SELÇUK AND ASKER JUDGMENT OF 24 APRIL 1998 13 appeared unreliable, told the delegates that the applicants’ houses had been destroyed by the PKK and not by the State as claimed by the applicants. The Government further pointed out that the duty log of the Kulp gendarmerie for the dates in question, which they had given to the Commission, did not indicate any visits by gendarmes to the village. 51. The applicants submitted that the Government had been highly selective in the manner in which they had identified inconsistencies in the evidence given by the applicants and their witnesses. They reminded the Court that none of the four villagers who gave evidence that the PKK had burned down the houses had actually been in the village at the time of the events in question. Moreover, their testimony was inconsistent in other respects with that of the Government’s fifth witness, CO Cömert. 52. At the hearing, the Delegate emphasised that the Commission had addressed in its report all the evidential issues raised by the Government and, after a careful and detailed assessment, had come to the conclusion that the various facts found by it had been proved beyond reasonable doubt. 53. The Court reiterates that under its case-law the establishment and verification of the facts are primarily a matter for the Commission (Articles 28 § 1 and 31 of the Convention). While the Court is not bound by the Commission’s findings of fact and remains free to make its own appreciation in the light of all the material before it, it is only in exceptional circumstances that it will exercise its powers in this area. Such exceptional circumstances may arise in particular if the Court, following a careful examination of the evidence on which the Commission has based its conclusions, finds that the facts have not been proved beyond reasonable doubt (see the Menteş and Others v. Turkey judgment of 28 November 1997, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997-VIII, pp. 2709–10, § 66). 54. The Court has examined the findings in the Commission’s report and the evidence on which the latter based its conclusions, principally the transcripts of the hearings in Ankara (see paragraph 26 above), with a view to determining whether any such exceptional circumstances arise in the present case. 55. In this connection, it considers it to be of particular significance that the Commission’s delegates had the opportunity to see and hear the applicants and other witnesses give their testimony and answer questions put by the delegates themselves and by lawyers for the Government and the applicants. It notes that the Commission found the applicants’ demeanour and comportment to be convincing and sincere (see the report of the Commission, paragraph 149).