ELCI AND OTHERS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT 80 535. All the applicants were charged generally with “being subsidiary persons of an illegal organisation”, i.e. the PKK. Specific allegations relating to this charge were set out in each case, ranging from providing free or cheap legal representation to PKK members, acting as couriers, handling weapons and drugs, making financial donations, organising propaganda, etc. In the case of İmam Şahin, it was alleged, inter alia, that he had “prepared documentation showing the PKK as innocent, stating that the incidents in the region occurred with the support of the State, belittling the State and ...that [he had] faxed these to Europe and made propaganda against [the State]”. Arzu Şahin and Baki Demırhan were similarly accused of belittling the Turkish State in documentation which they had allegedly sent to European human rights associations. Sebahattin Acar, a member of the Diyarbakır Human Rights Association (the “IHD”), was accused of sending such anti-Turkish propaganda to the IHD in Europe. 536. The indictment required that all the defendants “be tried according to the rules of Law No. 2845, penalised severely under Articles 168/2, 31, 33 and 40 of the Turkish Criminal Code, and 5 of Law No. 3713, and that the offending articles recorded as being in safe-keeping be confiscated.” 14. Records of the Diyarbakır State Security Court 537. The records submitted in the case showed that, on 10 January 1993 (read 1994), Tahir Elçi's lawyer asked that documents be returned. That same day the Diyarbakır State Security Court ordered their return, and the lawyer, Mr Dinler, signed a receipt which included a reference to a file (No. 72.1) containing documents concerning “the Human Rights Commission”. 538. At the hearing on 17 February 1994 before the court, all the applicants, except for Vedat Erten and Arif Altinkalem, complained of having been tortured, ill-treated or subjected to undue pressure during gendarme/police custody. Vedat Erten and Arif Altinkalem, as well as some of the other applicants, had already made such complaints to the Investigating Judge on 10 December 1993. Arif Altinkalem referred to such treatment at the hearing before the State Security Court on 28 April 1994. 539. Some of the applicants who had been remanded in custody - Tahir Elçi, Sabahattin Acar, Mehmet Selim Kurbanoğlu, Mesut Beştaş, Vedat Erten, Arif Altinkalem, Hüsniye Ölmez, İmam Şahin and Arzu Şahin submitted a joint statement of defence to the court on 17 February 1994 and requested their release, which was granted. In their statements they denounced, inter alia, the lack of evidence against them, unlawful interrogation methods, which had led some of them to sign fabricated confession statements, and fabricated search reports by gendarmes in which it was falsely alleged that certain PKK documents had been found on them. 540. Mehmet Selim Kurbanoğlu lodged a defence statement with the court on 20 January 1997 in which, inter alia, he denounced the absence of