CCPR/C/117/D/2100/2011
victim of violations of articles 7 and 14 of the Covenant. He is not represented. The
Optional Protocol entered into force for the State party on 26 June 1992.
The facts as submitted by the author
2.1
The author submits that on 12 February 2004 a ship (also described as a motor
vessel) called Hera and sailing under the Cambodian flag sank in the Black Sea, in Turkish
territorial waters, a few miles away from the Bosphorus. The sinking is said to have taken
place in a matter of minutes. The vessel’s crew consisted of 19 members: 17 Bulgarian and
2 Ukrainian nationals.1 The bodies of five crew members were recovered 40 days after the
disaster, of which three were of Bulgarian sailors and two of Ukrainians; 14 Bulgarian crew
members, including the author’s son, are still unaccounted for.
2.2
On 16 February 2004, criminal proceedings against unknown perpetrators were
initiated by the Prosecutor’s Office in Bulgaria. After the investigation, which was carried
out in cooperation with the Turkish authorities, the Prosecutor’s Office decided on 9 April
2010 to discontinue the pretrial proceedings. The attribution of the shipwreck to bad
weather, the ship’s poor maintenance and the captain’s mistake was deemed satisfactory.
During the pretrial proceedings, the author and other victims’ relatives submitted a request
to the Prosecutor’s Office to start an investigation on the separate offence of “enforced
disappearance”, requesting the Prosecutor to question Bulgarian and Turkish State officials
about their knowledge of the facts and of evidence of possible enforced disappearance
committed by the Turkish military forces. The Prosecutor did not accede to their request.2
2.3
The author appealed before the City Court of Sofia against the decision of the
Prosecutor’s Office to close the investigation. The appeal was based on the author’s
contention that the investigation had not been carried out in an impartial, objective and
complete manner. On 4 June 2010, the Court found that the Prosecutor’s decision was
grounded and lawful. It considered that the accusations made by the author and other
victims’ relatives that the Prosecutor and investigators deliberately hid facts and that the
evidence were groundless; that the shipwreck seemed indeed to have been caused by wrong
estimation and bad meteorological conditions; and that the end of criminal proceedings did
not imply termination of all forms of investigation, which would continue to be carried out
in cooperation with all stakeholders, including Turkey. The decision was not subject to
appeal.
The complaint
3.1
The author claims that his son is the victim of an enforced disappearance in violation
of articles 6 and 9 of the Covenant. For the purpose of his claim, he refers to the definition
of enforced disappearance provided in article 7 (2) (b) (i) of the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court. He also alleges that he is the victim of a violation of articles 7
and 14 of the Covenant.
3.2
Recalling paragraph 4 of the Committee’s general comment No. 6 (1982) on the
right to life, the author considers that the State party has failed to take effective measures to
protect his son’s life and has not thoroughly investigated the disappearance of his son and
the other seamen, in violation of article 6 of the Covenant. The author recalls that the right
to life is one of the fundamental rights violated in cases of enforced disappearance. He
further argues that any act of enforced disappearance involves a violation of article 9, which
protects individuals from arbitrary detention. The lack of a proper investigation by the State
1
2
2
According to the submissions, there were no other passengers on board.
The author notes that the crime of enforced disappearance does not exist under Bulgarian law.