CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 13 octobre 2009

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sA678F94A { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right; font-size:11pt } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s598389F8 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center; font-size:11pt } .s51D316E0 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center; font-size:11pt } .s15B74CEF { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center; font-size:11pt } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s26725EEE { font-family:Arial; font-size:5.33pt; font-weight:bold; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s1F6AC3E7 { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt; font-style:italic } .s4BAE41EE { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt } .s777B7D40 { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt; text-decoration:underline; color:#008080 } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s7FAB69C { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; color:#0000ff } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s2E932ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:11pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s99A63BFE { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left; font-size:11pt } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s92A5AB2 { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .s9FE28126 { margin-top:0pt; margin-right:42.5pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left; font-size:11pt } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .sB853CD26 { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt }   756 13.10.2009   Press release issued by the Registrar Chamber judgment [1] Gasyak and Others v. Turkey (application no. 27872/03 )   FAILURE TO PROPERLY INVESTIGATE KILLINGS OF CIVILIANS   Violation of Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights     Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded each applicant 10,000   euros   (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR   4,000 jointly for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in English.)   Principal facts   The applicants are four Turkish nationals who live in the town of Cizre (Turkey) and are the relatives of four persons who were killed in March 1994. The persons killed were working as tradesmen - buying food, tobacco and tea close to the Turkish-Iraqi border and selling those goods in the nearby town of Cizre.   According to the applicants, who based their submissions on information provided by witnesses passing or living near the places of the events, on 6 March 1994 their relatives were stopped by gendarmes at a check-point near the town of Silopi. Two ex-members of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), who were working at the time as “confessors” for the authorities, were also present. They were then taken into vehicles and driven towards a village called Holan. One of their relatives jumped out of the car and attempted to run away, but was shot by someone from the car which transported him. The three surviving men were taken to the Bozalan police station from where they were further moved to a nearby place and shot dead later that day.   On 8 March gendarmes found the bodies of the four men – shot dead and their heads smashed with stones. An on-site report was prepared which concluded that the killings were most likely carried out by PKK members. No other action was taken in the area by the gendarmes or the Cizre prosecutor who only forwarded the investigation file to the prosecutor of Diyarbakir. In addition, the applicants were warned by representatives of the security forces not to make any complaints.   The Government submitted that a number of investigative steps were taken in order to find the perpetrators of the killings. Two persons, the confessors identified by the applicants - had been put on trial in 2002 but were subsequently acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence.   In their letter of 20 August 2009 the applicants informed the Court that the same two confessors who had accompanied the gendarmes at the time their relatives were killed, a high-ranking army official and three intelligence officers working for the gendarmerie had been indicted in July 2009 and put on trial for the killing of their four relatives as well as the killing of a number of other persons at around the same time.   Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court   Relying in particular on Article 2, the applicants complained that their relatives were killed by representatives of the Turkish authorities and that the investigation into their complaints had been flawed.   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 13 June 2003.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Françoise Tulkens (Belgium), President , Ireneu Cabral Barreto (Portugal), Vladimiro Zagrebelsky (Italy), Danutė Jočienė (Lithuania), András Sajó (Hungary), Nona Tsotsoria (Georgia), Işıl Karakaş (Turkey), judges , and Françoise Elens-Passos , Deputy Section Registrar .   Decision of the Court   The Court considered that it could not examine the applicants’ allegations concerning the killings on account of the applicants’ failure to comply with the six-month rule. Nevertheless, the Court examined the effectiveness of the trial conducted after 2002. In doing so the Court observed that, despite the repeated submissions by the applicants and the eyewitnesses that gendarmes had been involved in the abduction and killing of their relatives, no attempt had been made to identify and question the personnel working at the checkpoint or near Bozalan gendarmerie station. The two confessors – who had been the only persons charged with the killings – had never appeared before the trial court, despite one of them having provided misleading information about his whereabouts at the time of the killings. Consequently, it had been impossible to question them directly or for the eyewitnesses to identify them.   In light of the shortcomings of the trial, the Court concluded unanimously that the Turkish authorities had failed to carry out a meaningful investigation into the killing of the applicants’ relatives, in violation of Article   2.     ***   This press release is a document produced by the Registry; the summary it contains does not bind the Court. The judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (tel : + 33 (0)3 88 41 35 70) or Stefano Piedimonte (tel : + 33 (0)3 90 21 42 04) Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel : + 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) Céline Menu-Lange (tel : + 33 (0)3 90 21 58 77) Frédéric Dolt (tel : + 33 (0)3 90 21 53 39) Nina Salomon (tel: + 33 (0)3 90 21 49 79) 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.