Published on 3 November 2025
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 30667/24
Yusuf ŞİRİN
against Türkiye
lodged on 8 October 2024
communicated on 13 October 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the alleged torture inflicted on the applicant and the ineffectiveness of the criminal investigation into his allegations.
On 12 April 2008 the applicant, a street vendor selling balloons, was intercepted by municipal police officers, who were tasked with preventing unlawful street vending. According to the Istanbul Anatolian Assize Court’s findings in the criminal proceedings, once the applicant resisted against the officers, an altercation occurred between him and the officers, following which the officers forced the applicant into a vehicle, took him to an unused depot belonging to the municipality, and then assaulted him for approximately thirty minutes. He was then taken to his home by the officers.
A medical report drawn up by the Forensic Medicine Institute found that the applicant was injured in a life-threatening manner and that the effects of those injuries could not be treated with simple medical care. The Institute further found that as a result of the municipal police officers’ acts, the applicant’s left kidney and spleen had to be removed.
Criminal proceedings were instituted against the three municipal police officers in 2008. Between 2008 and 2021, the case was examined several times by courts of first instance and the Court of Cassation, particularly with regard to the classification of the offence under the Turkish Penal Code and the applicability of the provisions on unjust provocation. Ultimately, on 30 December 2021, the Assize Court, in line with the decision of the Plenary Criminal Divisions of the Court of Cassation, convicted the defendants of intentional injury and sentenced them to five years, seven months and fifteen days’ imprisonment, applying the provisions on unjust provocation. The Court of Cassation upheld that judgment.
On 5 June 2024 the Constitutional Court found the applicant’s individual application, in which he had complained of a violation of the prohibition of torture, inadmissible for being manifestly ill-founded.
Relying on Article 3 of the Convention, the applicant complains that he was subjected to torture by the State authorities. Under the procedural aspect of that article, he further argues that the domestic courts’ classification of the acts in question as constituting the offence of intentional injury, instead of torture, reduced the length of the defendants’ sentences, and violated the State’s obligation to impose appropriate sanctions on those responsible of torture and ill-treatment, resulting in impunity.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Can the applicant still claim to be a victim of a violation of Article 3 of the Convention within the meaning of Article 34 thereof? In particular, did the Assize Court’s judgment finding the municipal police officers guilty of intentional injury constitute an acknowledgment of a violation of Article 3 of the Convention and afford the applicant adequate redress (see Gäfgen v. Germany [GC], no. 22978/05, §§ 115-19, ECHR 2010; and Cestaro v. Italy, no. 6884/11, §§ 229-31, 7 April 2015)?
2. Has the applicant been subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention (see Bouyid v. Belgium [GC], no. 23380/09, §§ 81-90, ECHR 2015, and Gäfgen, cited above, §§ 87-90)?
3. Having regard to the State’s procedural obligation under Article 3 of the Convention to conduct an effective investigation into allegations of ill‑treatment and to impose appropriate sanctions on those responsible, were those obligations adequately discharged in the present case (compare Gäfgen, cited above, §§ 123-24; Atalay v. Turkey, no. 1249/03, § 43, 18 September 2008; Cestaro, cited above, §§ 204-08; and Myumyun v. Bulgaria, no. 67258/13, §§ 65-68, 3 November 2015)?