issued by the Registrar of the Court

ECHR 369 (2012)

09.10.2012

Turkish authorities responsible for

juvenile’s suicide in adult prison

In today’s Chamber judgment in the case of Çoşelav v. Turkey (application

no. 1413/07), which is not final¹, the European Court of Human Rights held,

unanimously, that there had been:

a violation of Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights,

and

a violation of Article 2 (lack of an effective investigation) of the Convention.

The Court found that the Turkish authorities had not only been indifferent to the

applicants’ son’s grave psychological problems, even threatening him with disciplinary

sanctions for previous suicide attempts, but had been responsible for a deterioration of

his state of mind by detaining him in a prison with adults without providing any medical

or specialist care, thus leading to his suicide.

Principal facts

The applicants, Hanife and Bekir Çoşelav, wife and husband, are Turkish nationals who

were born in 1957 and 1961 respectively and live in Istanbul.

On 17 December 2004 their 16-year-old son, Bilal, hanged himself from the iron bars of

his prison cell with his bed sheets.

He had made two previous suicide attempts. The first was on 29 December 2003 when

he tried to hang himself in the courtyard of Kars Prison juvenile wing. He was

resuscitated and returned to his cell. He subsequently had disciplinary proceedings

brought against him for “setting a bad example to other inmates”. On 19 January 2004

he tried to commit suicide again by taking an overdose. He was taken to hospital for

treatment and then transferred on 28 January 2004 to Erzurum Prison, where he was

placed a few days later in the adult wing.

Between February and December 2004 Bilal sent 22 letters to the Erzurum prison

authorities requesting to meet the prison governor urgently to discuss his personal

problems. On one occasion, after meeting the deputy governor on 15 December 2004

and his request for a transfer was refused, he tried to attack a prison warder with a

razor blade, kicked and broke the sink in his cell and set fire to his mattress.

1 Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month

period following its delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the

Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges considers whether the case deserves further

examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final judgment. If the referral

request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day.

Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for

supervision of its execution. Further information about the execution process can be found here:

www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution

On the day of his suicide, he was taken to the infirmary at 10 a.m. after repeatedly

hitting his head against his cell wall. His head injury treated, he was taken back to his

cell where he killed himself at 1.30 p.m..

A criminal investigation was immediately brought into the death with the Erzurum

prosecutor being called to the prison. A post mortem examination was carried out on the

same day, which reported that the cause of death was asphyxia. The prison officers and

prisoners questioned all claimed that they knew that Bilal had had problems. On 30

December 2004 a prosecutor instructed the prison governor to inform Bilal’s family of his

death. The criminal investigation was closed on 29 April 2005 when the prosecuting

authorities decided that no one had incited or encouraged Bilal to commit suicide. His

parents’ objection was rejected by the Oltu Assize Court on 7 February 2006.

In the meantime in November 2005, Bilal’s parents wrote to the Ministry of Justice

claiming compensation for the death of their son. Receiving no reply, they brought

administrative proceedings against the Ministry in February 2006. Those proceedings are

currently still pending before the Supreme Administrative Court.

Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court

Relying in particular on Article 2 (right to life), Mr and Mrs Çoşelav alleged that the

Turkish authorities had been responsible for the suicide of their son and that the ensuing

investigation into his death had been inadequate.

The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 26 December

2006.

Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:

Ineta Ziemele (Latvia), President,

Danutė Jočienė (Lithuania),

Dragoljub Popović (Serbia),

Işıl Karakaş (Turkey),

Guido Raimondi (Italy),

Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Portugal),

Helen Keller (Switzerland),

and also Stanley Naismith, Section Registrar.

Decision of the Court

Article 2

Responsibility for Bilal Çoşelav’s death

The Court considered that the authorities had had ample warning that Bilal Çoşelav had

been a suicide risk (two suicide attempts, self-harm and other alarming incidents such as

the attack on a prison warder). The fact that Bilal had psychological problems had been

documented by almost every national authority who had dealt with him or his death.

Similarly, every prisoner and prison officer had been aware of his problems.

Despite having been aware of such a risk, the authorities had not taken the necessary

precautions to prevent such a tragedy. It was indeed striking that on the day of Bilal’s

death, although obviously in a particularly serious and critical state of mind (to the point

that he had hit his head repeatedly against his cell wall), he had been taken back to his

cell and left on his own without supervision. What Bilal Çoşelav had needed had been

urgent help for his grave psychological problems – not disciplinary sanctions or

indifference (unfortunately referred to by the Government as “patience”).

The Court therefore concluded that the Turkish authorities had not only been responsible

for the deterioration of Bilal Çoşelav’s problems by detaining him with adult prisoners,

but had manifestly failed to provide any medical or other specialist care, in violation of

Article 2.

Effectiveness of investigation into Bilal Çoşelav’s death

The Court reiterated that an important requirement of an effective investigation was that

it was sufficiently open to public scrutiny – involving in all instances the next-of-kin of

the victim in the proceedings – to ensure accountability. However, the applicants had

only been informed of their son’s death 13 days after the event, thus preventing them

from taking part in the investigation at its early and crucial stages. Moreover, during the

investigation itself, no attempt had been made to enquire about Bilal’s reasons for

committing suicide or whether the prison authorities had been responsible in any way by

what they had done or indeed not done. It had simply been established that Bilal had

taken his own life without anyone inciting him to do so. Nor have those failings in the

criminal investigation been remedied in the compensation proceedings, which, brought in

2006, are still pending.

The Court therefore concluded that the Turkish authorities had failed to carry out an

effective investigation to establish who had been responsible for Bilal’s death and how, in

further violation of Article 2.

Article 41 (just satisfaction)

The court held that Turkey was to pay Bilal Çoşelav’s parents 45,000 euros (EUR) in in

respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 4,000 for costs and expenses.

The judgment is available only in English.

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The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of

Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European

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