POLITICS-TURKEY: Case Against Forensic Scientist Dismissed

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nadire Mater

ISTANBUL, Feb 15 2000 (IPS) - A court has dismissed charges brought by the Istanbul Governor against a forensic scientist, Professor Sebnem Fincanci, for implicating the police in the death of a trade unionist while in custody.

Governor Erol Cakir said the report by six physicians headed by Fincanci, chairperson of the Istanbul Forensic Medical Institute at Istanbul University, lacked objectivity.

Fincanci was one of six physicians with the institute who undersigned a report on the death of trade unionist Suleyman Yeter, who died in March 1999 while in police custody.

The others; Zeki Uzun, Alp Ayan, Gunseli Kaya, Veli Lok, Seyfettin Demirkan and Cumhur Akpinar face similar charges. Ayan and Kaya are reportedly still in jail.

Celebrating her victory, Fincanci, who is also a member of the United Nations International War Crimes Court and the official advisor for the Turkish State Ministry responsible for human rights, said she planned sue Cakir for ‘slander and insult’.

“It’s as if the governor admits that torture prevails but it should have been concealed for state security. Unfortunately by making the evidence public we have spolit things for the authorities,” she told journalists.

The police claimed that Yeter died as the result of a hunger strike but Fincanci said careful forensic examination had revealed that the man had suffered a broken neck and that his body was covered with bruises resulting from blows from hard objects.

“We unanimously concluded that symptoms of Yeter’s death were consistent with the definition of torture by the 1975 Tokyo Declaration of the World Physicians Association,” Fincanci told IPS.

“Yet the governor charges me with leading and influencing others in the institute. You can not influence anyone in forensic matters. What they really intended was to send a warning to the forensic specialists to keep us from interfering in their affairs.”

Based on evidence in the report the local prosecutor has already indicted six policemen charged with beating Yeter to death.

Yeter was expected to testify against policemen who were also charged with torture when he was arrested and detained for an alleged affiliation with a clandestine left grouping.

Yavuz Onen, the head of Turkey’s Human Rights Foundation (TIHV) says Fincanci’s subsequent harassment “is a link of a chain of prosecutions against forensic medicine specialists who have upset security units with their unbiased reports on evidence of torture during custody.”

He said the TIHV, in cooperation with the Turkish Pysicians Association, has specialised in evidencing torture and “our forensic reports are increasingly being taken into account by local courts much to the ire of the authorities.”.

In Nov 1999 Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit issued a circular stating that torture was prohibited by law and those responsible would be severely punished.

“Alas, since then, six people have lost their lives to torture in police stations,” said Onen. He said he hoped that Turkey’s candidacy with the European Union would have a positive impact on mistreatment and torture of people held in custody.

He said the maximum capacity at the Torture Rehabilitation Centre, run by the TIHV, was 600 persons annually. “However, we are always over occupied and unfortunately there has been no decrease in the victims applications in the last three months,” he said.

According to the Human Rights Association (IHD) there have been 48 cases of alleged torture reported to the centre in the last three months of which two are children.

Fincanci, says her professional dignity was assaulted by the case.

“But what is even more horrific is that I was targeted not for concealing torture but for revealing it. Think of what they could do to a modest physician in a remote part of the country, if they could do this to me in Istanbul,” she told IPS.

“Now it is high time to rise to our feet and resist pressure and display determination that we will never bow to pressure. Torture already prevails in 90 countries worldwide and voluntarily or involuntarily physicians play a part in this human tragedy. Yet, they might help turn the tide as long as they continue to indentify torture as torture,” she said.