CAT/C/23/D/107/1998
page 4
2.5
The author provided the Committee with a document issued by the prosecutor of
Gaziantep, dated 28 March 1995, indicating that he was wanted by the police. The document
was considered by the Swiss authorities as a fake. The author disagrees with that conclusion and
complains that, contrary to the usual practice, the Swiss authorities never asked the Swiss
Embassy in Ankara to verify the authenticity of the document.
The complaint
3.1
The author claims that his forcible return to Turkey would constitute a violation of
Switzerland’s obligations under the Convention, since in view of the reasons that motivated his
departure from Turkey, there are substantial grounds to believe that he would risk imprisonment,
torture and even extrajudicial killing upon return.
The State party’s observations on the admissibility and merits of the communication
4.1
The State party did not contest the admissibility of the communication and made
observations on its merits in a letter dated 13 August 1998.
4.2
The State party informs the Committee of the discrepancies which the authorities have
found to exist during their interviews with the author. The State party notes, for example, that
his account of the order for mountain shoes for PKK soldiers is strewn with contradictions and
inconsistencies. These relate to an essential point of the communication, namely, the grounds for
the persecution to which the author was allegedly subjected by the authorities of his country.
The State party also considers that the statements by the author regarding the circumstances in
which he allegedly received the order for shoes cannot be reconciled with the situation with
which members of the PKK are faced. It does seem surprising, at the very least, that a member
of a terrorist movement, at war with the current regime, which has mobilized the main forces of
the country against it, would arrive one day at the home of strangers and ask them to support the
armed struggle, in broad daylight and without taking the slightest precaution. To accept the
author’s version would be to ignore that the PKK must have instituted a whole system of security
measures, such as strategies for identifying its members, in order to safeguard their lives so as to
continue the armed struggle. In this regard, it is interesting to note that, by the author’s own
account, it is well known that the secret police and its informers are present in all areas of civil
society. A genuine PKK member could not be ignorant of this fact and would not have rashly
exposed himself to danger as the author claims.
4.3
The State party finds it astonishing that an individual suspected by the police in
August 1994 of having given support to the PKK should spontaneously accept, at the beginning
of 1995, a stranger’s suggestion that he should produce shoes for the movement, without for a
second imagining that the security services might have been trying in this way to confirm their
suspicions about him.
4.4
The State party also contests the reality of the proceedings instituted by the police against
the author. The author stated that his father had also made shoes for the PKK; however, the
father was never subjected to any criminal prosecution for participation in terrorist activity, but