The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 16 September 2014 as a Committee composed of: Helen Keller, President, Egidijus Kūris, Jon Fridrik Kjølbro, judges, and Abel Campos, Deputy Section Registrar, Having regard to the above application lodged on 5 August 2011, Having deliberated, decides as follows: THE FACTS A list of the applicants is set out in the appendix. A. The circumstances of the case 1. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants and as they appear from the documents submitted by them, may be summarized as follows. 2. On 24 February 2009 at around 3.30 p.m. the applicants’ relative Abdülmuttalip Batar, who was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the events went into a restaurant in the city of Gaziantep and asked the owner for money. Upon the rejection of his request, A. Batar threatened the restaurant owner. Employees of...
SECOND SECTION DECISION Application no. 63017/11 Namık Kemal BATAR and others against Turkey The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 16 September 2014 as a Committee composed of: Helen Keller, President, Egidijus Kūris, Jon Fridrik Kjølbro, judges, and Abel Campos, Deputy Section Registrar, Having regard to the above application lodged on 5 August 2011, Having deliberated, decides as follows: THE FACTS A list of the applicants is set out in the appendix. A. The circumstances of the case 1. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants and as they appear from the documents submitted by them, may be summarized as follows. 2. On 24 February 2009 at around 3.30 p.m. the applicants’ relative Abdülmuttalip Batar, who was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the events went into a restaurant in the city of Gaziantep and asked the owner for money. Upon the rejection of his request, A. Batar threatened the restaurant owner. Employees of the restaurant took A. Batar outside, as he was upsetting other customers, and guided him to the park in front of the restaurant. A scuffle ensued between A. Batar and the employees. 3. Two police officers patrolling the area saw the scuffle and went to ask what was happening. Employees of the restaurant told the two police officers that A. Batar had disturbed the restaurant’s customers and
2 BATAR v. TURKEY DECISION threatened the owner. Police officers tried to arrest A. Batar and put him in the police car. A. Batar pushed police officers and another scuffle occurred. One of the police officers and A. Batar fell to the ground during the scuffle before they managed to get the latter into the police car. 4. Police officers drove A. Batar to the hospital to obtain a medical report. According to the medical report issued by the hospital on 24 February 2009 A. Batar arrived to the hospital at 4.03 p.m. Whilst in the hospital’s waiting room, he suddenly collapsed. He was immediately taken to a reanimation unit. Despite the intervention of medical staff to reanimate him, A. Batar died at 4.45 p.m. 5. On the same day, an autopsy was carried out. Some superficial bruises on the right eyebrow and on the left knee, as well as some older small bruises and two scars related to previous surgical procedures were detected on A. Batar’s body. A laboratory analysis showed that there was 295 mg/dl of ethanol in the deceased’s blood. The reason of death was established as a heart attack. 6. On 25 February 2009, the Gaziantep Public Prosecutor interrogated the two police officers who brought A. Batar to the hospital. The police officers stated that they did not beat the deceased but that a scuffle occurred between them and that they wanted to help him as he was drunk so they took him directly to the hospital after he calmed down. They stated that the deceased had collapsed at the hospital and had a heart attack. 7. Other police officers who had come to help to co...