File 83 - Selma Tanrıkulu

13 items

Supplementary materials pertaining to the case filed by Selma Tanrıkulu on 25 February 1994 against the Republic of Turkey with the European Commission of Human Rights (application number 23763/94, later given European Court of Human Rights case number 137/1998/1040/1255, referred to internally within the Kurdish Litigation Project as Case 82 and assigned to Françoise Hampson as lead) regarding the 2 September 1993 shooting death of her husband, Dr Zeki Tanrıkulu, in the city of Silvan, Diyarbakır Province. Materials in this file include: sketches of the murder site; statements of Selma Tanrıkulu made in 1994 and in 1996; letterfaxes from Hampson to Caroline Nolan of the Kurdish Human Rights Project; the Commission, and forensic scientist Dr. Pounder; Aisling Reidy's working notes on the case as of 1997 written on foolscap; an article from the January-March 1998 issue of Kurdistan Report profiling Selma Tanrıkulu; schedules of professional fees and costs incurred in the case; and the applicant's memorial, submitted 5 February 1999, including appendices. A small piece of correspondence from the Commission is closed for access until 1 November 2073. Materials from the main casefile are located at A44/43/1/54.
In April 1993 Dr Tanrıkulu had been taken in for questioning by the police. They had received a tip-off to the effect that he was sheltering a terrorist suspect belonging to the PKK (Workers’ Party of Kurdistan). He had been released without charge the next day. As the only doctor in Silvan Hospital for about eight months, he would have been the person who produced medical reports on persons released from custody. While he generally sought to protect the applicant from anything that might worry her, he did say, on more than one occasion, “If we let them, they would write the reports”, and he also spoke about torture. Following the killing of another doctor in Silvan on 10 June 1992, which led a third doctor to seek and obtain a transfer from the area, Dr Tanrıkulu was reported in the press as having refused to talk about that incident out of fear. At the time a large number of killings were being committed in Silvan by unknown persons.
At about noon on 2 September 1993, Dr Zeki Tanrıkulu was shot dead in the Silvan on a steep road known as Kaymakam Hill which runs between the public hospital and the security directorate. Selma Tanrıkulu was on the low balcony of her hospital residence, close to the hospital gates, when she heard the sounds of automatic firing. She jumped off the balcony and ran towards Kaymakam Hill. While she was running, she heard another type of firing start. According to Selma Tanrıkulu, she did not see anyone as she ran towards him. However, as she knelt by him, she looked up and saw at least eight members of the security forces standing in a line across the street near the security directorate and brandishing machine guns, about fifteen to twenty metres away from her. They were dressed in plain clothes but were wearing special jackets that enabled them to carry spare ammunition. Although there were usually at least eight members of the security forces near the security directorate, it was not usual for them to stand together in a line. The applicant appealed to the police present at the scene to do something to catch the perpetrators, but they did nothing.
On 17 November 1994, the applicant received a summons to appear at the prosecutor’s office at the Diyarbakır National Security Court the next day. She was scared before the interview and found the experience frightening. The Chief Public Prosecutor, Mr Bekir Selçuk, questioned the applicant about her application to the Commission and, in particular, about the power of attorney she had given to her lawyers in an accompanying document. The report that was drawn up of the interview states that the applicant was shown a power of attorney in the name of Selma Tan and that she denied that the signature on that document belonged to her. The power of attorney which the applicant had submitted to the Commission, however, was in her full name of Selma Tanrıkulu. The implied threat was made by Mr Selçuk that something might happen to the applicant on account of her application. Mr Selçuk also suggested that an application to the Commission was futile. The report of the interview was not a reliable record of what had been said. Contrary to what was written in the report, the applicant did not tell Mr Selçuk during the interview that about ten days after her husband’s death she had been telephoned by a person called Kevin, who was from a centre in England and was ringing from Diyarbakır.
The European Court of Human Rights held that the material in the casefile did not enable it to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that Dr Zeki Tanrıkulu was killed by security forces or with their connivance. It did, however, agree with the Commission that the authorities failed to carry out an effective investigation into the circumstances surrounding Dr Zeki Tanrıkulu’s death.
On 18 July 1999, the European Court of Human Rights ruled unanimously 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 of the death of the applicant’s husband, but that it had not been established that the applicant’s husband was killed in violation of Article 2. The Court also ruled that there had been violations of Article 13 and former Article 25 § 1 (16 votes to 1). The Turkish Government was ordered to pay Selma Tanrıkulu and her children £15,000 sterling in non-pecuniary damages and £15,000 sterling in legal fees and expenses (less 13,495 French francs awarded in legal aid). The full judgment is available for viewing at https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/?i=001-58289

A small piece of correspondence from the European Commission of Human Rights is closed for access until 1 November 2073.

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