SECOND SECTION
Application no. 9879/10
Mehmet Mustafa EKİNCİ and Others
against Turkey
lodged on 8 January 2010
STATEMENT OF FACTS
THE FACTS
The applicants, Mr Mehmet Mustafa Ekinci, Mrs Yıldız Ekinci, Mr Veysel Ekinci, Ms Gülistan Ekinci, Mr Rezan Ekinci, Ms Nevin Altun, Mr Çekdar Ekinci, Ms Hülya Yeğin and Ms Nesime Tekin, are Turkish nationals who were born in 1948, 1950, 1986, 1989, 1989, 1974, 1994, 1979 and 1980 respectively. The first seven applicants live in Istanbul and the remaining two applicants live in the town of Bismil near Diyarbakır. Their application was lodged on 8 January 2010. They are represented before the Court by Mr Kadir Tunç, a lawyer practising in Istanbul.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants and as they appear from the documents submitted by them, may be summarised as follows.
Abdullah Ekinci was the son of the first two applicants and the brother of the remaining applicants. On 14 May 2008, at the age of twenty-four, he was arrested and his pre-trial detention in a prison was ordered the following day. For the first two weeks he was detained in Bayrampaşa Prison in Istanbul. Afterwards he was transferred to a prison in the nearby city of Tekirdağ.
On 9 July 2008 Abdullah tried to commit suicide in the prison and was taken by prison officials to the local hospital in Tekirdağ where he was examined by doctors. The doctors concluded that he was suffering from psychotic depression, and recommended his immediate transfer to Bakırköy Hospital for Psychiatry and Neurology in Istanbul. This recommendation was acted upon the following day.
A psychiatrist who examined Abdullah on 11 July 2008 concluded that he was a suicide risk. The doctor, who observed various injuries on Abdullah’s neck, arms and chest caused by a razor blade, specified in his report that Abdullah should be observed closely and that no objects, including his clothes, should be allowed in the room where he was to be kept. The doctor also recommended that Abdullah be seen by a doctor every day.
Abdullah was subsequently kept in a ward of the Bakırköy hospital reserved for detained persons. He was given medication and seen by doctors on a regular basis. According to the notes provided by the Bakırköy hospital, Abdullah told the doctors on a number of occasions that he did not want to live and that he considered that he would not emerge from the hospital “intact”. The doctors specified in their notes that the risk of suicide continued.
At 6.45 p.m. on 2 August 2008 Abdullah was discovered by two hospital officials hanging from the rails of the window of a communal bathroom in the hospital by his pyjama top. Hospital workers and doctors unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate him and then put him in an ambulance. He was pronounced dead on his arrival at Bakırköy State Hospital at 7.30 pm.
The same evening a prosecutor and crime scene officers examined the bathroom where Abdullah was found hanged. They noted that the pyjama top was still attached to the railings of one of the two windows in the bathroom which was above a bathtub. There was a plastic chair lying on its side and two slippers in the bathtub. A photographer took photographs of the scene. It was established that there were no CCTV cameras in the bathroom.
The prosecutor took statements from the two persons who had found the body and who worked at the hospital as security guards for detained inmates. They told the prosecutor that Abdullah had been staying in a room on his own and that his room had been under CCTV surveillance. They were aware that Abdullah was a suicide risk.
The two guards explained to the prosecutor that the door to Abdullah’s room was opened every day at 8.00 a.m. and then locked at 11.00 p.m. They had last seen Abdullah in the courtyard of the hospital between 6.00 p.m. and 6.30 p.m., talking to other patients. He had asked them for a cigarette, which they had given him. As the doors to the bathroom and the courtyard had to be locked by 6.45 p.m., one of the guards had started letting the patients in while the other one had gone to lock the bathroom door and had found Abdullah hanging. He had tried to lift him up and asked for help. Doctors and other personnel had then done their best to resuscitate him.
Abdullah’s body was transferred to the morgue at the Forensic Medicine Institute and his family was informed the same evening.
A post-mortem examination was carried out on 3 August 2008. The cause of death was established as hanging. No foreign substances were found in his blood or in the samples taken from his body.
On 5 August 2008 a health worker at the hospital was questioned by the prosecutor. He told the prosecutor that when Abdullah was locked in his room between 11.00 p.m. and 8.00 a.m. his clothes were taken away from him. However, as per the doctors’ authorisation, he was allowed out of his room between 8.00 a.m. and 11.00 p.m. On 2 August he had seen Abdullah in the hospital and in the courtyard. At exactly 6.30 p.m. he had been watching the news when Abdullah told him that he was very bored and asked when he would be released from the hospital. He had advised Abdullah to ask the doctors on Monday. Then Abdullah had asked for a cigarette and gone out to the courtyard. He had last seen Abdullah in the courtyard just after 6.30 p.m., smoking. At 6.45 p.m. he had heard the guards screaming in the bathroom and had gone in there to help resuscitate Abdullah.
On 25 August 2008 the applicants’ legal representative asked the prosecutor for copies of the documents from the investigation file.
On 26 September 2008 a disciplinary board decided that the two above-mentioned security guards working at the hospital had not breached any rules or regulations in their handling of the incident.
On 5 November 2008 the first and the second applicants, together with their legal representative, visited the prosecutor. They told the prosecutor that they had visited their son at the Bakırköy hospital. He had seemed distressed and had told them, without any explanation, that he would “not be allowed out of the hospital alive”. They told the prosecutor that they wanted those responsible for his death to be found and punished.
On 21 November and 2 December 2008 the applicants’ legal representative repeated his request for documents from the investigation file, together with copies of the photographs taken by crime scene officers. On 18 February 2009 the legal representative’s request for copies of the photographs was rejected by the prosecutor because they showed “the inside of a prison”.
In the meantime, on 19 December 2008 the prosecutor decided to close the investigation because he considered that Abdullah had committed suicide and that no one had had any involvement in his suicide.
The applicants lodged an objection against the prosecutor’s decision. They argued, inter alia, that it was obvious from the hospital records that Abdullah had been a suicide risk which required the hospital authorities to watch him around the clock. Nevertheless, the hospital authorities had failed to do that and had thus neglected their duties. The applicants also argued that special steps had to be taken in special cases in order to protect the right to life. To that end, the existence of the iron bars from which Abdullah had hanged himself and the lack of a CCTV camera in the bathroom were negligent shortcomings.
In their objection the applicants further complained about the authorities’ refusals to hand over the photographs and a number of investigation documents, including the hospital notes and the disciplinary investigation file. They submitted that by refusing to hand those over the authorities had behaved “as if they were hiding something”.
The applicants also referred to various domestic and international provisions related to the protection of the right to life, including Article 2 of the Convention.
On 3 September 2009 the applicants’ objection was rejected by the Istanbul Assize Court.
COMPLAINTS
The applicants complain that Abdullah Ekinci’s mental health problems started following his arrest but that the prison authorities in Tekirdağ failed to identify those problems and offer him support. They further complain that, despite the seriousness of his problems, the authorities at the Bakırköy hospital failed to take the necessary steps to protect Abdullah’s right to life within the meaning of Article 2 of the Convention.
The applicants submit that detaining Abdullah Ekinci – a remand prisoner – in a prison designed for convicted criminals amounted to ill-treatment within the meaning of Article 3 of the Convention.
Under Article 5 of the Convention the applicants complain that Abdullah Ekinci was not brought before a judge within a reasonable time and that despite his problems he was not released from prison pending trial.
Relying on Article 6 of the Convention the applicants complain of the authorities’ failure to give them copies of the documents and the photographs from the investigation file. They claim that that failure had a negative impact on their rights as plaintiffs.
Lastly, under Article 13 of the Convention the applicants complain that the authorities failed to carry out an effective investigation into the death of Abdullah Ekinci.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Were all steps taken by the national authorities to protect the right to life of the applicants’ relative, as required by Article 2 of the Convention?
Having regard to the procedural protection of the right to life (see paragraph 104 of Salman v. Turkey [GC], no. 21986/93, ECHR 2000-VII), was the investigation in the present case by the domestic authorities in breach of Article 2 of the Convention?
2. What are the applicable rules and regulations concerning the detention of persons identified as suicide risks? Did the prosecutors investigating the death examine whether those rules and regulations, as well as the recommendations made by various doctors who examined Abdullah Ekinci, were complied with in the present case?
The Government are requested to submit a copy of the investigation file, together with copies of the seventy photographs mentioned in the correspondence between various national authorities.
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