ELCI AND OTHERS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT
23
freezing cold, presumably after being hosed down with cold water. This
treatment had been inflicted on Tahir Elçi and Niyazi Çem in the toilet area
at the end of the cell corridor, from which one could hear screams, shouting
and pouring water. It was very cold outside at the time.
130. They were kept in a corridor and slept on the floor, one blanket for
three people. Each day they were fed about half a loaf of left-over bread
which had traces of other food on it. They were taken to the toilet twice a
day and were given drinking water. Deafening nationalistic music was
blaring all the time and they were blindfolded.
131. Before the Public Prosecutor Mr Kaya refuted the statement he had
signed under torture.
132. On his release being ordered by a court, the applicant and several
other lawyers were addressed by a gendarme regiment commander, Eşref
Hatipoğlu, who warned them that, just because they had been released, they
had not been cleared of suspicion as far as the security forces were
concerned.
5. Şinasi Tur
133. Mr Tur was born in 1971 and at the material time was a practising
lawyer in Diyarbakır.
134. On 15 November 1997 around 8.30 p.m. police arrived at his house
and conducted a search. A report was drawn up concluding that no
incriminating evidence had been found, and nothing was seized. Mr Tur was
taken into custody at the Diyarbakır provincial gendarmerie command.
135. Mr Tur protested at the lack of authority and jurisdiction for his
detention by the gendarmerie. He was told that he was in the hands of a
gendarmerie intelligence service - the JITEM.
136. He was detained for 26 days (25 days according to official records)
and interrogated about his professional activities and alleged involvement
with the PKK, given his legal representation of cases before the State
Security Court.
137. Mr Tur was confronted with Abdülhakim Güven, a PKK confessor
whom the applicant had met as a prisoners' representative in Diyarbakır
Prison when visiting clients there. The applicant's name and that of several
lawyers had been cited in his confessions, but Mr Tur believed that these
events would in any event have happened to him, without such
denunciations, because of his human rights involvement. Mr Tur
vehemently denied Mr Güven's allegations.
138. Contrary to official claims, he had not been confronted with his
maternal aunt's husband, Seyfettin Aslan. He denied having carried out
PKK tasks with him, including aiding, abetting and harbouring a wounded
PKK member, who, in the applicant's view, had never existed.