ELCI AND OTHERS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT 84 sided with the victims of violated rights. Lawyers were unlawfully detained, tortured, arrested and prosecuted on the basis of fabricated evidence. Some of the lawyers were convicted of offences. Others' trials were still pending. The applicants' “collective case” was referred to. b) The opinion of Mehmet Nur Terzi, an Izmir lawyer, on Articles 58 and 59 of Law No. 1136 on Advocates 555. Mr Terzi confirmed the opinion of Prosecutor Ünal Haney that the protection afforded to lawyers as to their arrest, detention and interrogation (requiring the authority and / or presence of a Public Prosecutor) was overridden at the time by Law No. 2845 on the establishment and judicial practice of the State Security Courts in respect of suspected terrorist offences (see paragraph 363 above). The rationale for this was that crimes which fell within the remit of the State Security Courts were crimes against the State and therefore could have nothing to do with lawyers' professional duties, and were personal crimes. 556. However, circulars issued by the Ministry of Justice affirmed that such cases should still be investigated by the State Prosecutors, not the security forces. The fact that these compulsory directives were not followed in certain provinces led to a protest from many legal institutions, particularly the Bar Associations. c) Extracts from the official Susurluk report on unknown perpetrator killings1 557. Reference was made in this report to a certain Mahmut Yıldırım (code name “Yeşil”) who at one time was assigned to the Diyarbakır gendarmerie command. He was responsible for several murders of PKK members, the extortion of money and illegal interrogations which, if unsuccessful, resulted in the disappearance of the person concerned. In effect, he led a “death squad”, which went unpunished. d) Statement of the Minister of Justice, Mr Kazan, reported in the daily newspaper “Sabah” on 14 November 1996, concerning the allegedly unethical practices of certain lawyers 558. The Minister was reported as saying that around 300 lawyers within the Diyarbakır Human Rights Association, receiving money from abroad, 1 See also Akkoç v. Turkey, judgment of 10 October 2000, nos. 22947/93 and 22948/93, §§ 37-40, ECHR 2000-X.