EMİN (MUSTAFA) AND OTHERS v. CYPRUS
Inadmissible
George Nicolaou;Ineta Ziemele;Krzysztof Wojtyczek;Ledi Bianku;Nona Tsotsoria;Päivi Hirvelä
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”. 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 case may be summarised as follows. The applicants are relatives of a Turkish-Cypriot man who went missing from hospital in Nicosia on 23 December 1963 at a time of mounting tension and violence in which Turkish Cypriots or Turkish-Cypriot villages were targeted. 5. Their relative was listed as a missing person, the information being given to the Cypriot authorities, the Red Cross and the United Nations. 6. The remains of the missing man were found in 2007 during exhumations carried out by the United Nations Committee for Missing Persons (“CMP”). The remains were identified in 2008. 7. By letter dated 11 October 2010, the Attorney-General instructed the police to carry out an investigation into the circumstances of the death of the applicants’ relative. By report dated 21 June 2013, the Attorney-General informed the applicants that police had submitted in the investigation file in September 2012. He had returned it, indicating further steps to be taken. In April 2013, the file had been re-submitted. On the basis of the information obtained and analysis of the file, the Attorney-General had come to the conclusion that the investigation had reached a point where it could not proceed further as all leads had been pursued exhaustively, the evidence concerning the core facts was scanty and did not lead to persons who could be considered as possible suspects. He listed the investigative steps taken, which included The police searched for any evidence in the hospital files to identify anyone who might have been in the same ward or who might have taken the deceased away; they found the name of one person admitted at the same time but this person had since died; The police made enquiries at the state prison where the deceased had been a warder to find information about the persons who might have accompanied the deceased to the hospital or might have come to take him away; only one name H.F. was identified as a person who had come to the hospital to take the deceased away; enquiries revealed that H.F had moved to Greece and had since died; of 17 persons who had been working at the prison at the time, they identified that 11 were still; The police interviewed all 11 ex-prison staff. Six said that they had known the deceased; none admitted having any information about how he had gone missing from the hospital, save for a rumour that his family had gone to pick him up. The police also interviewed police officers who were in service at the relevant time but no relevant information was forthcoming about the deceased. 8. The Attorney-General concluded that the passage of time since events had rendered unfeasible the questioning of the persons who might have been able to shed light on the investigation. As there were no remaining leads, the investigation could not be pursued further. However, if any new evidence or information did come to light in the course of other ongoing investigations into events in 1963-1964, he had instructed the police to bring it to his attention for evaluation and further directions. He would keep the applicants updated in such event.