The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 10 December 2013 as a Chamber composed of: Guido Raimondi, President, Işıl Karakaş, Dragoljub Popović, András Sajó, Nebojša Vučinić, Helen Keller, Egidijus Kūris, judges, and Stanley Naismith, Section Registrar, Having regard to the above application lodged on 4 May 2010, Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants, Having deliberated, decides as follows: THE FACTS The circumstances of the case 1. The applicants, whose names appear in the appendix, are Turkish nationals. They were represented before the Court by Ms Türkan Aslan Oğaç, a lawyer practising in Izmir. The Turkish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent. 2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 3. At the...
SECOND SECTION DECISION Application no. 33614/10 Salih ACAR and others against Turkey The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 10 December 2013 as a Chamber composed of: Guido Raimondi, President, Işıl Karakaş, Dragoljub Popović, András Sajó, Nebojša Vučinić, Helen Keller, Egidijus Kūris, judges, and Stanley Naismith, Section Registrar, Having regard to the above application lodged on 4 May 2010, Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants, Having deliberated, decides as follows: THE FACTS The circumstances of the case 1. The applicants, whose names appear in the appendix, are Turkish nationals. They were represented before the Court by Ms Türkan Aslan Oğaç, a lawyer practising in Izmir. The Turkish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent. 2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 3. At the time of the events, the applicants resided in Çalpınar village, attached to the district of Midyat in the Mardin province of south-east Turkey.
2 ACAR AND OTHERS v. TURKEY DECISION 4. On 20 April 1992, at around 6.30 a.m., a group of villagers, including the first and second applicants, and the third applicant’s father, Mr Ahmet Acar1, set out from Çalpınar village for Midyat in a minibus and a truck. On their way, a group of armed persons, wearing military uniforms, stopped the vehicles. They forced the villagers to get out, lined them up near the road and opened fire on them. During the incident, the first applicant was shot in the chest and the second applicant, who was four years old at the time, was shot in her arm. The third applicant’s father was also injured by gunshots. According to the information in the case file, in total six villagers died and nine were wounded by gunshots fired from close range. 5. After the incident, an on-site inspection was carried out by the Midyat public prosecutor and the local gendarme officers. The injured persons informed the public prosecutor that they had been shot by village guards. 6. The prosecutor asked the gendarme soldiers, who were in the area, to collect the spent bullet cases. When the soldiers refused to help him, the prosecutor himself collected and secured a total sixty six spent cartridges discharged from the village guards’ rifles. The rifles had been given to the village guards by the gendarmerie. As the soldiers also refused to take the injured persons to the hospital, the prosecutor’s clerk had to do it himself. The prosecutor expressed the opinion that the village guards had set up an ambush to kill the villagers. However, the incident report, prepared by the gendarme officers, stated that a group of terrorists, wearing military uniforms, had stopped a minibus and a truck near the Kuyubaşı village and killed six villagers and wounded nine others. 7. During the investigation, several statements...