The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has faulted Turkey over the lengthy pretrial detention experienced by four police chiefs who were detained in 2015 and 2016, with one of them in pretrial detention for more than six years.
The court announced its decision in the case of Özoğlu and others v. Türkiye on Thursday. The judges examined the applications of four former police chiefs — Yaser Özoğlu, Polat Kongur, Murat Söğüt and Ramazan Akyürek — jointly due to the similar subject matter of their applications.
Özoğlu spent more than three-and-a-half years in pretrial detention, while Kongur was held for five-and-a-half years. Söğüt was jailed for around four years, and Akyürek for six years before their trials were concluded.
The Strasbourg-based court found a violation of Article 5 § 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) concerning unreasonably lengthy pretrial detention.
The court ruled that Turkey pay 5,300 euros to Özoğlu, 6,500 euros to Kongur, 5,100 euros to Söğüt and 6,500 euros to Akyürek in non-pecuniary damages in addition to 250 euros to each for costs and expenses for their applications.
The four were arrested as part of sweeping operations targeting non-loyalist police officers in the aftermath of corruption investigations that were revealed to the public in December 2013.
The December 17-25 bribery and corruption investigations shook the country at the time. The probe implicated, among others, the family members of four cabinet ministers as well as the children of then-prime minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Erdoğan claimed that the corruption scandal was fabricated by sympathizers of the faith-based Gülen movement in the police department with the aim of overthrowing his government. The movement strongly denied the accusation.
Hundreds of police officers and members of the judiciary were detained and some arrested for alleged illegal activity in the course of the corruption investigations.