European Court of Human Rights

SECOND SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 25357/10
Kerim YENİDÜNYA
against Turkey

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 5 June 2012 as a Chamber composed of:

Françoise Tulkens, President,
Danutė Jočienė,
Dragoljub Popović,
Işıl Karakaş,
Guido Raimondi,
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque,
Helen Keller, judges,
and Françoise Elens-Passos, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 14 April 2010,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Kerim Yenidünya, is a Turkish national, who was born in 1970 and lives in İstanbul.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.

The applicant was arrested and remanded in custody on 22 January and 26 January 2003 respectively. In the indictments dated 17 February 2003 and 16 January 2004 the applicant was charged with the offences of participation in a criminal organisation, extortion, murder, false imprisonment, use of false identity documents and illegal arms. The cases were joined at a later stage of the proceedings.

On 9 April 2008 the applicant was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment at the first-instance court.

On 20 July 2010 the Court of Cassation observed that the rights of the defence had been restricted before the first-instance court and quashed the judgment without any further examination.

On 31 December 2010 the applicant requested his release relying on Article 102 (2) of the Code of Criminal procedure that entered into force the same day. Considering that the time-limit laid down in the law for the length of pre-trial detention was five years, the Istanbul Assize Court ordered the applicant’s release on 12 January 2011.

The criminal proceedings were still pending at the date of introduction of the application.

COMPLAINTS

THE LAW

Even assuming that this complaint was lodged in time, the Court observes that the applicant failed to substantiate it. Despite the request made by the Registry in the letter dated 10 September 2010, the applicant did not provide any document which might suggest that he had been subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment in police custody.

It follows that this part of application must be rejected, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention for being manifestly ill-founded.

The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case file, determine the admissibility of these complaints and that it is therefore necessary, in accordance with Rule 54 § 2 (b) of the Rules of the Court, to give notice of them to the respondent Government.

As regards Article 5 § 4 of the Convention, the Court notes that the reference made in the application form by no means could be taken as a complaint which calls for an examination under the mentioned article since the applicant did not make any submission in relation thereto. Accordingly, the Court holds that no examination is needed.

It follows that this part of application must be rejected, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention for being manifestly ill-founded.

The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case file, determine the admissibility of this complaint and that it is therefore necessary, in accordance with Rule 54 § 2 (b) of the Rules of the Court, to give notice of it to the respondent Government.

The applicant further argued that the criminal proceedings were unfair on account of the lack of legal assistance to him while he had been in police custody and on account of an alleged interference with his defence rights at the last hearing. The Court observes that the criminal proceedings in issue are still pending and that these complaints were introduced prematurely.

In view of the foregoing, the Court holds that this part of the application must be rejected under Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention for failure to exhaust domestic remedies.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to adjourn the examination of the applicant’s complaints concerning the length of his pre-trial detention, the right to compensation for detention in contravention of Article 5 § 3 and the length of the criminal proceedings;

Declares the remainder of the application inadmissible.

Françoise Elens-Passos Françoise Tulkens
Deputy Registrar President