Communicated on 1 December 2016
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 55036/16
Metin AKISKALI against Russia
lodged on 23 September 2016
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Metin Akıskalı, is a Turkish national, who was born in 1963 and lives in Taganrog. He is represented before the Court by Mr A. Kiryanov, a lawyer practising in Taganrog.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant has been living in Russia since 2000. He is married with children and runs a timber trading business employing some 100 persons. He occasionally travels to Turkey for meeting his family and for Muslim holidays.
At the material time the applicant had a Turkish passport issued on 22 January 2015 by the Consulate General of Turkey in Novorossiysk, and a Russian residence permit valid until 17 March 2020. He had a registered place of residence in Taganrog, he was married and had an adult son.
On 31 August 2016 the applicant received a visit in his office from several uniformed officers, including Mr K., who introduced himself as an operative of the Federal Security Service. K. told the applicant that his residence permit was invalid and took him to the Taganrog office of the Passports and Visas Service allegedly for the purpose of “checking the legality of his presence in Russia”.
Once in the office, K. told the applicant that he should leave Russia. The applicant refused, replying that his presence in Russia was lawful and that he never committed any offences. He mentioned that on 10 September 2016 he would go to Turkey to celebrate Kurban Bayramı and showed his air ticket. At the end of the discussion, K. left the office, taking the applicant’s Turkish passport and residence permit with him, but brought them back ten minutes later.
The applicant recorded a part of his interaction with K. on the camera of his mobile phone.
On 10 September 2016, when taking his flight to Turkey from the Rostov-on-Don airport, the applicant was arrested at the border control. He was charged with attempting to leave Russia while using invalid travel documents because it was discovered that page 45-46 was missing from his Turkish passport.
On the same day the Pervomayskiy District Court in Rostov-on-Don found the applicant guilty of an offence under Article 18.4 § 2 of the Code of Administrative Offences (“Breach of the procedure for crossing the Russian State border”) on the basis of the reports from the Border Service and sentenced him to a fine of 500 Russian roubles and administrative removal from Russia. The District Court ordered that he be detained pending removal in the Don centre for detention of foreign nationals.
In his grounds of appeal, counsel for the applicant submitted that the District Court did not have regard to the lengthy and lawful character of the applicant’s residence in Russia, to the established case-law of Russian courts which order administrative removal only for a second offence, or to the applicant’s submission that it made no sense for him to remove an empty page from his passport. He enclosed a notarised copy of the applicant’s passport showing a full set of pages.
In his additional grounds of appeal, the applicant related his encounter with K., alleged that he had removed the page from his passport and enclosed a video recording of their discussion.
On 20 September 2016 the Rostov Regional Court upheld the judgment in a summary fashion, without examining any of the grounds of appeal or the evidence produced by the applicant.
The applicant has remained in detention. On 21 September 2016 K. visited him in the detention centre and allegedly asked him to withdraw his application to this Court.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 5 § 1 (f) of the Convention that his placement in custody was arbitrary and in bad faith.
The applicant complains about a hindrance to his right of individual petition under Article 34 of the Convention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was the applicant’s detention compatible with Article 5 § 1 (f) of the Convention? In particular, was it lawful in the sense of being free from arbitrariness and compatible with the requirement that it should be carried out in good faith and be closely connected to the grounds of detention invoked by the Government (see Saadi v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 13229/03, § 74, ECHR 2008; Azimov v. Russia, no. 67474/11, § 161, 18 April 2013; and Rustamov v. Russia, no. 11209/10, 3 July 2012, with further references)? Did the domestic courts verify the applicant’s version of events, examined the operative K. and the video recording made by the applicant? Did they address the applicant’s grounds of appeal?
2. Did K. or any other officials exercise pressure on the applicant to withdraw or to modify his application to the Court, in breach of Article 34 of the Convention? What was the purpose of K.’s visit to the detention centre and meeting with the applicant?
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