ELCI AND OTHERS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT
50
upper part. There was a wooden plank on the floor and a military camp bed.
Detainees received the same food as the soldiers, and their needs were
catered for. There was fuel central heating which had replaced burning
stoves.
25. Ünal Haney
352. Mr Haney was born in 1958 and at the material time was a Public
Prosecutor (no. 26050) at the State Security Court.
353. In Diyarbakır it was the Chief Public Prosecutor at the State
Security Court who gave orders to detain people. Investigations could be
instigated on the basis of verbal instructions; the law did not require a
written order.
354. Mr. Haney stated that he had had nothing to do with the
apprehension of the present applicants. They were apprehended on the
instructions of the Chief Public Prosecutor, Bekir Selçuk, in accordance
with Article 104 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Such instructions could
have been given orally. Mr. Haney did not know if the Chief Prosecutor
would have kept a note of such oral instructions.
355. The applicants were brought before him on 10 December 1993. He
explained the charges against them and asked to hear their defence. He read
out their statements as recorded by the gendarmes, listened to their defence
and recorded fresh statements.
356. They denied the charges and complained of ill-treatment, all of
which was recorded. If there were corroborative evidence of ill-treatment in
a file, he would take action.
357. He had been a Prosecutor for some 10 years by then and knew what
an ill-treated person would look like. So he considered that the applicants'
mere allegations were insufficient to be taken seriously. The bruise found on
someone's knee did not indicate torture. 95% of detainees connected with
terrorist offences claimed to have been tortured. It was a mere defence
tactic. He never came across a case which required further action from him
because of alleged ill-treatment. Anyway, it was not his duty to investigate
allegations of torture, being a State Security Court Prosecutor, and the
applicants, all lawyers, could have filed complaints in the normal courts.
358. Mr Haney had drawn up the indictment in the applicants' case
based on Abdülhakim Güven's considerable evidence, and the incriminating
documents about the PKK found in the offices of nine of the lawyers.
359. The search of Tahir Elçi's office revealed a note addressed to
“Comrade Tahir Elçi”, bearing the stamp “ERNK” (the political wing of the
PKK) and sent to him by the PKK. A note addressed “to the office of the
co-ordinator of the Amed State (Amed being the PKK's name for
Diyarbakır) was found in Vedat Erten's possession. It was a note written to
PKK members in the mountains and who were active in the area. A note