15-Year-Old Ö.S. Released after 14 Months in Detention

15-year-old Ö.S. was released pending trial on 3 October after having been kept in detention for 14.5 months. He was arrested on 20 July 2010 in Erzurum when he was 14 years of age under allegations of "membership of an illegal organization".

He appeared at court for the first time on 6 September this year. His file was then tried by a judge who was not familiar with the case because the judge who was initially dealing with the file had been appointed to a different position. The new judge decided that Ö.S. should remain in detention and postponed the trial to 29 September 2011.

This time, the judge who was familiar with the case presided the hearing. However, Ö.S. was not released by the order of the president judge but upon the decision of the superior Erzurum 3^rd High Criminal Court.

"Right to interrogation not recognized"

Ö.S.'s lawyer Müşir Deliduman said that three police officers on duty at the Anti-Terror Branch were listened to with priority at the third hearing. Deliduman indicated that the defence party was not granted the right to a direct interrogation or cross examination as defined in Article 201 of the Criminal Procedure Law (CMK) on "posing direct questions.

The lawyer claimed that the judge helped the witnesses in giving similar statements by asking guiding questions. Nevertheless, their statements were completely contradicting each other, the lawyer indicated.

"Punishment was in the judge's pocket: 4 years, 9 months, 15 days"

Deliduman drew attention to the fact that they were not able to present their defence although the judge listened to procedural defences. The lawyer summarized the hearing as follows:

* Time should have been allocated to us for the final defence speech. We were not given this time and made our procedural objections without having presented our final defence. The judge proceeded to the stage of decision without having seen the juvenile for two minutes.

* In fact, the defence we tried to present would have been in vain. At the stage of decision, the judge pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and dictated word for word the correspondent legal provision to the court clerk. This means that the judge defined beforehand under which article and paragraph the defendant was going to be punished.

* The judge reached a decision without having talked to the juvenile for two minutes and without developing an opinion about him. Without asking questions according to the formalities like 'Do you regret what you have done?' or 'Do you request a postponement of judgement?' the judge sentenced Ö.S. to imprisonment of four years, nine months and 15 days.

* Additionally, the judge refrained from postponing the judgement because of the supposed probability of reoffending. This is interesting considering the fact that the judge did not see any of the juvenile's behaviour and that he did not take his statement.

* The probability of flight was shown as the reason for keeping Ö.S. in detention pending trial. The 100^th Article of the European Convention on Human Rights on the right to freedom and security stipulates that "The possibility of escape cannot be abstract but must be based on concrete indications".

"Released by superior court"

Deliduman reported that they filed an appeal with the Erzurum 3^rd High Criminal Court against the punishment, the lack of postponement and the detention. Ö.S. was released pending trial three days later. The superior court quashed the prison sentence handed down by the local court. (EKN/VK)