A draft decision submitted by a prosecutor in a US court is expected to lead to the extradition of Eylem Tok, the mother of a 17-year-old dual Turkish-US citizen accused of causing a fatal car accident in İstanbul and fleeing to the US, Voice of America (VOA) Turkish edition reported on Thursday.
Tok’s son Timur Cihantimur is accused of driving without a license in İstanbul on March 1 and causing a crash that killed 29-year-old Oğuz Murat Acı and injured four others. Following the accident, Cihantimur and his mother flew to Egypt and then to the United States. Turkish authorities have requested their extradition.
Turkish novelist and poet Tok and her son were arrested earlier in June pursuant to an extradition request from Turkey as they were about to tour an expensive private school in Boston.
According to VOA, Kristen Kearney, assistant US attorney at the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, on Thursday presented a draft decision explaining the reasons for Tok’s extradition to the Chief Magistrate Judge Donald Cabell of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
The draft decision was reportedly presented through a publicly accessible online system a month after Tom Heinemann, a legal advisor with the US Department of State, said in a letter addressed to Kearney, that the Department of State has determined, based on new information informally received from the Turkish government, that both offenses for which Turkey originally requested Tok’s extradition meet the relevant requirements under a 1980 treaty between the two countries.
The letter also stated that once Turkey formally submits the new information to the department through diplomatic channels as required by the treaty, a new declaration will be signed, making clear that the department believes that offenses are “extraditable” under the treaty.
The draft decision submitted for the signature of the case judge one-and-a-half months before the decision hearing scheduled for September 11 says, “I certify the extradition of the Fugitive, Eylem Tok, to Türkiye, on the charges of Destroying, Concealing or Altering Evidence, in violation of Article 281 of the Criminal Code of Türkiye, and Protecting an Offender, in violation of and punishable by Article 283 of the Criminal Code of Türkiye.”
Cahit Akbulut, a lawyer at the New York Bar Association who has been closely following the case, on Thursday told VOA that it was “extraordinary” that the draft decision had been made public so far in advance of the hearing.
He said judges usually prepare the final decision by making changes to the draft text, but added that he doesn’t expect Cabell to make any changes to the draft text about Tok’s extradition.
Even if the court orders the mother’s extradition to Turkey, the US State Department will decide on the issue.