation, whether fully or in part, shall be sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment.” 35.     Article 6 § 1 (d) of Legislative Decree no. 667 introduced some restrictions, applicable during the course of the state of emergency, on the right to legal assistance of persons detained in connection with certain offences against the nation and the State provided for in Chapter Four of Book Two of the Criminal Code (including the offence of membership of an armed organisation provided for in Article 314 thereof), the offences covered by the Prevention of Terrorism Act and collective offences. Article   6   §   1   (d) provided,   inter alia , that meetings of persons in detention with their lawyers could be recorded, that they could be attended by an officer to monitor the exchanges, or that the documents and files exchanged and the records kept by the detainees or their lawyers could be seized by decision of the public prosecutor, if deemed necessary for the reasons listed therein. This provision was incorporated into Article 6 § 1 (d) of Law   no.   6749, adopted on 18   October 2016 and published in the Official Gazette on 29 October 2016. 36.     Article 37 of Law no. 6755 on the adoption of the amendments of the Decree Law on measures to be taken as part of the state of emergency and arrangements made on certain institutions and organizations, as amended by Article 121 of Legislative Decree no.   696, provided that persons who acted with the aim of suppressing the coup attempt of 15   July 2016 and the terrorist activities carried out on that day, as well as actions which could be considered as a continuation of them, would not bear any legal, criminal, administrative or financial responsibility, regardless of whether they held an official title or carried out an official duty. THE LAW Alleged violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention 37.     The applicant alleged that he had been ill-treated and subjected to torture while in police custody and prison, “as mentioned in his defence submissions”, in breach of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention. As master of the characterisation to be given in law to the facts of the case before it ( see Radomilja and Others v. Croatia [GC], nos. 37685/10 and   22768/12, §§   114 and 124, 20 March 2018), the Court considers that these complaints fall to be examined solely under Article 3 of the Convention, which reads as follows: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” 38.     The Court recalls that allegations of ill-treatment contrary to Article   3 must be supported by appropriate evidence. To assess this evidence, the Court adopts the standard of proof “beyond reasonable doubt” but adds that such proof may follow from the coexistence of sufficiently strong, clear and concordant inferences or of similar unrebutted presumptions of fact (see   Bouyid v. Belgium   [GC], no.   23380/09, § 82, ECHR 2015).   In this connection, it notes that the applicant did not provide copies of the statements he had made at the investigation or trial stages. From the documents submitted by him, namely the trial court’s reasoned judgment, in which his defence submissions made during those stages were reproduced, it appears that he did claim to have been subjected to torture from 16 July to 26 July 2016 (during his police custody), but did not give any details of the ill ‑ treatment to which he had allegedly been subjected. Neither his submissions to the Ankara Regional Court of Appeal and the Court of Cassation, which were annexed to the present application, nor the application form he lodged with the Constitutional Court contained any information, let alone detailed information, in that regard. Nor did he submit any other documents, such as a medical report or anything else which would have enabled the Court to examine his allegations of ill-treatment. Similarly, in his application to the Court, the applicant did not provide any explanation, let alone a detailed explanation, of his alleged ill-treatment, other than to state that he had been ill-treated and subjected to torture. On that basis, it cannot but conclude that the applicant failed to lay the basis of an arguable ill ‑ treatment complaint. 39.     In view of the foregoing considerations, the Court finds that the applicant failed to provide the Court with the information necessary to lay the basis of an arguable ill-treatment complaint. It follows that this complaint is inadmissible under Article 35   §   3   (a) of the Convention as manifestly ill ‑ founded and must therefore be rejected pursuant to Article   35   §   4 thereof. Alleged violations of Article 5 of the Convention 40.     The applicant complained that his pre-trial detention had been unlawful, arbitrary and disproportionate, as there had been no reason or evidence for such a measure and none of the statutory conditions had been met. In his view, he had been placed in pre-trial detention and convicted despite the fact that the requirements for a case of discovery in flagrante delicto had not been met. Accordingly, there had been a breach of his right to liberty and security of person as a result of his pre-trial detention, which had been ordered without any justification and despite the fact that the legal requirements had not been met. In the same vein, the decisions ordering and extending his pre-trial detention had been based on automatic and stereotyped wording and had lacked reasons. Lastly, the national courts had not assessed his objections to the decisions on his pre-trial detention in an objective and impartial manner, with the result that he had been deprived of his liberty arbitrarily. 41.     Article 5 of the Convention reads, in so far as relevant, as follows: “1.     Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be deprived of his liberty save in the following cases and in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law: (a)     the lawful detention of a person after conviction by a competent court; ... (c)     the lawful arrest or detention of a person effected for the purpose of bringing him before the competent legal authority on reasonable suspicion of having committed an offence or when it is reasonably considered necessary to prevent his committing an offence or fleeing after having done so; ... 3.     Everyone arrested or detained in accordance with the provisions of paragraph   1   (c) of this Article shall be brought promptly before a judge or other officer authorised by law to exercise judicial power and shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release pending trial. Release may be conditioned by guarantees to appear for trial. 4.     Everyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or de