ERGI JUDGMENT OF 28 JULY 1998
22
safety. The death of Havva Ergi had been caused during a clash with
terrorists occurring in the course of lawful acts taken by the State to protect
the lives of its citizens from terrorism. This could in no manner disclose a
violation of its obligations under Article 2 of the Convention.
75. In the Government’s view, the Commission had wrongly applied to
the present case the principles enunciated by the Court in the McCann and
Others v. the United Kingdom judgment (27 September 1995, Series A
no. 324). Unlike the present case, the British case had concerned a security
operation organised and deliberately directed against three terrorists
suspected of preparing a bomb attack and it had been an established fact that
the persons concerned had been killed by the security forces. In that case,
the authorities had been well informed in advance of the identity of the
terrorists and the nature of the suspected crime, which they expected to be
committed within a precise and limited area outside the British metropolitan
territory. This had not been the situation in the instant case. Thus, whilst a
review by the Court of the planning and control of the operation may have
been called for in the British case, that was not so in the case at hand.
76. Moreover, the Government contested the establishment of facts
made by the Commission. It had failed to take into account the number of
lies and inconsistencies and the general uncertainty on which the whole case
had been based. This had been brought to light during the hearing before the
delegates, as had the applicant’s bad faith. In this connection the
Government stressed the following.
Whereas the applicant’s purported statement to the Human Rights
Association had referred to continuous fire by the security forces, he had
sought to impress the Commission’s delegates in his oral testimony by using
the word “bombardment”. In fact, only three spent cartridges had been
found in the village itself, which in turn showed that the exchange of fire
had not taken place inside or against the village and certainly had not been
on the scale alleged. Mr Ergi had also stated that the fifteen cartridges he
had allegedly found were situated at about 700 metres from his house. The
physical distance involved was in complete contradiction with the theory
that clashes had occurred within the village.
Of even greater detriment to the applicant’s case and to add weight to
this allegation, up until the hearing of 7 February 1996 Muharrem Ergi had
clearly and firmly claimed that he was an eyewitness to the incident on
29 September 1993. However, it appeared from his observations submitted
to the Commission a year after the admissibility decision that he had not
been present during the incident (see paragraph 35 above). In another
attempt by the applicant to impress members of the Commission he claimed
in his initial application that, prior to the so-called “bombardment”, about
200 families had lived in the village and that the number had subsequently