Sub-sub-series 41 - Mehmet Kaya

11 files

Materials pertaining to the case filed by Mehmet Kaya on 23 September 1993 against the Republic of Turkey with the European Commission of Human Rights (application number 22729/93, later given case number 158/1996/777/978, referred to internally within the Kurdish Litigation Project as Case 49 and assigned to Françoise Hampson as lead) regarding the death of his brother, Abdülmenaf Kaya, on 25 March 1993 in Dolunay, Lice District, Diyarbakır Province.
Mehmet Kaya based his account of the events surrounding the killing of his brother on 25 March 1993 on the evidence of villagers from Çiftlibahçe village whom he alleges witnessed the incident and on the testimony of Mr Hikmet Aksoy, a villager from Dolunay whom he maintains was in the company of his brother on the day the latter was killed. The applicant was not himself an eyewitness to the events. The applicant alleged that on the morning of 25 March 1993, Abdülmenaf Kaya was going to the fields situated 300–400 metres from the village of Çiftlibahçe and four kilometres from his own village of Dolunay together with Hikmet Aksoy. A military operation was being conducted at the time. Hikmet Aksoy turned off the road at one point to tend to his beehives but was detained by soldiers. Seeing this, Abdülmenaf Kaya began to run away as he was frightened that he would also be taken into custody. The soldiers saw him running and opened fire. Abdülmenaf Kaya ran towards Çiftlibahçe village and hid in some bushes. The soldiers gave chase and found him. According to villagers from Çiftlibahçe who witnessed the incident the soldiers killed him, riddling his body with bullets. The soldiers then planted a weapon near his body and took photographs of the scene. The villagers requested that the body be handed over to them. At first the security forces refused but when the villagers insisted that the deceased was not a terrorist but the uncle of one of the inhabitants of a neighbouring village they relented. The villagers were verbally abused and threatened by the security forces. Hikmet Aksoy was taken into custody and held at Lice gendarmerie headquarters for six days.
The Government maintain that the security forces arrived in the vicinity of Dolunay on 25 March 1993 having received information that terrorists had been seen in the area. While they were conducting a field search, they came under fire somewhere between Dolunay village and Çiftlibahçe village. The gunfire was directed at them from a rocky area, a creek and from the hills around. The security forces, numbering about sixty, took cover and returned fire using mainly G3 and A4 guns with an effective range of between 300 and 1,000 metres as well as longer range MG3 and K23 machine guns. The firing distance between the security forces and their assailants varied between 300 and 500 metres. The terrorists retreated after about thirty minutes and in the lull a search of the scene of the attack was carried out during which the security forces recovered a dead body alongside of which lay an automatic assault gun together with ammunition. The team commander secured the area and contacted the office of the public prosecutor of Lice about the incident. Two and a half hours later the public prosecutor and the District Government doctor arrived at the scene by helicopter accompanied by assistants. An on-the-spot autopsy was performed on the body, and an autopsy report was prepared there and then. The public prosecutor drew up a burial certificate. The identity of the deceased was in fact only discovered some months after the incident. According to a handwritten report signed by three gendarmes and dated 5 May 1993, the investigation which was carried out after the incident revealed that the body was that of Abdülmenaf Kaya, a resident of Dolunay village, who was killed in a clash with security forces conducting an operation in the outskirts of Dolunay.
The Court was ‘struck in particular by the fact that the public prosecutor would appear to have assumed without question that the deceased was a terrorist who had died in a clash with the security forces. No statements were taken from any of the soldiers at the scene and no attempt was made to confirm whether there were spent cartridges over the area consistent with an intense gun battle having been waged by both sides as alleged.’
On 19 February 1998, the European Court of Human Rights held unanimously that it has not been established that the applicant’s brother was unlawfully killed in breach of Article 2 of the Convention; held by 8 votes to 1 that there had been a violation of Article 2 of the Convention on account of the failure of the authorities of the respondent State to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of the applicant’s brother; held by 8 votes to 1 that there had been a violation of Article 13 of the Convention; and held unanimously that there has been no violation of Articles 2, 6 and 13 of the Convention in conjunction with Article 14 of the Convention. The Turkish Government was ordered to pay the widow and children of Abdülmenaf Kaya £17,000 sterling. The full judgment is available for viewing at https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/?i=001-58138.

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