GENCER AND OTHERS v. CYPRUS
Inadmissible
George Nicolaou;Ineta Ziemele;Krzysztof Wojtyczek;Nona Tsotsoria;Päivi Hirvelä;Paul Mahoney
1. A list of the applicants is set out in the appendix. 2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 3. The applicants stated that they are nationals of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” and in application no. 28914/14 also nationals of the United Kingdom. Their names, dates of birth and places of residence are set out in the Annex. They are represented before the Court by Ms Y. Renda, a lawyer practising in Nicosia. 4. The facts of the cases may be summarised as follows. The applicants are relatives of Turkish-Cypriots who went missing in either December 1963 or May 1964 during incidents of mounting tension and violence in which Turkish Cypriots or Turkish-Cypriot villages were targeted. 5. These persons were listed as missing persons, the information being given to the Cypriot authorities, the Red Cross and the United Nations. 6. The remains of the missing men have been found during exhumations carried out by the United Nations Committee for Missing Persons (“CMP”) in 2010. 7. The Government have submitted that investigations had been commenced in both cases. The police had taken statements from relatives of the victims, taken steps to pursue investigation in the various localities and to trace police officers stationed there at the relevant time, to locate witnesses and to seek information from local inhabitants as to the transportation, murder and burial of the victims. In the first application, where investigation is linked with others already launched concerning victims of the same incident, statements have been obtained from about 65 individuals, while in the second application police are exploring material obtained from persons in the leadership of the “Akritas” organisation and tracing as far as possible persons who might have been involved or have information about such involvement. 8. The applicants submitted that it is not apparent that any progress had been made in the investigations and that they had not been given any copies of reports, witness statements or information gathered from various sources.