Turkey Found Guilty on Missing Shepherds Case

The European Court of Human Rights found Turkey guilty on the 1996 disappearance of 5 shepherds in Hakkari province, ordering the Turkish state to pay a total of 100,000 euros to applicants.

The court unanimously ruled that Turkey violated Article 2 of the Convention by "failing to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances of the disappearance of the applicants’ relatives".

The court also ruled that Turkey violated Article 13 of the Convention.

Timeline of events

 On 24 August 1996 an armed clash took place between members of the PKK and Turkish soldiers in the proximity of Otluca, Hakkari province, leaving 2 non-commissioned officers and 4 soldiers were killed.

On 26 August 1996 a military operation was initiated by Turkish Army in the area surrounding Otluca. After the operation the five shepherds (Ahmet Bozkır, Süleyman Tekin, Selahattin Aşkan, Lokman Kaya and Halit Ertuş), who had been in a nearby meadow grazing their sheep, went missing and nothing has been heard from them since that day.

On 6 September 1996 relatives of lost shepherd petitioned the Hakkari prosecutor’s office. The same day the Brigade commander’s office informed the Governor of Hakkari in writing that they had not arrested or detained the applicants’ missing relatives. In the opinion of the commander, the applicants’ relatives might have joined the PKK.

On 9 July 1997 Yaşar Ertuş, one of the 5 applicants, lodged a petition with the Hakkari prosecutor’s office and requested that H.O., a non-commissioned officer from the Elazığ Gendarmerie Command, be heard by the prosecutor, since that person had stated before the Turkish Parliamentary (Susurluk) Investigation Commission that during the military operation initiated on 26 August 1996, five shepherds had been killed by soldiers.

Following the request of the Hakkari prosecutor, a prosecutor in Izmir took a statement from H.O. on 8 December 1997. H.O. maintained that a non-commissioned officer, Y.Y., had told him that five shepherds had been killed during the operation in August 1996.

On 16 May 2004 the missing shepherds' families applied to ECHR. (AS/BM)