Supplementary materials pertaining to the case filed by Abdurrahman Çelikbilek on 13 June 1995 against the Republic of Turkey with the European Commission of Human Rights (application number 27683/95, referred to internally within the Kurdish Litigation Project as Case 200 and assigned to Bill Bowring as lead) regarding the December 1994 killing of his brother, Abdulkadir Çelikbilek, whose body was found on 21 December 1994 on top of a rubbish heap near the Mardinkapı cemetery in Diyarbakır with his hands tied behind his back. Materials from the main casefile in this case are located at A44/43/1/21.
On 9 June 1994, Abdulkadir Çelikbilek gave a statement to the Prosecutor at the Diyarbakır State Security Court. He stated that he had heard that a certain Ms Amber Yılmaz had fallen from the roof of a three-storey house in the course of a military operation conducted at about 9.30 p.m. on 8 June 1994. He had further heard that Ms Yılmaz’ husband, Fethi Yaşar, had been a PKK member and that Mr Yaşar was currently serving a 36-year prison sentence for PKK membership. He finally stated that he was not aware of any links between Ms Yılmaz and the PKK.
After having given this statement, Abdulkadir was followed on a number of occasions. At about 11.00 a.m. on 14 December 1994, Abdulkadir went to the Esnaflar Café in the centre of Diyarbakır. About ten minutes after his arrival, a white Renault car with four plain-clothes policemen stopped in front of the café. It is common knowledge in south-east Turkey that this kind of car is used by plain-clothes police officers. Two policemen stayed in the car while the other two entered the café. The latter two policemen were the same as the ones who had previously questioned Aynur Çelikbilek about her husband’s whereabouts. It was obvious that the two persons were policemen, as they were armed. When the applicant’s brother was leaving the café, the two policemen also left the café. Outside the café the two policemen took Abdulkadir by the arms and forced him into the waiting white Renault.
On 21 December 1994, three police officers came to Abdurrahman Çelikbilek’s home and told him that his brother had been wounded and admitted to the hospital. When the police officers took the applicant to their car, they told him that Abdulkadir’s body had been found outside the Mardinkapı cemetery in Diyarbakır. The applicant went with the police officers to the place where his brother’s body had been found. There, the police searched him. They took his petition which was addressed to the Prosecutor at the Diyarbakır Court from the pocket of his jacket. Despite his request, the police officers refused to give it back to him. The applicant is of the opinion that the police refused to return his petition in order to weaken any case he might bring against the Turkish authorities. Marks of torture could be seen all over Abdulkadir’s body. It looked as if the skin on the soles of his feet had been pulled off with pincers. His arms, legs and head looked as if they had been skewered on a thick skewer. His whole body was black and blue and there were marks on his throat. The police later recorded the location of the body and subsequently took the body to the State Hospital morgue. Abdurrahman was also taken to the morgue in a police car. On the way to the morgue, a police officer in the car told the applicant that all the villagers of Tepecik would die on the streets in the same manner. In the morgue, some other police officers told the applicant that village guards had burned the village of Tepecik and that these same village guards had probably killed his brother. The applicant replied that he did not believe that village guards had killed his brother and added that, if village guards had killed his brother, they must have been helped by the police. The police officers replied that Leyla, Abdulkadir’s daughter, was of the opinion that the police had killed her father. When the applicant was asked whether he shared Leyla’s opinion, he said that he did.
Sometime before the events at issue, Abdurrahman’s oldest son Fesih had joined the PKK. The applicant had managed to keep this a secret. However, ten days after the death of his brother, a person, who introduced himself as Cevat from the anti-terrorism branch of the police, came to the applicant’s home. Cevat told the applicant that his son had joined the PKK and asked the applicant to inform the security forces when his son came home. Abdurrahman thus became convinced that his brother must have told the security forces about Fesih while he was under torture.
In June 1996, Abdurrahman was himself abducted by State agents while walking in the street in Diyarbakır. He was put in a car and prevented from seeing and speaking. He was taken into the countryside where State agents wanted to shoot him, but they then changed their minds and took the applicant to the rapid response force building in Diyarbakır where he was detained for a period of 31 days before being jailed for 14 months. While in detention he was threatened a number of times. These threats made the applicant all the more convinced that the Government were directly responsible for the abduction and killing of his brother.
Kevin Boyle, Françoise Hampson, and Bill Bowring were the original legal representatives before the Court in this case. In 2000, they stood down in favour of Anke Stock of the Kurdish Human Rights Project.
On 31 May 2005, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously ruled that the Government were liable for the death of the applicant’s brother in violation of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, were in violation of Article 13, and were not in violation of Article 3. The Government were ordered to pay Abdurrahman Çelikbilek €60,000 in pecuniary damages to be held for the widow and children of Abdulkadir Çelikbilek, plus €20,000 in non-pecuniary damages and €8,000 in costs and expenses. Abdurrahman himself was awarded €3,500 in non-pecuniary damages. The full judgment is available for viewing at https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-69202
