By Akın Atalay, Attorney at Law
August 28, 2013
The İstanbul 12th High Criminal Court sentenced Pınar Selek to life in prison on January 24, 2013. Selek's lawyers have appealed the verdict. They started to wait for the reasoned decision, which was written at the end of March and sent to the lawyers in April. In response to the reasoned decision, the lawyers appealed and filed to the Supreme Court in June of 2013.
On August 27, 2013, news appeared throughout the media and spread quickly: “A Red Notice was Granted for Pınar Selek.” We immediately examined the official site of Interpol to check the accuracy of the news as the site publishes the Red Notice List and the authority to grant a red notice rests only with the Interpol General Secretariat. Thus, a country’s juridical or administrative entities do not have any authority to grant red notice. We realized the fact that the Court requested to grant a Red Notice by the initiation of Ministry of Justice. This morning, we examined correspondent documents in the case file to understand how and when all these happened. It was surprising to see the pace of our bureaucracy and the persistence of our security forces to solve an issue from the beginning till the end until they manage to reach their objective. Here is how the extradition and request for red notice process was initiated:
On January 24, 2013 when the Court sentenced Selek to life in prison, it also issued an arrest ruling. The following day, on January 25, 2013, the Ministry of Interior (Headquarters of Turkish National Police) sent a letter to the Ministry of Justice and asked: “Pınar Selek is in Strasbourg, France. What should we do?” It is, of course, impossible not to be surprised by how quickly some case files are handled relative to others in the country. Four days later, on January 29, the Ministry of Justice wrote a petition to the Court through the Istanbul Public Prosecutor stating that: "Because the party’s address abroad has been identified, a request for extradition can be made from the related country (France). Additionally, in the first phase, a red notice can be granted as a warrant for her arrest as it takes less time relative to the extradition procedures. In this regard, in addition to the extradition document, the requirement to submit a red notice request form is also evaluated by our Ministry.”
This is how the process started. The Court evaluated the extradition forms, documents and the request form for the Red Notice in March. With the intention of not drowning you in details or not confusing you, we will not attempt to elaborate on all the details of how the arrest decision and the order has been transformed into a detention warrant or how the summary bill of indictment in the red notice form includes subject matters that do not really exist. This case file itself is totally absurd and every aspect of it is problematic. It is fair to say that it is a legal disaster.
Later, the Ministry of Justice sent another notice to the Court indicating that Red Notice Form has not been filled out completely and contained some mistakes; the form should be edited. The Court sent back the new form again in May. The rest is the responsibility of the Ministry’s General Directorate for International Law and Foreign Relations: Was the Red Notice Request form submitted to the Interpol General Secretariat? Was the extradition application made to the French legal authorities? We do not know these facts. Might the media call the Ministry to learn about its current status?
Not only the Ministry, but even the Court failed to provide us any notice despite its legal obligation to inform the parties to the case of any decisions and related proceedings. This seems to be surreptitious. We allegedly hold the right to object to the court’s proceedings and decisions in accordance with our democratic laws. The matter of objection aside, we were not even informed of the decisions that have been made or proceedings that have been conducted. It is difficult to believe the right to defend oneself is sacred and cannot be limited.
It is impossible to foresee what Interpol or French legal authorities would do in response to the request for the red notice. However, to demonstrate our country’s success in this subject, it would be helpful to mention certain information that we have gained from official figures.
In the last 10 years (as of 2012), Turkey has requested extradition from the EU-member states on 298 occasions concerning terror-related crimes. Only 9 of these requests have been accepted. 173 of these requests were rejected, and 97 of them were under investigation; we cancelled 19 of them. In regards to the figures with specific to France, there were 28 requests, of which none have been accepted. Turkey cancelled three, France rejected 11, and 14 are still pending. Now, the turn for Pınar Selek’s extradition application has come. Do you think the first extradition request that would be accepted in the last 10 years will be Pınar’s case? Will France, which has not accepted any expedition requests from Turkey in the last decade concerning terror crimes, accept an extradition request in a case that has been followed closely and is known throughout different platforms for the inequity and the unjust nature of the circumstances and verdict? It is unlikely to happen. It is a surreal situation. In addition, the EU Parliament and EU institutions have publicly declared their concerns regarding this case.
We also would like to present one more fact: EU-member states accepted only 9 cases out of our 298 extradition demands (and they support terrorism in the country according to official government policy and discourse). Then, what is our country’s success rate in meeting their extradition demands: In the last 10 years, EU-member states made 7 extradition applications for terror crimes. While 5 of them were accepted, only one of them was rejected. According to these numbers, our country’s susceptibility to collaboration for terrorism is amazing; one wishes the EU-member states could be more like us (!)