Öcalan v. Turkey [GC]

Information Note on the Court’s case-law 75

May 2005

Öcalan v. Turkey [GC] - 46221/99

Judgment 12.5.2005 [GC]

Article 3

Inhuman punishment

Imposition of death sentence following proceedings found to be unfair: violation

Conditions of transfer following arrest outside the respondent State, and subsequent detention: no violation

Article 2

Article 2-1

Death penalty

Death sentence imposed but not carried out and subsequent removal of risk of execution: violation, no violation

Article 5

Article 5-1

Lawful arrest or detention

Arrest by Turkish agents on a Turkish plane in the international zone of a Kenyan airport following the applicant’s interception by Kenyan officials: no violation

Article 6

Criminal proceedings

Article 6-1

Impartial tribunal

Military judge on the bench of a state security court during part of the trial: violation

Article 6-3-b

Adequate facilities

Adequate time

Restrictions on detainee’s access to criminal file, and late disclosure to lawyers, obliging them to respond hurriedly to a very extensive file: violation

Article 6-3-c

Defence through legal assistance

Denial of access to a lawyer for almost 7 days during custody, followed by restrictions on the number and length of consultations; lack of possibility for detainee to speak with lawyers outwith hearing of guards: violation

Facts: In October 1998 the applicant, a Turkish national and the former leader of the Workers’ Party of Kurdistan (“the PKK”), was expelled from Syria. After staying in various countries, he was put up at the Greek Ambassador’s residence in Nairobi, Kenya. On 15 February 1999 he was separated from the Greek Ambassador and taken by a Kenyan official to a Turkish-registered aircraft at the Nairobi Airport in which Turkish officials were waiting to arrest him. The Turkish courts had issued seven warrants for his arrest and a wanted notice had been circulated by Interpol. The applicant was transferred to Turkey and taken into custody in a prison on the island of İmralı on 16 February 1999, following which he was interrogated by members of the security forces. On 22 February 1999 the public prosecutor at the Ankara State Security Court questioned him. On 23 February 1999 he appeared before a judge of the State Security Court who ordered his detention pending trial. In an indictment submitted in April 1999 the public prosecutor accused the applicant of carrying on activities with a view to bringing about the secession of part of the national territory and of having formed and led an armed organisation to that end. He sought the death penalty pursuant to Article 125 of the Criminal Code. During the trial the Constitution was amended so as to exclude military members from the composition of the state security courts. A civilian judge was therefore appointed to replace the military judge on the panel which was hearing the applicant’s case. The applicant was found guilty of the offences as charged and was sentenced to death. On 25 November 1999 the Court of Cassation upheld that judgment.

Meanwhile, on 13 November 1999 the European Court decided to apply Rule 39 of the Rules of Court, requesting the Turkish Government to take all necessary steps to ensure that the death penalty was not carried out, so as to enable the Court to proceed effectively with the examination of the admissibility of the application. In September 2001 Delegates of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) visited the prison where the applicant was being held and made certain recommendations. Legislation introduced in August 2002 abolished the death penalty in peacetime and consequential amendments were made to the Criminal Code. In September 2002 the Turkish Government declared to the European Court that the applicant’s death sentence could no longer be executed. In October 2002 the Ankara State Security Court commuted his sentence to one of life imprisonment. A Chamber of the European Court (First Section) rendered judgment on 12 March 2003 (see CLR 51). In November 2003 Turkey ratified Protocol No. 6 to the Convention concerning the abolition of the death penalty.

Law: Article 5 § 4: As regards the special circumstances in which the applicant found himself while in police custody, the Grand Chamber saw no reason to disagree with the Chamber’s finding that the circumstances of the case made it impossible for him to have effective recourse to the remedy referred to by the Government, namely to challenge, under the Code of Criminal Procedure, the lawfulness of his detention before a district court judge or to challenge an order by the public prosecutor’s office that the applicant should remain in custody. The Grand Chamber further agreed that a claim for compensation under Law no. 466 could not constitute proceedings of the type required by Article 5 § 4.

Conclusions: Government’s preliminary objection in respect of the complaints under Article 5 § 1, 4 § 3 and 5 § 4 dismissed; violation of Article 5 § 4 (unanimously).

Article 5 § 1: The applicant had been arrested by members of the Turkish security forces inside a Turkish-registered aircraft in the international zone at Nairobi Airport. Directly after being handed over to the Turkish officials by the Kenyan officials he had come under effective Turkish authority and had therefore been brought within the “jurisdiction” of that State for the purposes of Article 1 of the Convention, even though in this instance Turkey had exercised its authority outside its territory. The applicant’s arrest and detention had been carried out in accordance with arrest warrants issued by the Turkish criminal courts with a view to bringing him before “the competent legal authority on reasonable suspicion” of having committed an offence. The arrest and detention had therefore been in accordance with Turkish domestic law. As for the applicant’s interception in Kenya immediately before he was handed over to Turkish officials, various aspects of the case led the Grand Chamber to accept the Government’s argument that at the material time the Kenyan authorities had decided either to hand the applicant over to the Turkish authorities or to facilitate such a handover. The applicant had not adduced evidence enabling concordant inferences to be drawn that Turkey had failed to respect Kenyan sovereignty or to comply with international law in the present case. Consequently, the applicant’s arrest in February 1999 and his detention had to be regarded as having been in accordance with “a procedure prescribed by law” for the purposes of Article 5 § 1.

Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).

Article 5 § 3: Like the Chamber, the Grand Chamber could not accept the Government’s argument that adverse weather conditions were largely responsible for the period of seven days it took for the applicant to be brought before a judge.

Conclusion: violation (unanimously).

Article 6 § 1 – composition of the State Security Court: The question whether a court is seen to be independent does not depend solely on its composition when it delivers its verdict. In order to comply with the requirements of Article 6 regarding independence, the court in question must be seen to be independent of the executive and the legislature at each of the three stages of the proceedings, namely the investigation, the trial and the verdict (those being the three stages in Turkish criminal proceedings according to the Government). Moreover, when a military judge has participated in one or more interlocutory decisions that continue to remain in effect in the criminal proceedings concerned, the accused has reasonable cause for concern about the validity of the entire proceedings, unless it is established that the procedure subsequently followed in the state security court sufficiently disposed of that concern. More specifically, where a military judge has participated in an interlocutory decision that forms an integral part of proceedings against a civilian the whole proceedings are deprived of the appearance of having been conducted by an independent and impartial court. In the applicant’s case a military judge had been present at two preliminary hearings and six hearings on the merits when interlocutory decisions were taken. None of the decisions had been renewed after the replacement of the military judge and all had been validated by the replacement judge. In those circumstances, the Grand Chamber could not accept that the replacement of the military judge before the end of the proceedings disposed of the applicant’s reasonably held concern about the trial court’s independence and impartiality.

Conclusion: violation (eleven votes to six).

Article 6 § 1 taken together with Article 6 § 3 (b) and 6 § 3 (c): The Grand Chamber agreed with the Chamber that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1, taken together with Article 6 § 3 (b) and (c) in that the applicant had been denied a fair trial: he had been denied access to a lawyer while in police custody; he had been unable to communicate with his lawyers out of the hearing of third parties; he had been unable to gain direct access to the case file until a very late stage in the proceedings; restrictions had been imposed on the number and length of his lawyers’ visits; and his lawyers had not been given proper access to the case file until late in the day. The overall effect of these difficulties had restricted the rights of the defence to such an extent that the principle of a fair trial, as set out in Article 6, had been contravened.

Conclusion: violation (unanimously).

Article 2, Article 14 taken together with Article 2, and Article 3 – implementation of the death penalty: The death penalty had been abolished in Turkey and the applicant’s sentence had been commuted to one of life imprisonment. Furthermore, on 12 November 2003 Turkey had ratified Protocol No. 6 concerning the abolition of the death penalty.

Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).

Article 3 read against the background of Article 2 – imposition of the death penalty following an unfair trial: The Grand Chamber endorsed the Chamber’s view that imposing a death sentence on a person after an unfair trial was to subject that person wrongfully to the fear that he would be executed. The fear and uncertainty as to the future generated by a sentence of death, in circumstances where there existed a real possibility that the sentence would be enforced, had to give rise to a significant degree of human anguish. Such anguish could not be dissociated from the unfairness of the proceedings underlining the sentence which, given that human life was at stake, became unlawful under the Convention. The risk that the death sentence imposed on the applicant would be executed had been a real one and had continued for more than three years, even though there had been a moratorium on the implementation of the death penalty in Turkey since 1984, the Turkish Government had complied with the Court’s interim measure pursuant to Rule 39 to stay the applicant’s execution and the applicant’s file had not been sent to Parliament for approval of the death sentence as was then required by the Turkish Constitution. Like the Chamber, the Grand Chamber had found that the applicant had not been tried by an independent and impartial tribunal and that there had been a breach of the rights of the defence under Article 6 § 1, taken together with Article 6 § 3 (b) and (c). The death penalty had thus been imposed on the applicant following an unfair procedure which could not be considered compatible with the strict standards of fairness required in cases involving a capital sentence. Moreover, he had had to suffer the consequences thereof for more than three years. The imposition of the death sentence following an unfair trial amounted to inhuman treatment.

Conclusion: violation (thirteen votes to four).

Article 3 – conditions of transfer and detention: With regard to the applicant’s transfer from Kenya to Turkey the Grand Chamber endorsed the Chamber’s finding that while he had been handcuffed, blindfolded, filmed by a video camera and presented to the press wearing a blindfold, it had not been established “beyond all reasonable doubt” that his arrest and the conditions in which he had been transferred had exceeded the usual degree of humiliation that was inherent in every arrest and detention, or that it had attained the minimum level of severity required for Article 3 to apply. – As for the conditions of the applicant’s ongoing detention on the island of İmralı, the Grand Chamber, while concurring with the CPT’s recommendations that the long‑term effects of his relative social isolation should be attenuated by giving him access to the same facilities as other high security prisoners in Turkey (such as television and telephone contact with his family), agreed with the Chamber that the general conditions in which he was being detained had not thus far reached the minimum level of severity required to constitute inhuman or degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 3.

Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).

Article 34 in fine: As regards the applicant’s inability to communicate with his lawyers in Amsterdam following his arrest, the Grand Chamber noted that a group of representatives composed of lawyers chosen by the applicant subsequently applied to the Court and put forward all his allegations concerning the period in which he had had no contact with his lawyers. Hence there was nothing to indicate that he had been hindered in the exercise of his right of individual application to any significant degree. The Government’s regrettable delay in replying to a request for information from the Chamber did not, in the special circumstances of the case, prevent the applicant from setting out his complaints about the proceedings against him. Accordingly, he had not been obstructed in the exercise of his right of individual application.

Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).

Article 41: The Grand Chamber unanimously agreed with the Chamber that the findings of a violation of Articles 3, 5 and 6 constituted sufficient just satisfaction for any damage sustained by the applicant. It awarded 120,000 euros to cover part of the costs incurred in the proceedings before the Court.

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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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