SECOND SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 9542/06
by Kasım ÇAĞDAVUL and Others
against Turkey

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 27 September 2011 as a Committee composed of:

David Thór Björgvinsson, President,
Giorgio Malinverni,
Guido Raimondi, judges,

and Françoise Elens Passos, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 6 March 2006,

Having regard to the formal declarations accepting a friendly settlement of the case,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

PROCEDURE

The applicants, whose names appear in the appendix, are Turkish nationals and live in Kars. They were represented before the Court by lawyers at the legal department of the Kurdish Human Rights Project (“KHRP”) in London and by Mr Kahraman Özçağın, a lawyer practicing in Kars. The Turkish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.

On 14 August 1993 the applicants left their villages to take part in a demonstration. The march in question was organised by the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), an illegal armed organisation, which allegedly forced the villagers to participate in the march.

When the crowd arrived at Digor, it was stopped by the security forces. The crowd was then surrounded by officers from the Special Operations Department of the Kars Security Directorate. Members of the special teams were also positioned on the hills around the road where the crowd had gathered.

The special teams located on the hills allegedly opened fire abruptly on the demonstrators. As a result, officially, seventeen persons died and sixty‑three were seriously wounded. Zeynep Çağdavul, sister of Kasım Çağdavul; Nurettin Orun, husband of Besrayi Orun and father of Yavuz Orun; Nejla Geçener, daughter of Güvercin Geçener and sister of Turgut Geçener; Tütiye Talan, mother of Mehmet Zeki Talan; Selvi Çağdavul, daughter of Tahir Mirze Çağdavul and Hacer Çağdavul; Gülcan Çağdavul, sister of Makbule Çağdavul; Kiyasettin Çalişci, husband of Hazal Çalişci, Hasan Çağdavul, husband of Kiney Çağdavul, Yeter Kerenciler, daughter of Hüseyin Kerenciler; and Erdan Buğan, son of Nuriye Buğan and Sürmeli Buğan were among those who died. Feyfur Çeberli, Hadi Kesik and Yıldız Dalğa’s husband, Zikri Dalğa, were wounded by gunshots.

When the shooting stopped, the security forces allegedly prevented the wounded from receiving medical treatment. Some of the injured were ill‑treated, for example by being dragged along by Panzer-type armoured vehicles.

On 23 August 1993 Selim Sadak, Ali Yiğit, Mahmut Alınak and Sırrı Sakık, members of the Turkish National Assembly and of the Democracy Party (DEP) at the material time, visited Digor. They subsequently filed a petition with the Digor public prosecutor’s office and requested the latter to open an investigation into the incidents.

On 22 April 1996 the Kars public prosecutor filed a bill of indictment with the Kars Assize Court against eight police officers from the Special Operations Department of the Kars Security Directorate on duty at the time of the demonstration. The charges were brought under Articles 448, 450 § 5, 463, 62, 31 and 33 of the Turkish Criminal Code. The defendants were charged with attempted manslaughter and manslaughter.

On various dates in the course of the trial the applicants joined the proceedings as civil parties.

On 21 February 2006 the Kars Assize Court, taking into account the evidence in the case file, including guns collected from the scene and witness testimony, found it established that members of the PKK had been present in the crowd and that they had fired at the police officers, who had responded by firing back in order to protect themselves. It accordingly acquitted the eight police offices of all the charges against them on the ground that they had acted in self-defence.

On 7 April 2009 the Court of Cassation quashed the judgment of the first-instance court on procedural grounds.

The case is still pending before the Kars Assize Court.

COMPLAINTS

The first, second, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth applicants complained under Article 2 of the Convention about the killing of their relatives. The first, third, fourth, fifth, seventh and eleventh applicants further claimed a violation of Article 2 of the Convention in tha