ECHR Convicts Turkey of Police Murder
The European Court of Human Rights annonced its verdict on the case of İbrahim Külah and Naile Koyuncu, who lost their sons Ali Külah to police shooting in 2001.
The court found Turkey guilty of violating the right to life, ordering the Turkish state to pay the applicants 65,000 euros as non-pecuniary damages.
A bullet on the neck
The court verdict summarized the series of events leading to the applicants' complaint as follows:
On 2 July 2001 Ali Külah (19) was sitting in a park in İzmir with two friends when a police van stopped nearby and police officers asked them to show their identity cards. The three men gave their identity cards to police officer Ö.A., who passed them on to a civilian sitting in the police van. When the applicants’ son Ali protested and said that the civilian had no business checking his identity card, a uniformed police officer told him to shut up, before proceeding to slap him in the face.When Ali fell to the ground from the force of the slap, other police officers jumped on him and started beating him up.
When Ali managed to free himself from the melee and started running away, police officer Ö.A. gave chase and caught up with him a few blocks away. Officer Ö.A. then kicked Ali and he fell to the ground once again. A gunshot was then heard and officer Ö.A. was seen holding a pistol in his hand and standing next to Ali. Ali was taken to hospital where his condition was deemed to be life- threatening. The following day police officers and a prosecutor took two statements from Ali while he was in the intensive care unit of the hospital. During his statement, Ali asked for the officer to be prosecuted.
Ali died in the hospital after four days. According to the post- mortem report, the cause of death was a bullet which had entered his neck and exited through his back.
Suspension due to "well behavior"!
On 16 November 2001 the İzmir prosecutor filed an indictment with the İzmir Assize Court and charged officer Ö.A. with the offense of manslaughter.
In the course of the trial, officer Ö.A. told the trial court that during the scuffle Ali had attempted to take his pistol. When the pistol had fired, both of them had been holding it, but the officer did not remember which end of the pistol he had been holding. It became apparent that the pistol had not been examined for finger prints.
On 30 December 2003 the trial court found the officer Ö.A. guilty of manslaughter, sentencing him to eight years’ imprisonment. Observing that the officer had behaved well during the hearings, it further reduced the sentence to one year, one month and ten days. The execution of the sentence was suspended because the officer had no previous criminal record and because the trial court considered that he was not likely to commit any offenses in the future. The appeal lodged by the applicants was dismissed by the Court of Cassation on 21 May 2007.
In the meantime, the applicants brought a civil claim against officer Ö.A. and the Ministry of the Interior. On 8 June 2009 the İzmir Civil Court of First Instance ordered officer Ö.A. to pay the applicants TRY 13,875 (approximately EUR 5,550 at the time).
The claim made against the Ministry was rejected on the ground that no such claim could be brought against the Ministry before a civil court.
The applicants complained under Articles 2, 6 and 13 of the Convention that their son’s right to life had been violated and that the national authorities had failed to conduct an effective investigation into the killing.
The court found the Turkey guilty of violating the right to life according to Article 2 of the Convention.
The verdict also underscored that one of the principal duties of a state is to protect the right to life and punish the violators. (AS/BM)