The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has urged Turkey to ensure that courts rely on concrete evidence before jailing suspects pending trial, in a decision stemming from cases involving people detained after a coup attempt in 2016 over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement.
The committee said Turkish courts should use pretrial detention only as a last resort and apply safeguards consistently under the country’s criminal procedure law, which was amended to require strong suspicion based on concrete evidence before suspects can be jailed pending trial.
The decision concerns European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rulings that found violations in the detention of Alparslan Altan, a former judge on Turkey’s Constitutional Court, and Tekin Akgün, a former police officer. Both were detained after the failed coup over alleged links to the Gülen movement.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle. He dismissed the probes as a Gülenist conspiracy and later designated the movement a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after the coup attempt in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the attempted coup or any terrorist activity.
The Committee of Ministers, the Council of Europe body that supervises the enforcement of European Court of Human Rights rulings, adopted the decision at a June 9-11 human rights meeting.
The committee urged Turkish authorities to take “concrete, result-oriented measures” to ensure that judges and prosecutors apply Article 100 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which governs pretrial detention.
The European court ruled in Altan’s case that his initial detention was unlawful and that Turkish authorities had not shown reasonable suspicion that he had committed an offense.
The court also found violations in Akgün’s case, which centered on his alleged use of ByLock, an encrypted messaging app Turkish authorities treated as evidence of Gülen links. The court said the authorities had not shown that the evidence available when Akgün was first detained met the standard of reasonable suspicion.
The committee also asked Turkey to provide sample court decisions showing that the amended detention law is being applied, as well as statistical data comparing the use of pretrial detention with alternative measures, such as judicial supervision.
It requested information on steps taken or planned to prevent excessively long periods of pretrial detention.
The decision also raised concerns over restrictions on access to investigation files. The committee urged Turkey to explain what measures it has taken or plans to take to ensure that defendants have sufficient knowledge of the evidence against them.
It also asked Turkish authorities to ensure that decisions restricting access to investigation files include relevant and sufficient reasoning.
The committee further requested information on remedies for unlawful detention, including compensation awarded by Turkey’s Constitutional Court.
The Council of Europe body also noted the work of a Turkish parliamentary commission established as part of the government’s “Terrorism-Free Turkey” initiative and asked Ankara to provide details on concrete steps and a timeline for implementation.
The Committee of Ministers said it would continue examining the groups of cases at one of its human rights meetings in 2027.
