The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 14 September 2010 as a Chamber composed of: Françoise Tulkens, President, Ireneu Cabral Barreto, Dragoljub Popović, Nona Tsotsoria, Işıl Karakaş, Kristina Pardalos, Guido Raimondi, judges, and Stanley Naismith, Section Registrar, Having regard to the above application lodged on 20 May 2009, Having deliberated, decides as follows: THE FACTS The applicant, Mr Metin Halıcı, is a Turkish national, who was born in 1967 and lives in Malatya. He is represented before the Court by Mr İ. Akmeşe, a lawyer practising in Istanbul. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows. On 27 July 1999 the applicant was arrested on suspicion of being a member of the PKK (Kurdish Workers' Party), an illegal organisation. 2 HALICI v. TURKEY DECISION On 1 August 1999 the applicant was brought before the...
SECOND SECTION PARTIAL DECISION AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF Application no. 31388/09 by Metin HALICI against Turkey The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 14 September 2010 as a Chamber composed of: Françoise Tulkens, President, Ireneu Cabral Barreto, Dragoljub Popović, Nona Tsotsoria, Işıl Karakaş, Kristina Pardalos, Guido Raimondi, judges, and Stanley Naismith, Section Registrar, Having regard to the above application lodged on 20 May 2009, Having deliberated, decides as follows: THE FACTS The applicant, Mr Metin Halıcı, is a Turkish national, who was born in 1967 and lives in Malatya. He is represented before the Court by Mr İ. Akmeşe, a lawyer practising in Istanbul. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows. On 27 July 1999 the applicant was arrested on suspicion of being a member of the PKK (Kurdish Workers' Party), an illegal organisation.
2 HALICI v. TURKEY DECISION On 1 August 1999 the applicant was brought before the public prosecutor and then the investigating judge, who ordered him to be placed in pre-trial detention. Before the public prosecutor, the applicant claimed that the statement taken from him by the police was not accurate as he had not been allowed to read it before he had signed it. Moreover, before the investigating judge, when the applicant denied his statement to the police, he submitted that he had been tortured in police custody while making it. The applicant did not challenge the reliability of the doctor's reports, which found no injuries on his body, before the national authorities. On 10 August 1999 the public prosecutor at the Istanbul State Security Court filed a bill of indictment, charging the applicant and nine others with being members of an illegal organisation and extortion. In his defence submissions to the trial court on 22 November 1999 the applicant claimed that the statement he had given to the police was inaccurate, but he did not claim that it had been given under duress while in police custody. On 22 November 2004 the applicant was released pending trial. Following the abolition of State Security Courts by Law no. 5190, the criminal proceedings against the applicant were transferred to the 12th Chamber of the Istanbul Assize Court. On 13 February 2009, in the light of the evidence before it, namely, the autopsy, ballistics and other expert reports, the on-site inspection and house search reports and the statements taken from the witnesses, the applicant and the other accused, the 12th Division of the Istanbul Assize Court convicted the applicant of carrying out activities for the purpose of bringing about the secession of a part of the national territory, and sentenced him to life imprisonment. On 27 April 2010 the Court of Cassation upheld the first-instance court's judgment. COMPLAINTS Relying on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant complained that there had been undue delays in the criminal pr...