Free Osman Kavala ! A new judgment of the European Court rules that Turkey violated the European Convention on Human Rights by condemning the patron in April.
Council of Europe officials on Monday called again on Turkey for the “immediate release” of patron Osman Kavala, who was sentenced in April to life in prison after a European Court ruling that Ankara had violated the European Convention on Human Rights. “Turkey has failed to comply with its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. We welcome the judgment (of the ECHR) delivered today which provides a clear answer on this point. We renew our call for the immediate release of Osman Kavala,” the three main Council of Europe officials wrote in a joint statement.
It is only the second time in its history that the European Court of Human Rights, the judicial arm of the Council of Europe, condemns by a judgment of the Grand Chamber one of its 46 member States at the end of a procedure for failure, communicated Monday morning. Seized by Osman Kavala during his pre-trial detention, the ECHR, which sits in Strasbourg, had already demanded Turkey in a judgment delivered on December 10, 2019 “to put an end to the detention of the applicant and to have his release carried out. immediate”.
Osman Kavala denounces a “judicial assassination”
These provisions had been largely ignored by Ankara: the Turkish domestic courts had ordered the provisional release of Osman Kavala in February 2020, before the businessman was arrested again a few hours later on the order of the prosecutor for “attempted coup”. The Grand Chamber of the ECHR, its supreme formation, found that Ankara violated Article 46 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This provides for the binding force of judgments of the Court and their execution. “The non-enforcement of a final and binding judicial decision would risk creating situations incompatible with the principle of the rule of law which the Contracting States have undertaken to respect by ratifying the Convention”, underlines the Court in a press release.
Figure of Turkish civil society, Osman Kavala, 64, was finally sentenced at the end of April to life imprisonment for “attempting to overthrow the government” via the financing of the anti-government demonstrations known as the “Gezi movement” in 2013, after having spent four years and a half of detention without trial. Having become the opponent of the regime, he had denounced before the judges a “judicial assassination” against his person and the influence of the Turkish president on his trial.