Impunity prevails in the case of the killing of lawyer Tahir Elçi: Diyarbakir high criminal court acquits defendants

Türkiye

The unlawful killing of lawyer Tahir Elçi
Tahir Elçi was a prominent and internationally recognized human rights lawyer who spoke out against state violence and brought several leading cases before the European Court of Human Rights. In October 2015, while acting president of the Diyarbakır Bar Association, he was targeted by pro-government news outlets and faced harassment and death threats after he publicly questioned the renewed use of armed violence by the state for solving the ‘Kurdish issue’, which also led him to be formally charged with ‘disseminating terrorist propaganda’. He was killed while holding a press conference on 28 November 2015, when an armed clash took place between police officers and two fleeing PKK militia members.

Lack of an effective investigation and due process defects
Following his death, the authorities failed to carry out an independent effective investigation. The onsite investigation only commenced 110 days after the incident, resulting in the disappearance of important evidence. Crucial frames of the CCTV-footage recordings at the scene went missing. The criminal procedure started more than four years after the killing and was exclusively prompted by Forensic Architecture’s incriminating report on the involvement of police. The indictment prepared against the three police officers present at the scene contained serious flaws and during the 11 hearings that took place, international observers documented flagrant infringements of the right to a due process and a fair trial. The court refused to hear important witnesses or carry out other investigative measures in order to find out what happened. None of the reasonable and relevant requests of (representatives of the) victims were granted. Furthermore, complaints about alleged torture and other ill-treatment in connection to witness statements were blatantly disregarded. These concerns were also highlighted in communications to numerous UN Special Rapporteurs and public statements by a coalition of international organisations, including Lawyers for Lawyers.

The hearing 
At the hearing on 12 June 2024, hundreds of lawyers and over 40 presidents and other representatives of bar associations from all over Türkiye were present, as well as about 16 international observers from six European countries representing their bar associations and lawyers organisations (including Lawyers for Lawyers). Several lawyers and dozens of representatives of bar associations delivered impressive speeches, all denouncing the unwillingness of the prosecution and the court to proceed with the caseand find out the truth about the killing of Tahir Elҁi. At the request of the prosecutor, the court acquitted the three policemen who had been indicted.

Prior to the announcement of the verdict, the lawyers and Tahir Elҁi’s family left the court room in protest of what they knew would be an unfulfilling outcome, and marched to the four-legged minaret in the town centre of Dyiarbakir where Tahir Elҁi was killed.

Continued call for justice
The outcome of the Tahir Elҁi case hearing and ensuing lack of accountability is a blow to human rights, lawyers at risk in Türkiye, and Tahir Elçi’s family and colleagues. It is a depressing example of impunity, of the absence of an independent, impartial judiciary and of the lack of justice and the rule of law. In this case, Türkiye has clearly failed to meet its responsibility under international law to provide an effective remedy for human rights violations, which includes ensuring the right to access to justice, and to adequately safeguard lawyers where their security is threatened as a result of discharging their functions, which includes the obligation to properly investigate, arrest, and prosecute the perpetrators of attacks against them.

Nahit Eren, the president of the Diyarbakır Bar Association, announced that the case will be taken to the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights. The next day, 75 Bar associations issued a joint statement, with the central message: ‘We will never give up the struggle for justice for Tahir Elҁi’.

Lawyers for Lawyers will continue to support the call for justice and will keep on urging the Turkish authorities to take up their responsibilities under international law.

Download the statement here.