CASE OF CEVAT SOYSAL v. TURKEY
Violation of Article 6 - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Criminal proceedings;Article 6-1 - Fair hearing;Adversarial trial;Equality of arms);Violation of Article 6+6-3-d - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Criminal proceedings;Article 6-1 - Fair hearing) (Article 6 - Right to a fair trial;Article 6-3-d - Examination of witnesses)
András Sajó;Egidijus Kūris;Guido Raimondi;Jon Fridrik Kjølbro;Nebojša Vučinić;Robert Spano
4. The applicant was born in 1962 and lives in Germany. 5. On 7 July 1999 the Ankara Magistrates’ Court ordered the applicant’s arrest in absentia on suspicion of membership of the PKK, an illegal organisation. 6. On 13 July 1999 the applicant was captured in Chisinau, Moldova, and taken to Turkey on the same day. He was interrogated by MIT (the National Intelligence Organisation of Turkey) agents until 21 July 1999. 7. In July 1999, shortly after being taken to Turkey, the applicant was described by a number of media outlets as the “second man of the PKK”, the “European representative of the PKK”, “a terrorist” and “a traitor to the country”. According to an article published in Turkish Daily News of 22 July 1999, the National Intelligence Agency of Turkey (MIT) issued a press statement in which it stated that the applicant had worked to increase terrorist activities and incited the PKK supporters in Turkey to use violence. 8. On 21 July 1999 the applicant was handed over to the Ankara Security Directorate for further questioning. At the time of transfer, a hand-written delivery report was produced. It is not known who drafted the report. 9. On 23 July 1999 the applicant was brought first before the public prosecutor at the Ankara State Security Court and subsequently before a judge at the Ankara State Security Court, who ordered that the applicant be remanded in custody. 10. On 9 August 1999 the public prosecutor at the Ankara State Security Court filed a bill of indictment against the applicant and two other persons. The applicant was charged with being a leading member of the PKK, whose aim was to bring about the secession of part of the national territory. The charges against the applicant were brought under Article 125 of the former Criminal Code. 11. The public prosecutor accused the applicant of being one of the leaders of the PKK in Europe and of having been involved in the training of PKK members in Romania. According to the indictment, the applicant had been in contact with Mr Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the PKK, and had provided him with information about the persons who had been trained. The public prosecutor further noted that when he had questioned Mr Öcalan on 22 February 1999, the latter had maintained that he had given instructions to the applicant regarding that training. Moreover, the leader of the PKK had confirmed the veracity of that statement during his trial on 1 June 1999. 12. The public prosecutor at the Ankara State Security Court further claimed that during telephone conversations with a number of people in Turkey, the applicant had issued instructions to perpetrate acts of violence following the arrest of Mr Öcalan. In the indictment, the public prosecutor quoted the transcripts of eight of the applicant’s alleged telephone conversations dated 4, 18 and 22 February 1999 and 1, 5, 7, 15 and 19 March 1999. The public prosecutor also noted that the applicant had referred to the State of Turkey as “the enemy” in his conversations. Furthermore, according to the indictment, a number of PKK members – A.G., K.O., Ş.Ö., H.K., N.Y., M.Ş. and A.Y. – had maintained in their statements that the applicant had been involved in the activities mentioned in the indictment. As a result, the public prosecutor alleged that the applicant had issued instructions for hundreds of bombings, fires, hunger strikes, suicide attacks and massacres, including the killing of thirteen people as a result of an attack on Mavi Çarşı, a shopping centre, on 13 March 1999 and that he had trained members of the PKK in his capacity as one of the leaders of the organisation. 13. On 16 September 1999 the Ankara State Security Court held the first hearing on the merits of the case. At the end of the hearing, the court decided to enquire whether the persons who had made statements regarding the accused had been prosecuted and, if so, to request copies of all the statements given during the criminal proceedings against them. 14. During the second hearing on 14 October 1999 the applicant’s lawyer asked the court, inter alia, to remove the transcripts of the applicant’s alleged telephone conversations from the case file. The public prosecutor demanded that the request be refused, and the court duly dismissed it. 15. On an unspecified date the police sent the prosecution a document containing the statement of an alleged member of the PKK, C.P., taken by the police. During the hearing of 11 November 1999 the statement was read out in court. According to the document, C.P. had testified against the applicant. The applicant denied the veracity of the statement, claiming that he did not know C.P. At the end of the hearing, the court decided to enquire whether criminal proceedings had been instituted against C.P. and, if so, to request all of his statements given during those criminal proceedings. 16. During the fourth hearing in the case, held on 9 December 1999, the applicant’s lawyer maintained that only the indictments concerning A.G., K.O., Ş.Ö., H.K., N.Y., M.Ş., A.Y. and C.P. had been included in the file and asked the court to include all the statements they had given during the criminal proceedings against them. The court postponed its decision on the request of the applicant’s lawyer to a forthcoming hearing. 17. On 18 January 2000, at the end of the fifth hearing, the Ankara State Security Court decided to request a copy of the case file in the proceedings against C.P. 18. The Ankara State Security Court repeated its request seven times between 8 February and 27 June 2000, as it had not received the aforementioned case file. During the same period the court also asked a number of other courts to send a copy of the statements made by A.G., K.O., Ş.Ö., H.K., N.Y., M.Ş. and A.Y. during the criminal proceedings against them. 19. At the eleventh hearing in the case, on 27 June 2000, the applicant’s lawyer asked the Ankara State Security Court to summon everyone who had allegedly made statements against the applicant to testify before the court. The court did not respond to his request. 20. Six more hearings were held between 27 June and 21 November 2000. During that period the Ankara State Security Court received the documents that it had requested from the other courts. In the course of the hearings, the applicant’s lawyer maintained before the court that the statements of the persons who had allegedly testified against the applicant did not contain any reference to the applicant. At the end of the hearing on 21 November 2000, the court instructed the public prosecutor to prepare his observations on the merits of the case. 21. On 12 December 2000 the public prosecutor’s observations on the merits of the case were read out before the court. 22. At the hearing of 21 December 2000, the applicant’s lawyer filed a petition with the first-instance court in response to the public prosecutor’s observations. In his petition, the applicant’s lawyer contended that the public prosecutor’s observations had referred to recordings of telephone conversations which were in the case file. He submitted that he had already asked the court to remove the transcripts of the recordings from the case file as they could not be used as evidence. He further noted that the applicant had denied that he was the person whose conversations had been recorded. The lawyer requested the court to order a comparative voice analysis and to enquire whether the phone tapping had been conducted in accordance with the legal procedure and on the basis of a court order. He also asked the court to find out the identities of the persons with whom the applicant had allegedly spoken (designated as “X” in the documents in the case file) and to take statements from them about those conversations. 23. On the same day the Ankara State Security Court accepted the request for a comparative voice analysis and dismissed the remaining requests without providing any reasons. 24. At the next hearing, on 6 February 2001, the applicant’s lawyer complained that two police officers had been assigned to conduct the voice analysis. He argued that police officers could not be impartial given the involvement of the police in the case. He therefore asked the court to appoint impartial experts. The court allowed his request and asked TRT (Radio and Television Corporation of Turkey), the national public broadcaster, to assign impartial experts to conduct the analysis and to prepare a report. 25. In April 2001 TRT informed the first-instance court that no appropriate expert could be found. Following receipt of that information, the applicant’s lawyer filed a petition with the first-instance court on 26 April 2011 repeating his requests contained in the petition of 21 December 2000. In his petition, the applicant’s lawyer also requested that a copy of the audiotapes be provided to him and his client. 26. At the hearing of 26 April 2001 the Ankara State Security Court decided to ask the criminal departments of the gendarmerie and the police to assign appropriate experts for the voice analysis. The court dismissed the applicant’s requests in the petition of the same date, holding that it had already ruled on them. 27. On 22 May 2001 the applicant’s lawyer filed a further petition with the court repeating the requests contained in his petitions of 21 December 2000 and 26 April 2001. He further maintained that any experts assigned in the case should be impartial. At the hearing held on the same date, the first-instance court once again dismissed the requests of the applicant’s lawyer. The court noted that the objection to the experts was groundless and that it had already dismissed the other requests. 28. On 29 May 2001 the applicant’s lawyer filed a petition with the court objecting to the court dismissing his requests. No decision was taken in respect of this petition. 29. On 19 June 2001 the applicant’s lawyer filed a further petition repeating his previous requests. At the hearing held on the same day, the first-instance court dismissed those requests without providing any reason. The court also decided to deliver the audiotapes to the designated expert, Mr L.B., a police officer from the criminal laboratory at the General Security Directorate. 30. On 3 July 2001 the expert submitted the transcripts of the recordings of the telephone conversations to the first-instance court. 31. On 10 July 2001 the applicant’s lawyer made written submissions to the court in which he maintained his objections to the expert’s work. He further contended that the defence did not know whether all the conversations had been transcribed, since the court had refused to deliver a copy of the audiotapes to the applicant and his lawyer. The lawyer claimed that the court’s refusal to do so was in violation of Article 6 of the Convention. In his petition, the applicant’s lawyer once again asked the court to conduct an inquiry into the legal procedure concerning the phone tapping, to give a copy of the recordings to the defence, to designate an independent and impartial expert to conduct a comparative voice analysis, and to find out the identities of the persons with whom the applicant had allegedly spoken. Lastly, he asked the court to request a copy of the case file of the criminal proceedings concerning the bombing of Mavi Çarşı. 32. On 10 July 2001, at the twenty-fourth hearing in the case, the first-instance court asked the applicant’s lawyer whether his client would provide a vocal sample for the voice identification analysis. The applicant’s lawyer replied that he and his client would inform the court of their position on that point once the court had responded to their requests contained in his petition submitted on that day. At the end of the hearing, the court dismissed the requests of the applicant’s lawyer, holding that those requests had already been refused. It designated a judge and two police officers, Mr L.B. and Mr C.Y., as experts to conduct the comparative voice analysis on the same day and invited the applicant to participate in the voice identification process if he so wished. 33. On the same date as the voice identification process started in the presence of the applicant, the applicant’s lawyer maintained that his client would not provide a voice sample until the discrepancies between the transcripts prepared by the public prosecutor’s office and those prepared by Mr L.B. had been resolved. He further contended that as Mr L.B. had already been involved in the preparation of the transcripts, another expert should have been designated. The public prosecutor submitted, in reply, that there was no reason to believe that officers from the criminal laboratory at the General Security Directorate were partial and that the applicant’s behaviour had been unlawful. The judge decided to end the examination in view of the applicant’s unwillingness to participate. 34. In a petition dated 23 July 2001, the applicant’s lawyer asked the first-instance court to accept the withdrawal of their request for a comparative voice analysis. The lawyer contended that the applicant had not made those telephone conversations and that it was the defence who had asked for that examination in the first place. However, in view of the court’s refusal of their other requests, he believed that it was not possible to have a fair trial in the applicant’s case. 35. At the end of the hearing held on 21 August 2001 the Ankara State Security Court decided to consider the applicant’s request contained in the petition dated 23 July 2001 at the same time as it considered the case on the merits. On the same day the court decided to request a copy of the case file of proceedings before the Istanbul State Security Court following a request by the representative of one of the applicant’s co-accused. 36. The first-instance court adjourned the hearings four times between 21 August and 30 October 2001, as the Istanbul State Security Court had not sent the documents requested. 37. At the twenty-eighth hearing held on 30 October 2001, following receipt of the aforementioned documents, the first-instance court asked the public prosecutor to submit his observations on the merits of the case. 38. At the next hearing on 27 November 2001 the public prosecutor asked the court to take his observations of 12 December 2000 into consideration. 39. In a petition dated 27 December 2001 filed with the first-instance court, the applicant’s lawyer maintained that the refusal of his requests that the court hear the persons who had allegedly made statements against the applicant and those who had allegedly had telephone conversations with him, and of his requests for a copy of the recordings of the telephone conversations and regarding the designation of the experts, had been in breach of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3(d) of the Convention. He further contended that the statements that State officials had made to the press referring to the applicant as a “terrorist” had been in violation of Article 6 § 2 of the Convention. No decision was taken in respect of that petition. 40. During the thirty-first and thirty-second hearings held on 24 January and 5 February 2002 the applicant and his co-accused responded to the public prosecutor’s observations on the merits of the case. 41. On 5 March 2002 the Ankara State Security Court decided to ask the Diyarbakır courts for another judgment rendered by the Diyarbakır Military Court in the 1980’s, convicting the applicant of membership of an illegal organisation. Between 5 March and 23 May 2002 the court adjourned three hearings awaiting a copy of the aforementioned judgment. 42. At the thirty-sixth hearing on 23 May 2002 the court received the judgment that it had requested on 5 March 2002 and decided to adjourn the trial pending examination of the case file. 43. On 30 May 2002 the first-instance court asked the applicant to make additional defence submissions given that he might be convicted of membership of an illegal organisation under Article 168 of the former Criminal Code, instead of Article 125 of the same Code. 44. On 20 June 2002 the applicant’s lawyer filed a petition with the court, requesting that the latter take into account their previous submissions, in the context of the application of Article 168 of the former Criminal Code. The applicant’s lawyer also repeated his previous requests. 45. At the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth hearings held on 11 and 20 June 2002, the first-instance court decided to adjourn the trial as the composition of the court had changed and there was a new president. 46. On 25 June 2002 the Ankara State Security Court rendered its judgment in the case. The applicant was convicted of membership of the PKK under Article 168 § 1 of the former Criminal Code and sentenced to eighteen years and nine months’ imprisonment. 47. In its judgment, the first-instance court cited the following evidence contained in the case file: the statements that A.G., K.O., Ş.Ö., H.K., N.Y., M.Ş., A.Y., C.P. and V.T. had made to the police within the context of the proceedings against them; the indictments in the cases against the aforementioned persons; the statements made by Abdullah Öcalan to the police, the public prosecutor and during his own trial; a document prepared by the anti-terrorism branch of the General Security Directorate regarding the acts of terrorism that had occurred between 1 January and 4 August 1999; and the transcripts, prepared by experts, of the telephone conversations between the applicant and a number of persons designated as “X”. 48. The first-instance court noted that A.G., K.O., Ş.Ö., H.K., N.Y., M.Ş., A.Y., C.P. and V.T. had asserted in their statements that the applicant was a member of the PKK and the leader of the organisation in Europe. As to the content of the transcripts, the court noted that it documented that the applicant had given instructions and orders on the carrying out of the acts of violence that had occurred following the arrest of Mr Öcalan. 49. In the light of the aforementioned evidence, the Ankara State Security Court found it established that the applicant was a member of the PKK and the leader of the organisation in Europe. Its judgment stated that he had been involved in the training of PKK members in Romania and had been in contact with Mr Öcalan. In this connection, the court quoted Mr Öcalan’s statements to the public prosecutor after his arrest, in which he claimed that the applicant had trained PKK members in Romania. 50. The court further quoted the transcripts of eight telephone conversations and concluded that in the course of those conversations the applicant had issued instructions for the carrying out of acts of terrorism in Turkey. It noted, however, that the applicant had not been directly involved in those acts. The court also noted that the applicant’s instructions had been of a general nature. As a result, according to the court, a direct link between the acts of terrorism, in particular the attack on Mavi Çarşı on 13 March 1999, and the applicant’s instructions could not be established. The Ankara State Security Court therefore did not convict the applicant under Article 125 of the former Criminal Code. Nevertheless, noting that the PKK had given the applicant the specific task of inciting violent acts in Turkey after the arrest of Mr Öcalan, the court convicted the applicant of membership of the PKK under Article 168 of the former Criminal Code. 51. Both the prosecution and the applicant appealed against the decision. 52. In his petitions dated 18 October and 19 November 2002, the applicant’s lawyer objected to the court’s having cited as evidence the statements of Mr Öcalan, A.G., K.O., Ş.Ö., H.K., N.Y., M.Ş., A.Y., C.P. and V.T. and the transcripts of the applicant’s alleged telephone conversations. He submitted in particular that all those persons had denied the veracity of the statements taken from them by the police and that M.Ş., A.Y. and Ş.Ö. had been acquitted of the charges brought against them. Moreover, the investigation against K.O. had been concluded with a decision not to prosecute. The applicant’s lawyer noted that the firstinstance court had not cited the accusations against the applicant contained in their statements in the reasoning of its judgment, which demonstrated that there had been no reason to convict his client. He complained, inter alia, that the first-instance court had failed to investigate whether a court order had been issued prior to the recording of the telephone conversations used as evidence in the trial. The court had also failed to provide the defence with a copy of the audiotapes and to hear those individuals designated as “X” in the transcripts of the telephone conversations. The applicant’s lawyer submitted that those deficiencies in the proceedings constituted a violation of Article 6 of the Convention. 53. The Chief Public Prosecutor at the Court of Cassation submitted his opinion on the merits of both parties’ appeals. In his written opinion (tebliğname) to the 9th Chamber of the Court of Cassation for Criminal Law Matters, the Chief Public Prosecutor advised that the appeals be rejected and that the first-instance judgment be upheld, as it was in compliance with procedural rules and law. That opinion was not submitted to the applicant, despite the fact that in his petition of 19 November 2002 he had asked to be notified. According to the applicant’s submissions, his lawyer was not aware of the written opinion until it was read out during the hearing before the Court of Cassation. 54. On 12 December 2002 the Court of Cassation upheld the judgment of the Ankara State Security Court. The Chief Public Prosecutor at the Court of Cassation applied for an exceptional appeal procedure before the Joint Criminal Chambers of the Court of Cassation, requesting that the applicant be sentenced under Article 125 of the former Criminal Code. His request was dismissed. 55. On 30 November 2008 the applicant was released from prison on probation and returned to Germany, where his family were living.