Sub-sub-series 44 - Koçeri Kurt

11 files

Materials pertaining to the case filed by Koçeri Kurt on 31 March 1995 against the Republic of Turkey with the European Commission of Human Rights (application number 24276/94, later given case number 15/1997/799/1002, referred to internally within the Kurdish Litigation Project as Case 91 and assigned to Sheldon Leader as lead) regarding the 25 November 1993 disappearance of her son, Üzeyir Kurt, during an operation carried out by security forces in the village of Ağıllı, Bismil District, Diyarbakır Province. Supplementary materials pertaining to this case are located at A44/43/6/58.
From 23 to 25 November 1993, security forces made up of gendarmes and a number of village guards, carried out an operation in the village of Ağıllı. On 23 November 1993, following intelligence reports that three terrorists would visit the village, the security forces took up positions around the village. Two clashes followed. During the two days they spent in the village they conducted a search of each house. A number of houses, between ten and twelve, were burnt down during the operation, including those of the applicant and Mevlüde and Ali Kurt, Mevlüde being her son’s aunt. Only three of the houses were near the clashes. Other houses were burnt down on a second occasion during the military operation. The villagers were told that they had a week to evacuate the village.
According to Koçeri Kurt, around noon on 24 November 1993, when the villagers had been gathered by the soldiers in the schoolyard, the soldiers were looking for Üzeyir Kurt, who was not in the schoolyard, instead hiding in the house of his aunt Mevlüde. When the soldiers asked Aynur Kurt, his daughter, where her father was, Aynur told them he was at his aunt’s house. The soldiers went to Mevlüde’s house with Davut Kurt, another of the applicant’s sons, and took Üzeyir from the house. Üzeyir spent the night of 24–25 November 1993 with soldiers in the house of Hasan Kılıç.
On the morning of 25 November 1993, the applicant received a message from a child that Üzeyir wanted some cigarettes. The applicant took cigarettes and found Üzeyir in front of Hasan Kılıç’s house surrounded by about ten soldiers and five to six village guards. She saw bruises and swelling on his face as though he had been beaten. Üzeyir told her that he was cold. She returned with his jacket and socks. The soldiers did not allow her to stay so she left. This was the last time she saw Üzeyir. The applicant maintains that there is no evidence that he was seen elsewhere after this time.
On 30 November 1993 the applicant applied to the Bismil public prosecutor to find out information on the whereabouts of her son. On the same day, she received a response from Captain Izzet Cural at the provincial gendarmerie headquarters stating that it was supposed that Üzeyir had been kidnapped by the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party). Captain Cural, who had proposed the plan for the operation in the village, replied in identical terms on 4 December 1993. The district gendarmerie commander noted on the bottom of the applicant’s petition of 30 November that Üzeyir had not been taken into custody and that he had been kidnapped by the PKK. On 14 December 1993 the applicant applied to the National Security Court in Diyarbakır which replied that he was not in their custody records. On 15 December 1993 she contacted the Bismil public prosecutor again but was referred to the gendarmerie. Finally, on 24 December 1993 the applicant approached the Diyarbakır Branch of the Human Rights Association for help and made a statement on the circumstances surrounding her son’s disappearance. On 21 March 1994 the Bismil public prosecutor issued a decision of non-jurisdiction on the grounds that a crime had been committed by the PKK.
Koçeri Kurt was interviewed on several occasions by the authorities as from 19 November 1994 subsequent to the communication of her application by the Commission to the Government. On 9 December 1994 following an interview with the Bismil public prosecutor, she addressed statements to the Diyarbakır Branch of the Human Rights Association and to the Foreign Affairs Ministry repudiating all petitions made in her name. The European Court of Human Rights was ‘not convinced that these two statements, made shortly after the communication of the application to the Government and in the wake of the interview with the public prosecutor, can be said to have been drafted on the initiative of the applicant. Nor is it satisfied that the two visits which the applicant made to the notary in Bismil on 6 January and 10 August 1995 were organised on her own initiative. As the Commission observed, the applicant was brought to the notary’s office by a soldier in uniform and was not required to pay the notary for drawing up the statements in which she purported to withdraw her application to the Commission. It cannot be said that the arguments presented by the Government in this regard establish that there was no official involvement in the organisation of these visits. For the above reasons, the Court finds that the applicant was subjected to indirect and improper pressure to make statements in respect of her application to the Commission which interfered with the free exercise of her right of individual petition guaranteed under Article 25.’
On 25 May 1998, the European Court of Human Rights ruled by 6 votes to 3 that there had been violations of Article 3, 5, and 25 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and by 7 votes to 2 that there had been a violation of Article 13. The Turkish Government was ordered to pay Üzeyir Kurt’s heirs £15,000 sterling in non-pecuniary damages, and to pay Koçeri Kurt £10,000 sterling in non-pecuniary damages and €15,000 in legal costs and expenses (less 27,763 French francs received in legal aid). The full judgment is available for viewing at https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/?i=001-58198. The Commission's case report of 5 December 1996 is available for viewing at https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-45781.

The files in this sub-sub-series are equivalent to Tabs 1 through 10 in the Essex legal team's filing system, plus documents originally placed in sleeves at the front of the casefile binder by the legal team.