File 71 - Sultan Sabuktekin

2 items

Materials pertaining to the case filed by Sultan Sabuktekin on 21 December 1994 against the Republic of Turkey with the European Commission of Human Rights (application number 27243/95, referred to internally within the Kurdish Litigation Project as Case 158 and assigned to Françoise Hampson as lead) regarding the 28 September 1994 murder of her husband, Salih Sabuktekin, outside of his home. Materials from the main casefile are located at A44/43/1/50.
Salih Sabuktekin, a building contractor, was killed outside his house as he was getting into his van. He was a member of the pro-Kurdish political party HADEP (People's Democracy Party) and a delegate of the local Yüregir/Adana branch. According to the witnesses, he was gunned down by two men in civilian clothes in front of a number of people, including his brother, Halil Sabuktekin, who was waiting for him in the vehicle. According to the applicant, the shooting took place between 6.30 a.m. and 7 a.m. Her brother-in-law, Halil Sabuktekin, attempted to chase his brother's killers but had been prevented from doing so by plainclothes police officers, who had proceeded to arrest him and taken him into police custody. In her observations of 31 March 1997 the applicant added that her brother-in-law had set off in pursuit of the killers with another person whom she named in a statement of 21 June 1999 as Latif Turan.
In corroboration of her account, the applicant sent the Commission a statement made by her brother-in-law on 31 March 1997 before a member of the Human Rights Association and a member of HADEP. According to that statement, the shots had been fired at approximately ten minutes past seven. He had set off in pursuit of the killers with a friend, but they had been intercepted by police officers. After questioning them about the PKK, Hizbullah, and HADEP, the police officers had taken them firstly to Adana State Hospital, where Halil Sabuktekin had caught sight of his brother on a bench, and then to the police station, where they were questioned. The police had released them an hour later. Halil Sabuktekin had then returned to the hospital, where he learnt that his brother had died in the meantime. The applicant added that some twenty people had been taken into police custody while her husband's funeral was taking place. Moreover, on at least three occasions before her husband's death the police had burst into their house at night and carried out searches. On the first two occasions they had enquired as to her husband's whereabouts and on the third had taken him away. However, he had been released the following day. She also said that their house had been kept under constant police surveillance. The subsequent domestic investigation postulated that a member of Hizbullah committed the murder.
On 4 March 2005, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that it had not been established that violations of the European Convention on Human Rights had occurred. The full judgment is available for at viewing https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/?i=001-60310

• Béarla