Too Late Too Little in Torture Case
16 years after this murder, four suspected police officers Hasan Cavit Orhan, Süleyman Sinkil, İbrahim Dedeoğlu and Sadi Çaylı have been condemned to 8 years and 10 months imprisonment each on grounds of "manslaughter beyond intention".
Despite the court ruling last week, they still stay free. If their sentences are approved, they will serve only 21 months in prison.
The court turned down the Altınbaş family lawyer Oya Aydın's appeal for a arrest warrant for the convicts. Four police officers immediately took the case to the Supreme Court of Appeals.
Commenting on the judicial process, both lawyer Aydın and Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV) chair Yavuz Önen say "it's too late and too little".
Following the case since 1998, Aydın evaluates the court decision as "insufficient" considering the alleged crime. "All police officers should have been tried with voluntary manslaughter", which would require a heavier sentence, she says.
She also objects to the reduction of penalties for the convicts and criticizes the length of the trial.
From a different perspective, she mentions the importance of public pressure in such cases.
"The trial was unclaimed by the public in the beginning, so they could easily kept the trial at suspense. When the first ruling was revealed, tens of police officers ganged up in the front of the court. We were under such pressure. In time, increasing public pressure brought the case into view.
Önen agrees with this assertation. He quotes another example, another torture case where six teenagers in Manisa had to endure a lengthy trial but public attention helped condemn the offenders.
"Those trials will help the fight against torture in this country". But he's not content with the late ruling:
"The court gave the minimum sentence possible and retained from punishing the crime of torture".
The trial process
Birtan Altınbaş (born in 1967 in the village of Sarıpolat in the Markara district of Tekirdağ province) was taken into custody by police officers affiliated with the Anti-Terror branch of the Ankara Security Directorate on January 9, 1991 upon leaving Hacettepte University, where he was a student in the Department of Computer Engineering. While in custody, he died as a result of torture on January 15, 1991.
Pursuant a complaint filed by a number of individuals and organizations, including witnesses to the torture in questıon, an investigation was initiated by the Ankara Public Prosecutor.
The trial is regarded as one of the longest torture trials in Turkey.
Defendants prolonged the trials using procedural loopholes such as constantly changing lawyers which results in deferrals.
In 2004, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had sent a letter to Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and told him he was worried the Altinbas trial would not end before the statute of limitation runs out and thus the police officers would not be punished. (AO/EÜ)
* For further information on the case, please click here to reach an article by Altinbas' lawyers, as published in a Human Rights Association (İHD) bulletin in 2004.