7.  The applicants were born in 1966, 1975, 1934 and 1971 respectively and live in the town of Yüksekova, in south-east Turkey. 8.  On 27 October 1995, soldiers belonging to the Yüksekova Commando Battalion under the command of Major Mehmet Emin Yurdakul came to Ağaçlı village to conduct a military operation. 9.  Şemsettin Yurtseven, the father of the first and the second applicants, Mikdat Özeken, the son of the third applicant and Münür Sarıtaş, the younger brother of the fourth applicant, were singled out and put in a military vehicle and taken away by the soldiers. They were not released afterwards. Şemsettin Yurtseven was 73 years of age and was living in Ağaçlı village. Mikdat Özeken who was 18 years old and Münür Sarıtaş who was 13 years old, had come to Ağaçlı village that day to collect wood. 10.  The applicants applied to the Yüksekova Commando Battalion and asked for information about their relatives. Major Yurdakul denied the arrest of the applicants' relatives. 11.  Since the arrest of their relatives on 27 October 1995 the applicants have obtained no information about their relatives' whereabouts. 12.  According to the Government, no security operation was conducted in Ağaçlı village on the day in question and that the applicants' relatives were not arrested. 13.  On 13 June 1997 the Hakkari chief public prosecutor filed a bill of indictment with the Hakkari Assize Court (Hakkari Ağır Ceza Mahkemesi). The chief public prosecutor stated that the information obtained indicated that Şemsettin Yurtseven had been beaten to death by Major Mehmet Emin Yurdakul after he was taken into custody during an operation conducted in Ağaçlı village between 25 and 28 October 1995. Mikdat Özeken and Münür Sarıtaş, who had witnessed this killing, were themselves later shot dead by Kahraman Bilgiç and Nihat Yiğiter, a confessor [Note: Itirafçı (confessor): a term used to describe a defected member of an illegal organisation who provides the authorities with information about that organisation.] and an army captain respectively. 14.  On 12 November 1999 the Hakkari Assize Court acquitted Mehmet Emin Yurdakul, Nihat Yiğiter and Kahraman Bilgiç for lack of sufficient evidence to prove that they had killed the applicants' relatives. 15.  The Hakkari Assize Court reached, inter alia, the following findings in its reasoning:
“In the light of the evidence set out above, and in particular the testimonies of the villagers in whose village the operation took place, there is corroborating evidence that an operation was conducted in Karlı village on 27 October 1995 by the Yüksekova Mountain Commando Battalion and that Şemsettin (Abdulkerim) Yurtseven, Mikdat Özeken and Münür Sarıtaş were taken away by the soldiers in a military vehicle. There is, however, no evidence in the file to show what happened to these persons subsequently. In other words, their fates are unknown. There is no evidence in the file other than the allegations made by Kahraman Bilgiç during the course of the preliminary investigation on 25 February 1997 -which he later repeated during the trial proceedings - to prove that the disappeared persons were taken to the Battalion after the operation, that Şemsettin died as a result of having been beaten up by the commander Mehmet Emin Yurdakul, or that the other two were killed because they had witnessed the killing of Şemsettin...Finally, the fact that the bodies were never recovered casts doubt on the accuracy of the claims that these persons did indeed die”. 16.  The court also decided to request the prosecutor to open an investigation into the disappearance of the three persons as there was evidence in the file indicating that Mehmet Emin Yurdakul had exceeded his powers and detained these persons without authorisation. 17.  An appeal lodged by the applicants' lawyer against the Hakkari Assize Court's judgment was rejected by the Court of Cassation (Yargıtay) on 2 April 2001.