İpek and Others v. Turkey (17019/02)

Date	20090203
Article	5
Decision	violation

The applicants, Çetin İpek, Murat Özpamuk and Seyithan Demirel, are Turkish nationals who live in Diyarbakır (Turkey). They were born in 1985; at the time of the events they were 16 years old. In December 2001 the applicants were arrested at Mr Özpamuk’s house and taken into police custody in order to establish whether they had any link with an illegal armed organisation, the PKK (the Workers’ Party of Kurdistan). They were released pending trial in February 2002. Relying on Article 5 §§ 1, 3, 4 and 5 (right to liberty and security), the applicants complained in particular about the unlawfulness of their arrest and the excessive length of their detention in police custody. The Court first held unanimously that there had been no violation of Article 5 § 1 (c) concerning Mr Özpamuk, but that there had been a violation of that provision in respect of Mr İpek and Mr Demirel, who, the Court considered, had been arrested mainly because they happened to be at Mr Özpamuk’s house at the time it had been searched. The Court further held that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 3 in respect of all three applicants, who were minors at the time, on account of their detention in police custody for more than three days, in the absence of any safeguards against possible arbitrary acts by State authorities. Lastly, the Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 4 on account of the lack of a domestic remedy by which the applicants could have challenged the lawfulness of their detention, and a further violation of Article 5 § 5 concerning the lack of an enforceable right to compensation for the breach of their rights under Article 5 §§ 1, 3 and 4. In respect of non-pecuniary damage, the Court awarded Mr İpek and Mr Demirel EUR 1,500, each, and EUR 1,000 to Mr Özpamuk. The applicants were awarded EUR 2,000, jointly, for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in English.)