SECOND SECTION

PARTIAL DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 54614/07
by Mehmet Mansur DEMİR
against Turkey

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 2 march 2010 as a Chamber composed of:

Françoise Tulkens, President,
Ireneu Cabral Barreto,
Vladimiro Zagrebelsky,
Danutė Jočienė,
Dragoljub Popović,
Nona Tsotsoria,
Işıl Karakaş, judges,
and Sally Dollé, Section Registrar,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Mehmet Mansur Demir, is a Turkish national who was born in 1975. He is currently serving a prison sentence in Diyarbakır.

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

On 14 December 2000 the applicant was arrested on suspicion of membership of the Hizbullah, an illegal organisation. Without submitting any medical report or evidence, the applicant alleged that he had been ill-treated in police custody where he had received electric shocks for three days and was forced to make self-incriminating statements.

On 19 December 2000 the applicant was remanded in pre-trial detention.

On 31 March 2005 the Diyarbakır Assize Court convicted the applicant under Article 146 § 1 of the former Criminal Code for attempting to undermine the constitutional order.

On 1 June 2005 the New Criminal Code entered into force.

On 11 December 2006 the Court of Cassation set aside the judgment on the ground that the first-instance court should have re-assessed the judgment in accordance with the provisions of the new Criminal Code.

Following the remittal of the case to the first-instance court, it was reconsidered. Some of the allegations against the applicant were rejected due to the absence of factual evidence supporting his statements taken in police custody.

On 9 November 2007, having regard to the range of evidence, namely the autopsy, ballistic and other expert reports as well as the witnesses' testimonies and the statements of the accused, the first-instance court once more convicted the applicant under 146 § 1 of the former Criminal Code and sentenced him to life imprisonment, with the possibility of parole.

On 19 January 2009 the Court of Cassation upheld the judgment.

COMPLAINTS

The applicant complained under Article 3 of the Convention that he had been tortured while in police custody and forced to sign self-incriminating statements.

Without relying on any Article of the Convention, the applicant contended that his pre-trial detention had been excessively long and that there was no remedy in domestic law by which he could challenge the lawfulness of his incarceration.

The applicant alleged under Articles 6 § 1 and 13 of the Convention that the criminal proceed