ELCI AND OTHERS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT 47 requested his authority to detain. The gendarmerie could take people into custody on their own initiative as long as the judicial authorities were informed and approved the decision. Written authority could exceptionally be given after a person had been detained, but in such a case the authority would be back-dated to the day when the person had been taken into custody. 324. Mr Güven's accounts confirmed other information in the gendarmerie's possession, the most important of which had been publications, documents and materials which were deemed unlawful and had been found in prisons during searches. 325. Mr Gül did not participate in the interrogation, but followed the results. The chief of interrogations at that time was Firat Yavuz Yedekçi. There was a special interrogation room measuring some 15 to 20 square metres or more in the Diyarbakır provincial gendarmerie command. One person interrogated. If a statement were to be taken, there was sometimes a typist, although the statement was recorded elsewhere. In the meantime, notes were taken by the interrogator himself which were not archived. People were never blindfolded during interrogation, but were under spotlights which prevented the interrogators' identification. The detainee sat on a stool in a comfortable environment. 326. Adjacent to the interrogation room was a listening room, connected electronically, so that questions could be relayed from the (unseen) chief interrogator to the interrogator, to be put to the detainee. 327. The results of the applicants' interrogations were reported verbally to Mr Gül, but he no longer remembered what was said. The interrogations were carried out strictly according to the law, despite allegations to the contrary in the media and by the PKK. 328. Some of the lawyers refused to sign certain documents, such as the confrontation reports with Abdülhakim Güven who had recognised all the applicants and made certain allegations. People were free not to sign such documents. 329. The jurisdiction of the police and gendarmerie could sometimes overlap and they could operate within each other's jurisdiction provided that there was proper notification. The external security of places of detention was the gendarmerie's responsibility. Accordingly, even though most of the applicants were arrested within the municipal boundaries of Diyarbakır, under police jurisdiction, it was for the gendarmerie to effect their detention and interrogation. 330. Mr Gül acknowledged that the applicant Arif Altinkalem was detained with others on 16 November 1993. He could only assume that there must have been good reason for that even though Mr Altinkalem's name did not feature in the previous statements of Mr Güven, and the applicants had not at that stage been interrogated, so his name would not