CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 20 février 2007

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s6B505E72 { margin:0pt; padding-left:0pt } .sD711EC90 { margin-left:31.52pt; padding-left:7.48pt; font-family:serif } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   114 20.02.2007   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT ÖLMEZ v. TURKEY   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Ölmez v. Turkey (application no. 39464/98).   The Court concluded, unanimously, that there had been: a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of torture) of the European Convention on Human Rights on account of the torture inflicted on the applicants during their detention in police custody; a violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the Convention; and, no violation of Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination).   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction), the Court awarded each of the applicants 25,000 euros (EUR) for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage and EUR 3,000 jointly for costs and expenses, minus the EUR 625 already received from the Council of Europe by way of legal aid. (The judgment is available only in French.)   1.     Principal facts   The applicants, Mıtlık Ölmez and his sister Yıldız Ölmez, are Turkish nationals who were born in 1967 and 1971 respectively and live in Germany, where they enjoy political refugee status.   The facts are in dispute between the parties.   The applicants alleged that, on 18 July 1993, Mıtlık Ölmez was arrested in the street by plain-clothes police officers who led him to a derelict building where he was repeatedly beaten and doused in cold water. He was subsequently taken to the headquarters of the Istanbul security directorate, where he was tortured with a view to extracting a confession that he belonged to the PKK. In particular, he was blindfolded and stripped; he was sprayed with cold water, suspended by the arms and given electric shocks; the police officers subjected him to falaka , which consisted in beating the soles of his feet; they also threatened to kill him and sodomised him with a truncheon.   Yıldız Ölmez claimed that she had been arrested on 25 July 1993. Taken to the Istanbul security directorate, she had also been tortured there. She alleged that she had been stripped and that the police officers had subjected her to ill-treatment such as suspension by the arms, electrocution and spraying with jets of cold water; she had been raped twice, by two police officers, while two others walked on her hands; one night the applicant had been taken to a forest where she had been sodomised using a truncheon.   The Turkish Government denied those allegations; it claimed that, when he was arrested on 27 July on account of his presumed membership of the PKK, Mr Ölmez had put up a struggle. Ms Ölmez had been arrested on 28 July 1993.   On 6 August, at the end of their detention in police custody, the applicants were examined by a forensic medical examiner. He noted that Mr Ölmez was experiencing pain and motor weakness in both arms and recommended in-depth examinations in a properly equipped hospital. As to Ms Ölmez, the doctor noted that the stitches from an operation to the spleen, dating from four months previously, had reopened and that a hospital consultation was necessary in order to draw up a definitive report. Both applicants were placed in pre-trial detention.   The applicants lodged complaints against the police officers responsible for their detention in police custody. The two police officers concerned were acquitted by Istanbul Assize Court on 19 December 1995 for lack of sufficient evidence.   According to the Berlin-based Centre for the Care of Survivors of Torture, the symptoms presented by Ms Ölmez in 2005 corroborated her allegations of ill-treatment, including sexual violence. Mr Ölmez, who was examined by a neurologist in Zurich in 1999, presented a brachial plexus injury on the right side, impairment of the ulnar nerves and Guyon’s canal syndrome, namely nerve compression affecting the ulnar nerve.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Commission of Human Rights on 3 October 1997. It was transferred to the European Court of Human Rights on 1 November 1998 and declared partly admissible on 16 November 1999.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Nicolas Bratza (British), President , Josep Casadevall (Andorran), Riza Türmen (Turkish), Stanislav Pavlovschi (Moldovan), Lech Garlicki (Polish), Ljiljana Mijović (citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina), Ján Šikuta (Slovakian), judges , and also Lawrence Early , Section Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaints   The applicants complained, under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, that they had been subjected to torture during their detention in police custody. Relying on Articles 13 and 14, they also complained about the ineffectiveness of the criminal proceedings they had had brought to prove the truth of their allegations.     Decision of the Court   Article 3   Even supposing that Mr and Ms Ölmez had been placed in police custody on 27 and 28 July 1993 respectively, they had remained entirely at the mercy of their questioners until 6   August, when their police custody ended. On that date, they were examined by a doctor who found motor weakness in Mr Ölmez’s upper limbs and noted that the wound from a splenectomy undergone four months previously by Ms Ölmez had partly reopened.   In that connection, the Court reiterated that any injury sustained during detention, especially where it was secret, gave rise to a strong presumption against the Government. In the absence of plausible explanations from the Turkish Government, the Court considered it established that the brachial plexus injury diagnosed in Mr   Ölmez and the state of the stitches from Ms   Ölmez’s operation scar originated in the treatment inflicted during their detention in police custody, treatment for which Turkey bore responsibility.   Violence of that nature, which could only have been inflicted intentionally in order to extract confessions or information, deserved the description of “torture”. Accordingly, the Court concluded that there had been a violation of Article 3.     Article 13   The criminal action brought by the applicants, which had resulted in the police officers’ acquittal, had ultimately provided the applicants with no reasonable basis for attempting to obtain compensation before the administrative or civil courts, since either of those proceedings would have required them, at the least, to prove that they had been victims of ill-treatment by agents of the State. The Court therefore concluded that there had been a violation of Article 13.   Article 14   As the complaint under Article 14 had not been substantiated, the Court concluded that there had been no violation of Article 14.       ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Emma Hellyer (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15) Stéphanie Klein (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Beverley Jacobs (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 54 21)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.   [1] Under Article 43 of the Convention, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17 ‑ member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer. [2] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.