A Turkish court has acquitted three police officers and a doctor of charges of torturing former teacher Eyüp Birinci in custody, despite a prior Constitutional Court ruling that found his rights were violated and confirmed credible evidence of torture.
According to the TR724 news website, the Antalya 3rd High Criminal Court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to convict the defendants, dismissing Birinci’s testimony, medical evidence of a ruptured colon that required surgery and statements from fellow detainees.
Police officers Muhsin Türkel and İbrahim Halil Kuşak were charged with torture, while doctor Fevzi Yılmaz and another officer, Süleyman Kundakçı, were charged with negligent conduct in relation to torture. All four defendants were acquitted.
Birinci was detained on July 24, 2016, during a wave of arrests following a coup attempt, over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, which the government accuses of orchestrating the plot. He said he was subjected to sexual assault, beatings and insults while in custody at the Antalya Police Station.
During his detention Birinci reportedly fainted from the torture and was taken to a hospital on July 29, where doctors discovered internal bleeding. According to his family, Birinci’s colon was ruptured from torture inflicted with a police baton. However, doctors did not issue a medical report documenting the alleged torture and instead attributed his injuries to a fall down a staircase.
A fellow detainee who shared a cell with Birinci for several days testified to witnessing his physical and psychological deterioration, saying that Birinci returned from one interrogation session in visibly worse condition.
Birinci took his case to the Constitutional Court in January 2018 after prosecutors declined to investigate his torture allegations and a lower court rejected his appeal
In 2021, the Constitutional Court ruled that his rights had been violated, citing credible torture allegations and the authorities’ failure to conduct an effective investigation. The court ordered that Birinci be paid 40,000 Turkish lira ($1,240) in compensation for the abuse he suffered in police custody.
Birinci was arrested on August 19, 2016, and dismissed from his job by a government decree following the coup attempt. He was later sentenced to more than eight years in prison on terrorism charges due to his alleged Gülen links and was released from prison in April 2022 after serving his sentence.
Following the coup attempt, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan immediately accused the Gülen movement, inspired by the late US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, of orchestrating the plot and significantly expanded an already underway crackdown on the movement’s supporters.
Erdoğan’s campaign against the movement began after corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as members of his family and inner circle, which he dismissed as a conspiracy, and formally designated it as a terrorist organization in May 2016. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Allegations of torture and mistreatment have become worryingly common in Turkey since the coup attempt, when thousands of people were detained and arrested on bogus terrorism or coup charges.
According to a report by the UN special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, on his mission to Turkey from November 27 to December 2, 2016, “torture and other forms of ill-treatment were widespread” in Turkey. “[T]here seemed to be a serious disconnect between declared government policy and its implementation in practice,” the special rapporteur noted.
