Süleyman Gasyak
person- Image
- Sex
- Male
- Civil status
- Married
- Date body found
- Mar 8, 1994
- Occupation
- Merchant
- Event description
Per ruling delivered on 13th January 2010 by the European Court of Human Rights, on 6th March 1994, Süleyman Gasyak, a driver living in Cizre, and his uncle, taxi driver Ömer Candoruk, set out for Silopi, picking up Abdülaziz Gasyak (13) and Yahya Akman (17) on the way. Before they could reach their destination, they were stopped by 6-7 armed plainclothes men, including two former PKK members-turned JİTEM informants. A driver on the other side of the road witnessed the four villagers being beaten and forced into another car that took off towards Cizre. Several women working in the fields close to the Bozalan village saw them being shot in the open field and informed the families. Two days later, the relatives of the victims found the bodies buried under heavy rocks in the vicinity of the Bozalan village, took them to their own village and buried them there.
Fear kept the families from pursuing the case until 11th July 2002. Two law suits brought against two of the suspects in 2003 and eight of the suspects later in 2009 both ended in acquittal on grounds of lack of sufficient evidence in 2005 and 2015 respectively.
Meanwhile the families also applied to the ECHR. On 13th January 2010, the Court found the Turkish State to be in violation of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights and asked that compensation be paid to the families.
- Geolocation
Latitude: 37.33234600000001
Longitude: 42.185474000000006
- Geolocation
- City
- Şırnak
- District
- Cizre
- Date of disappearance
- Mar 6, 1994
- Year of disappearance
- 1994
- Age at the time of disappearance
- Yaş:25
- Status of the victim
- Discovered dead and returned to the family
- Latest status as suspect in the act
- Yargılandı fakat beraat etti
- Yargıtay beraat kararını onadı
- Type of source material
- Interview with family member (audiotape)
- Press release or report of human rights organisations
- Printed or online news
- Decision by the prosecution office
- Davada delil yetersizliği nedeniyle beraat kararı verildi; Yargıtay beraat kararını onadı
- Name of the court case
- Case of Temizoz and Others
- Verdict of ECHR
- Violation of the right(s)
- Articles violated according to ECHR verdict
- Article 2: Procedural violation of the right to life
- Summary of the legal proceedings
Per ruling delivered on 13th January 2010 by the European Court of Human Rights, the initial investigation into the disappearance and following extrajudicial killing of four villagers were held by the Cizre Gendarmerie forces, who only provided a short and undetailed crime scene investigation report along with a ballistic analysis showing that two separate guns were used in the crime. None of the victims’ relatives or eye witnesses were interviewed and although the victims were plain villagers, the investigation concluded that the victims might have been killed by PKK for serving as village guards.
Years later in 2003, a criminal case was opened when the families of the victims reached out to two eye witnesses and convinced them to testify. However, the two suspects were acquitted two years later in 2005 due to lack of evidence. The second case which was opened in 2009 regarding 21 victims including Gasyaks, Candoruk and Akman followed the similar pattern: 8 suspects accused of abduction, disappearance and extrajudicial killing of 21 victims were all acquitted due to lack of evidence in 2015.
In the meantime, Gasyaks, Candoruk and Akman families applied to European Court of Human Rights in 2003. In 2010, the Court decided that victims' right to life was violated on procedural grounds and ruled to compensation for non-pecuniary damage.
The details of the recent case can be reviewed at https://www.failibelli.org/en/dava/the-temizoz-case/