JUDGMENT IN THE CASE OF EKINCI v. TURKEYIn a judgment transfered at Strasbourg on 18 July 2000 in the case of Ekinci v. Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights held that there had been no violation of Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.1. Principal factsThe applicant, Seho Ekinci, a Turkish national, was born in 1962 and lives at Martigny (Switzerland). The applicant's brother, Nuri Ekinci, a branch committee member of a pro-Kurdish political party, the HEP (Party of the Work of the People), was killed in Sason on 16 February 1994.After the shooting, the police came to the area and investigation had started. An autopsy was performed in the public prosecutor's presence by two general practitioners. The deceased's wife and uncle were questioned by the Sason Public Prosecutor. They explained the event, and told that they had not been there, therefore they could not tell any suspect or suspects.On 26 February 1998 the Sason Public Prosecutor received a letter purporting to reveal, among other things, that three members of a clan who worked as village guards had killed Nuri Ekinci. After receiving the letter, the Sason Public Prosecutor ordered the ballistic report questioned witnesses. The latter made statements before the public prosecutor in which they said that they were on a mission in the mountains on the day of the killing, but they gave the names of seven village guards as witnesses. The public prosecutor took statements from those village guards and a further statement from the deceased's uncle, Seho Ekinci. The village guards said that they had been in the mountains on the day Mr Ekinci was killed and Seho Ekinci repeated that he did not know who the killers were and that he had never heard of the claimed killers before.2. Procedure and composition of the CourtThe application was lodged with the European Commission of Human Rights on 3 October 1994 and declared admissible on 27 October 1997. ...
