Communicated on 15 October 2020
Published on 2 November 2020
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 21184/14
Kemal YİĞİT
against Turkey
lodged on 28 June 2011
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the alleged unfairness of the criminal proceedings against the applicant on account of the domestic courts’ failure to respect the principle of equality of arms as regards the collection and examination of the main piece of evidence in securing his conviction (see Horvatić v. Croatia, no. 36044/09, 17 October 2013).
The applicant was accused and subsequently found guilty of placing a time bomb mechanism in a flower pot and leaving it in a street on 31 March 2006 in İzmir on the basis of a police criminal laboratory report dated 20 April 2006, which concluded that there had been two fingerprints on a duct tape used in that mechanism and that they had both belonged to the applicant. Nevertheless, the applicant challenged that finding citing the police criminal laboratory’s expert report dated 31 March 2006 in which it was concluded that there had only been one fingerprint on the duct tape and argued that the photo of that fingerprint annexed to that report had neither been collected nor examined by the domestic courts despite his requests. As a result, the case file was classified as “faili meçhul” (unknown perpetrator).
Yet another report was drawn up by the police criminal laboratory on 4 April 2006, which noted that there had been two fingerprints on the duct tape and that they had neither belonged to the complainants (C.E. and M.E.) who had found the flower pot on the street and had brought it to their house before realising that it had contained a bomb nor to any other profile recorded in the police database.
It was the applicant’s contention that the police had planted his fingerprints on the duct tape, pointing out that the only time the police had been able to identify the fingerprints on the duct tape used in the bomb mechanism as his had been after his arrest despite the fact that the authorities had already had his fingerprints due to his arrest for another unrelated incident in 2002. This was because the police had blindfolded him at the time of his arrest and pressed his fingers on a certain object.
At the end of the criminal proceedings, the applicant was sentenced to life imprisonment from which one member of the trial court’s panel dissented, arguing that there was a suspicion on the reliability of the main evidence against the applicant considering that (i) the pot only bore the fingerprints of the applicant who had been arrested three weeks after the decision to classify the case as “faili meçhul” unknown perpetrator despite the fact that more than one individual (complainants) touched the pot to carry it to their house; (ii) that the fingerprints of the two other complainants (A.E. and S.E.) who had also touched the bomb mechanism had not been collected and that (iii) the strongest evidence against the applicant had not been examined by the Forensic Medicine Institute.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of the criminal charge against him, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
(a) In particular, was the applicant given the opportunity to effectively challenge the authenticity of the forensic evidence and oppose its use, which was allegedly capable of influencing the outcome of the proceedings in his favour? Given that the fingerprints appear to be the main evidence against the applicant, did the domestic courts exhaust every reasonable possibility to subject it to the most searching scrutiny? Did the trial court obtain the photo (or a copy of it) of the fingerprint found on the duct tape which was annexed to the police criminal laboratory’s report dated 31 March 2006?
(b) In that connection, did the trial court examine and provide adequate reasons in respect of the applicant’s requests by which he asked the trial court to conduct an additional investigation (soruşturmanın genişletilmesi) in the case by collecting evidence and carrying out certain investigative steps (see, mutatis mutandis, Murtazaliyeva v. Russia [GC], no. 36658/05, §§ 139‑168, 18 December 2018, and Horvatić v. Croatia, no. 36044/09, 17 October 2013)?
The Government are invited to submit copies of all the relevant documents concerning the applicant’s case, including but not limited to the minutes of all the hearings, the reasoned judgment of the trial court, documentary evidence against the applicant, and the written submissions of the applicant and his lawyer throughout the proceedings. The Government are further requested to provide the Court with a translation of the first paragraph of page fifteen of the trial court’s reasoned judgment dated 4 June 2009.
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