THE EUROPEAN Court of Human Rights (ECHR) yesterday delivered its final verdict on the case ‘Varnava and Others v. Turkey’, deeming Turkey’s treatment of nine missing persons and their relatives as inhuman, degrading and a violation of their right to life.
The Court ruled that there was continuing violation of Article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which supports the right to life, as well as continuing violation of Article 3, which provides the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment.
The ECHR also deemed Turkey’s treatment towards two of the missing persons – Eleftherios Thoma and Savvas Hadjipanteli – a “continuing violation of Article 5, the right to liberty and security”. The same article was not violated in respect to the remaining seven men, it ruled.
For the first time ever, the ECHR has ordered Turkey to pay the plaintiffs compensation. “Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded the applicants €12,000 per application of non-pecuniary damage and €8,000 for costs and expenses.”
The amount was yesterday deemed ‘symbolic’ by one of the appeal team’s lawyers, Kypros Michaelides, who was asked to comment on how low the amount was.
“It is a small amount, which can be described as symbolic as it shows how seriously the ECHR views the violation of human rights,” said Michaelides.
He deemed the ruling as ‘extremely important’, adding that after almost 20 years when the appeal was first lodged (in 1990), a final and conclusive ruling has been issued.
“It brings justice to the applicants as well as the Cyprus Republic, for the crimes that were committed against our people in 1979,” said Michaelides.
According to the history of the case – as stated in the ruling – the appeals were first lodged in 1990, in the name and on behalf of 18 Greek Cypriots, nine of whom had disappeared during military operations carried out by the Turkish army in northern Cyprus in July and August 1974. The nine other applicants are or were relatives of the men who disappeared.
Eight of the missing men were soldiers who fought the advance of the Turkish army.
“According to a number of witness statements, they had been among prisoners of war captured by the Turkish military,” the ruling states.
The ninth person, Savvas Hadjipanteli, was a bank employee who was taken for questioning by Turkish soldiers on August 18, 1974. “His body, which bore several bullet marks, was found in 2007 in the course of a mission carried out by the United Nations Committee of Missing Persons (CMP).”
The Turkish Government disputed that these men had been taken into captivity by the Turkish Army, instead maintaining that the first eight were military personnel who had died in action and that the name of the ninth one did not appear on the list of Greek-Cypriot prisoners held at the stated place of detention, inspected by the International Red Cross. The Cypriot Government stated, however, that the nine men had gone missing in areas under the control of the Turkish forces.
The Turkish government’s objections were rejected by the Grand Chamber of seventeen judges, with a ruling of 16 in favour and one against. The objection was made by Turkish ad hoc judge Gönül Erönen.
