issued by the Registrar of the Court

ECHR 059 (2014)

27.02.2014

Fraud suspect’s presumption of innocence was not violated

by a court’s statements about him

in separate proceedings against his co-suspects

In today’s Chamber judgment in the case of Karaman v. Germany (application no. 17103/10), which

is not final¹, the European Court of Human Rights held, by a majority, that there had been:

No violation of Article 6 § 2 (presumption of innocence) of the European Convention on Human

Rights.

The case concerned Mr Karaman’s complaint that his right to be presumed innocent was breached

on account of references to his participation in a criminal offence in a judgment handed down by a

German court in criminal proceedings against several of his co-suspects, who were tried separately

from him.

The Court found in particular that: the trial court could not have avoided mentioning the role played

by Mr Karaman in order to assess the guilt of one of the co-suspects in the fraud case; the language

used by the trial court had made it sufficiently clear that any mention of Mr Karaman did not entail a

determination of his guilt; and, the German courts had emphasised that it would be contrary to the

presumption of innocence to attribute any guilt to him on the basis of the outcome of the trial

against his co-suspects.

Principal facts

The applicant, Zekeriya Karaman, is a Turkish national who was born in 1952 and lives in Istanbul. He

is the director of the management board of a Turkish TV station which also broadcasts in Germany

via a TV station operated by a company established under German law.

In 2006, the German prosecution authorities started investigations against Mr Karaman and several

other people on suspicion of having fraudulently used – for commercial purposes and for their own

benefit – a large share of funds donated to two charity associations which had made appeals for

donations on television programmes broadcasted by the said TV stations in Germany and Turkey.

One of the charity associations had been founded by a leading staff member of the Turkish TV

station and the other by G. who had, alternately, occupied the position of managing director or

authorised signatory in the TV company registered in Germany. The criminal proceedings against Mr

Karaman were subsequently separated from those against the co-suspects.

In September 2008, the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court convicted two of the co-suspects,

including G., of aggravated fraud acting as members of a joint criminal enterprise with its leaders in

Turkey. Another co-suspect was convicted of having aided and abetted in the commission of the

offence. The judgment made several references to the role played by the heads of the criminal

organisation in Turkey and, in that context, mentioned Mr Karaman’s full name numerous times.

Subsequently, articles in a German newspaper and in several Turkish newspapers referred to him as

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

the main leader of the criminal organisation. Mr Karaman lodged a complaint with the German

Federal Constitutional Court alleging a violation of the principle of presumption of innocence. On 3

September 2009 that court dismissed his complaint as inadmissible (file no. 2 BvR 2540/08). The

criminal proceedings before the German courts against Mr Karaman relating to the alleged fraud are

still pending.

Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court

Mr Karaman complained of a violation of Article 6 § 2 (presumption of innocence) on account of

references to his participation in a criminal offence in the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court’s

judgment of September 2008.

The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 22 March 2010.

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

Mark Villiger (Liechtenstein), President,

Angelika Nußberger (Germany),

Boštjan M. Zupančič (Slovenia),

Ganna Yudkivska (Ukraine),

André Potocki (France),

Paul Lemmens (Belgium),

Aleš Pejchal (the Czech Republic),

and also Claudia Westerdiek, Section Registrar.

Decision of the Court

Article 6 § 2

The Court considered that there might be an interference with a defendant’s right to be presumed

innocent on account of statements made in a judgment handed down against his co-suspects tried in

separate proceedings. At the same time, the Court accepted the German Government’s argument

that in complex criminal proceedings involving several people who could not be tried together,

references by the trial court to the participation of third persons, who might later be tried

separately, might be indispensable for the assessment of the guilt of those who were on trial.

However, if facts concerning the involvement of third parties had to be introduced, the trial court

was to provide no more information than was necessary for the assessment of the criminal

responsibility of those on trial.

The Court noted that German criminal law was clear in that it did not allow any inference to be

drawn about the guilt of a person from criminal proceedings in which he or she had not participated.

The statements by the trial court in Mr Karaman’s case had to be read in that context. The Court

observed that the German trial court, in the proceedings against Mr Karaman’s co-suspects, had to

assess to what extent G. had been integrated into a criminal organisation which had its leaders in

Turkey. In order to decide on that question the trial court had to find out who had made the plans to

misuse the donations and, on that basis, who had given which instruction to whom. In that context

the trial court could not avoid mentioning the concrete role played and even the intentions held by

all the people behind the scenes in Turkey, including Mr Karaman.

As regards the language used by the trial court, in its written version of the judgment, as published

on that court’s website in November 2008, Mr Karaman was consistently referred to as “separately

prosecuted”. The trial court had thus underlined that it was not called upon to determine his guilt

but, in line with the German law on criminal procedure, was only concerned with assessing the

criminal responsibility of those accused within the scope of the proceedings at issue. The legal

assessment in the judgment alluded to the “persons behind the scenes” and did not contain any

statement that might be understood as an assessment of Mr Karaman’s guilt. Finally, both the

introductory remarks to the judgment, as published on the trial court’s website, and the decision of

the German Federal Constitutional Court of September 2009 dismissing Mr Karaman’s constitutional

complaint, emphasised that it would be contrary to the presumption of innocence to attribute any

guilt to him and that an assessment of his possible involvement in the crime had to be left to the

main proceedings to be conducted against him.

The Court was therefore satisfied that the German courts had avoided, as far as possible in the

context of a judgment involving several co-suspects, giving the impression of prejudging Mr

Karaman’s guilt. The Court concluded that the statements concerning Mr Karaman in the judgment

of the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court of September 2008 had not breached the principle of the

presumption of innocence. There had accordingly been no violation of Article 6 § 2.

Separate opinion

Judges Villiger and Yudkivska expressed a joint dissenting opinion, which is annexed to the

judgment.

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 Convention on Human Rights.