SECOND SECTION
Application no. 28528/11
Mehmet SERİN
against Turkey
lodged on 2 September 2010
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Mehmet Serin, is a Turkish national, who was born in 1955 and lives in İzmir. He is represented before the Court by Mr S. Çetinkaya, a lawyer practising in İzmir.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 12 October 2002 the applicant was taken under custody by police officers of İzmir-Kemeraltı district due to an argument he had had with his next door neighbour.
He alleges that the police officers beat him and they also insulted his wife and his daughter, and threatened them with death. The applicant was taken to hospital for his serious injuries.
The medical report of the İzmir branch of the Forensic Medicine Institute issued on 16 October 2002 indicates a multitude of bruises on his right eyebrow, on his back, on the hair-covered part of the skull, and stitches right below his abdomen and a scratch on his left ear.
On an unspecified date the applicant, his wife and his daughter filed a criminal complaint against the police officers.
On 2 April 2003 the Public Prosecutor submitted the indictment to the İzmir Criminal Court of First Instance and accused the police officers T.E.K., H.T., T.Ş., N.K., C.Ö., A.G., N.E. and L.K. of ill-treatment of individuals and abuse of official duties.
On 10 October 2007 the İzmir 17th Criminal Court of General Jurisdiction acquitted two of the accused officers, N.E. and L.K., and sentenced the others to up to nine months of imprisonment. However, regard being had to the absence of any previous criminal record of the accused police officers and to their status as public officials, the Criminal Court suspended the sentences of all of them.
That decision was appealed against and the Court of Cassation quashed the decision on the ground that the applicability of the suspension of the pronouncement of the judgment (hükmün açıklanmasının geri bırakılması), as stipulated by Article 231 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Law no. 5271), had not been assessed by the first instance court.
On 3 February 2010 the Criminal Court abided by the decision of the Court of Cassation and examined the applicability of the suspension of the pronouncement of the judgment, but found it inapplicable in the case and rendered the same decision.
On 8 April 2011 the Court of Cassation discontinued the case due to statutory limitation.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 3 of the Convention that he was ill-treated during his detention in police custody. He maintains that the national authorities failed to conduct an investigation into his allegations of ill-treatment.
He further alleges under Articles 6 § 1 and 13 that the length of the criminal proceedings against him took eight years before two instances.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was the applicant subjected to ill-treatment in breach of Article 3 of the Convention?
2. Did the authorities carry out an effective official investigation into the applicant’s complaints of ill-treatment in compliance with the requirements of Article 3 of the Convention (see Assenov and Others v. Bulgaria, 28 October 1998, § 102, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998‑VIII; see also, mutatis mutandis, Batı and Others v. Turkey, nos. 33097/96 and 57834/00, §§ 133-149, ECHR-2004-IV (extracts))?
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