Information Note on the Court’s case-law 36

November 2001

Yaman v. Turkey (dec.) - 37049/97

Decision 22.11.2001 [Section I]

Article 2

Article 2-1

Life

Death of detainee, allegedly as a result of torture and lack of medical treatment: admissible

Article 3

Torture

Alleged torture and absence of medical treatment of detainee: admissible

The applicant’s son was arrested in June 1996 by security forces after a member of a terrorist organisation (the PKK) had been reported to be in the vicinity of a village. He was unable to talk or walk. According to a medical report, he suffered from injuries and grazes but no there were no marks of violence. After he had bee n taken into hospital the decision was taken to transfer him to a hospital sufficiently well equipped to treat the malnutrition and the infectious disease from which he was suffering because the treatment he had already received had not cured him. At the e nd of June 1996 the applicant’s son gave evidence about the PKK and his activities within that organisation, following which the district-court judge ordered him to be remanded in custody. He was detained for nearly one month at Elazığ Prison before being transferred to Ankara Prison for appropriate medical treatment at the city civil hospital. According to the medical certificate drawn up at that time, he was suffering from “muscular atrophy”. At the beginning of August 1996 the applicant contacted the Min istry of Justice and the Ministry of Health requesting that his son be taken into hospital again and complaining of negligence by the authorities in administering medical care to his son and of the treatment which he had allegedly suffered. The Ministry of Justice appointed an inspector to investigate those allegations and an administrative inquiry was carried out. At the end of August 1996 Mr Yaman was admitted to a hospital cardiology department where non-inflammatory injury to the myocardium, and malnutr ition and severe weakness were diagnosed. The inspector took a statement from him according to which he had, among other things, been undernourished for one month, up until his arrest during the operation carried out by the security forces, and had not rec eived appropriate medical treatment at the hospital for the illness from which he had been suffering at the time of his arrest. The inspector then interviewed the public prosecutor, the governor and doctor of Elazığ Prison and the doctor who had drawn up a medical report on the applicant in June 1996. The latter stated that he had observed that the applicant’s son was very undernourished. While the administrative inquiry was in progress, the applicant died at the Ankara civil hospital. Two autopsies were ca rried out at the request of the prosecution. In September 1996 the inspector at the Ministry of Justice requested that a preliminary investigation be commenced. He referred to the applicant’s complaint that his son had been beaten by gendarmes during quest ioning lasting twenty days and that the gendarmes had stubbed their cigarettes out on his son’s body. He also mentioned his son’s allegation in his statement that the persons who had questioned him when he was taken into hospital had beaten him on the sole s of his feet. In September 1996 the applicant lodged a complaint with the Aydın public prosecutor’s office against the police officers at the Elazığ Security Headquarters and the doctors who had treated his son in hospital. He stated in his complaint that he had visited his son in August 1996 when he had been in Ankara Prison. His son had told him that he had been kept in police custody for twenty days, during which time he had been tortured. He requested that the police officers and doctors be prosecuted for murder. A criminal investigation was begun into the allegations of ill-treatment inflicted on the applicant’s son during police custody and an administrative inquiry into his stay in hospital and his medical treatment. Evidence was heard from the genda rmes who had questioned the applicant’s son. They refuted all the allegations. The incident report describing the conditions in which the applicant’s son had been arrested, his statement in June 1996 and statements from the public prosecutor, the prison go vernor, the prison doctor and other doctors were taken into consideration. In February 1997 a decision was given discontinuing the proceedings against the gendarmes for lack of sufficient evidence on which to press charges. The applicant’s appeal against t hat decision was dismissed. The complaint against the doctors was likewise dismissed. The supplementary evidence submitted by the parties to the Court, including statements by a sociologist imprisoned in Ankara Prison at the same time as the applicant’s so n, and statements by the applicant’s father, brother and uncle, indicated that the applicant’s son had told them that he had been tortured in detention and had lacked adequate medical treatment and that cigarettes had been stubbed out on various parts of h is body.

Admissible under Articles 2, 3, 6 (access to a tribunal) and 13. In respect of the preliminary objection raised by the Government, based on failure to comply with the six-month time-period and referring to the complaints under Articles 6 and 13, it should be noted that those complaints related to the lack of an effective and thorough inquiry, which was an aspect which would be examined under Articles 2 and 3. It was therefore appropriate to join the objection to the merits.

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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