ELCI AND OTHERS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT 20 policemen from the İstanbul Anti-Terror Department. From there, the applicant was taken to his home, where his wife was waiting, and a search was made. Both were taken back to the Anti-Terror Department before their children came home from school, so a neighbour agreed to look after them. 105. The officials were unable to explain why the couple had been detained, other than saying that they were acting on the instructions of the Diyarbakır gendarmerie. Mr and Mrs Şahin were kept together in the same cell until around 11 a.m. Two or three officers from Diyarbakir arrived and Mr Şahin was taken to a Turkish Airlines office where he paid for everyone's tickets to Diyarbakır, for which destination they left at 7 a.m. on 11 December 1993. 106. At Diyarbakır airport they were handed over to other officers and taken in a minibus, with their heads covered, to what he later learnt was the Diyarbakır provincial gendarmerie command. 107. Mr Şahin was not told about the charges against him. During interrogation he was accused of being involved in the closure of Eskişehir Prison, of being a PKK courier between various prisons, in some of which he had never set foot, and of denigrating Turkey. He acknowledged involvement in the campaign to close Eskişehir Prison. 108. He was asked questions about Abdülhakim Güven, whom he had never met directly. It was alleged that Mr Güven had used him as a courier. He and his wife were accused of defending left-wing and PKK cases. 109. It was five days later, when he was presented to the Diyarbakır State Security Court, that he was informed that Mr Güven had made formal allegations against him. He was not confronted with Mr Güven during his detention as far as he was aware, having been blindfolded throughout. 110. Mr Şahin had not made any applications outside Turkey on behalf of any of his clients. He had contacted the Human Rights Association and similar institutions about the allegedly inhuman conditions in the cell system at Eskişehir prison. He had not filed any applications for clients to the European Commission of Human Rights. 111. He had signed a confrontation record and statement which he subsequently disavowed, as the signature had been made under pressure after being tortured. 112. He was taken before an Investigating Judge who apologised for having to arrest him and his wife despite the two children, but he had been ordered to do so by his “chief”. 113. Mr Şahin was released on 17 February 1994, together with his wife. It took him two and a half years to recover from the experience and before he could resume his legal practice in İstanbul. In the meantime he performed his military service. He had no clients left when he started work again.