ÇAKICI v. TURKEY JUDGMENT
28
them to take effective measures to safeguard against the risk of
disappearance and to conduct a prompt and effective investigation into an
arguable claim that a person has been taken into custody and has not been
seen since.
105. In the light of those considerations, the Court recalls that it has
accepted the Commission’s findings that Ahmet Çakıcı was apprehended by
the security forces, taken to Hazro where he spent the night of 8 November
1993 and transferred to Diyarbakır provincial gendarmerie headquarters
where he was detained until at least 2 December 1993 (see paragraph 50
above). This detention was not recorded in the Hazro or Diyarbakır custody
records, nor was there any other official record of his whereabouts or fate.
The recording of accurate holding data concerning the date, time and
location of detainees, as well as the grounds for the detention and the name
of the persons effecting it, is necessary for the detention of an individual to
be compatible with the requirements of lawfulness for the purposes of
Article 5 § 1. The lack of records of this applicant discloses a serious
failing, which is aggravated by the Commission’s findings as to the general
unreliability and inaccuracy of the records in question. The Court also
shares the Commission’s concerns with regard to the practices applied in the
registration of holding data by the gendarme witnesses who appeared before
the Commission’s delegates – the fact that it is not recorded when a person
is held elsewhere than the officially designated custody area or when a
person is removed from a detention area for any purpose or held in transit. It
finds unacceptable the failure to keep records which enable the location of a
detainee to be established at a particular time.
106. Further, the Court notes that, notwithstanding that the applicant’s
family brought to the attention of the authorities that there were three eyewitnesses to the detention of Ahmet Çakıcı, no steps were taken to seek any
evidence, beyond enquiring as to entries in custody records, until after the
application was communicated to the Government by the Commission. The
Court has already commented on the restricted number of enquiries which
resulted even at that stage and on the lack of any investigation into the
report that Ahmet Çakıcı’s body had been found (see paragraph 80 above).
There was neither a prompt nor a meaningful inquiry into the circumstances
of Ahmet Çakıcı’s disappearance.
107. Accordingly, the Court concludes that Ahmet Çakıcı was held in
unacknowledged detention in the complete absence of the safeguards
contained in Article 5 and that there has been a particularly grave violation
of the right to liberty and security of person guaranteed under that provision.
VI. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 13 OF THE CONVENTION
108. The applicant complained that he was deprived of an effective
remedy in respect of the disappearance of his brother, as a direct victim