60 Officials Will Be Tried For Ceber’s Death Due To Torture

The High Criminal Court of Bakırköy has accepted the indictment about sixty officials held responsible for the arrest, torture and death of Engin Ceber.

Taylan Tanay, one of Ceber’s lawyers, said in the written announcement he made that the three of the guardians and a prison director will be prosecuted for the charge of killing a person by torture”, facing life imprisonment.

Fuat Karaosmanoğlu, prison director on duty at the time and guardians Sami Ergazi, Nihat Kızılkaya and Selahattin Apaydın, all of whom are accused of torture, are still arrested.

Moreover, the twenty-seven guardians are accused of not reporting the crime, the three guardians and the two prison directors are accused of misconduct in office and the three guardians are accused of tormenting.

In addition to this list, thirteen police officers will be prosecuted for “tormenting” once or more than once. Four gendarmerie officers are accused of malicious injury and the doctor who prepared a medical report without examination will be prosecuted for preparing a fake official document.

The European Human Rights Convention against the Turkish Penal Code

According to the indictment, the police officers who took Ceber and his friends into custody and those at the station they were taken to are among the accused as well.

The Prosecutor’s Office stated that nobody could be subjected to torture, referring to the European Human Rights Convention (EHRC). It also emphasized that the EHRC was at the same level with the Constitution and therefore came before the Turkish Penal Code (TCK).

Basing its argument on the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, the prosecutor described beating and wetting with water as “bad treatment” and based the accusation of torture on the EHRC. The prosecutor also indicated that the claim in the legal background of the 94th article of the Penal Code that the purpose of the person making the torture was a factor of the crime was not valid according to the EHRC.

The hearing is in January

Tanay said that it was important the torture accusation was in the indictment and this happened because of the public pressure.

When the accused had been arrested the prosecutors had not included the torture among the reasons, but the lawyers had opposed to this.

On September 28, Ceber and his three friends had been taken into custody for protesting the fact that the police officer who had shot and left paralyzed Ferhat Gerçek had not been arrested. They had been arrested the next day and sent to the prison.

In the prison, Ceber had been tortured and eventually lost his life at the intensive care unit of the Şişli Etfal Hospital on October 10.

The Medical Examiner’s report had emphasized that Ceber had died because of the torture he had experienced. Minister of Justice Mehmet Ali Şahin had recognized that Ceber had been tortured and apologized for it.

The first hearing will be on January 21, 2009.(EÜ/TB)