Sub-sub-series 29 - Muharrem Ergi 

10 files

Materials pertaining to the case filed by Muharrem Ergi on 25 March 1994 against the Republic of Turkey with the European Commission of Human Rights (application number 27602/95, referred to internally within the Kurdish Litigation Project as Case 81 and assigned to Kevin Boyle as lead) regarding the death of his sister, Havva Ergi, on 29 September 1993, during an operation by Turkish security forces purportedly to capture members of the PKK (Kurdish Workers’ Party) in the village of Kesentaş (Gisgis), Ergani, Diyarbakır Province. Supplementary materials pertaining to this case are located at A44/43/6/37.
According to the applicant, on 29 September 1993, the security forces set up an ambush in the vicinity of the village purportedly to capture members of the PKK. They consisted of a commando unit and village guards from Ziyaret. Security forces were located in or near a cemetery 600 metres northwest and south of the village near the asphalt road. The security forces opened fire. The shooting lasted for about one hour and consisted of indiscriminate bombardment of civilian houses. No members of the PKK were killed or captured. Muharrem Ergi’s house was in the middle of the village. At the time of the incident, his father and his sister Havva were sleeping on the balcony, on the upper part of the house. As soon as the firing started, Havva and his father took shelter inside the house, but Havva went out on the veranda to collect something. She was hit in the head by a bullet when she was on the threshold and died immediately. According to the Turkish Government, there were no units positioned to the south and there would have been no point in having men there since the PKK would not come from the south. The security forces could not therefore have fired the shot from the south which killed the applicant’s sister. The Government also claimed that only a few houses were slightly damaged, which does not support the allegations of prolonged, indiscriminate firing by the security forces.
On 28 July 1998, the European Court of Human Rights ruled unanimously that it had not been established that the applicant’s sister was killed by the security forces in breach of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, nor had there been violations of Articles 14 and 18, but that there had been a violation of Article 2 on account of the planning and conduct of the security forces’ operation and in respect of the failure of the authorities of the respondent State to conduct an adequate and effective investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Havva Ergi. The Court also ruled 8 votes to 1 that there had been violations of Articles 13 and 25 § 1. The Government were ordered to pay Muharrem Ergi £1,000 sterling in non-pecuniary damages and £12,000 sterling (less 9,995 French francs received in legal aid) in legal costs and expenses. Havva Ergi’s daughter was awarded £5,000 in non-pecuniary damages. The full judgment is available for viewing at https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-58200.

The files in this sub-sub-series are equivalent to Tabs 1 through 9 in the legal team’s filing system, plus documents originally placed in sleeves at the front of the casefile binder.