The application lodged with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) by convict Abdullah Öcalan was concluded by the judgment of the Grand Chamber of the Court on 12 May 2005. In its judgment, the Court pointed out, among others issues, to certain deficiencies concerning the right to fair trial as regulated by Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court therefore held that the said Article had been violated during the applicant’s trial.

Following the ECtHR’s judgment, the convict requested a re-trial in domestic law. The 11th Chamber of the Ankara Assize Court examined and dismissed the request. Upon the convict’s objection, the 14th Chamber of the İstanbul Assize Court re-examined the decision, opened the case-file and dismissed the convict’s re-trial request as well as the objections on 21 July 2006 on the grounds that re-trial would not affect the conviction and that the claims regarding re-trial had not been sufficiently substantiated.

On the other hand, the execution of the ECtHR’s Öcalan judgment has been under the supervision of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for some time, since the execution of the judgments of the ECtHR is supervised by the Committee of Ministers in accordance with Article 46 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

At the Council of Europe’s Ministers’ Deputies meeting held on 5-6 December 2006, it was decided to draft a final resolution in order to remove the said judgment from the agenda of the Committee of Ministers taking into account Turkey’s assessment that it had fulfilled the requirements of the Öcalan judgment.

At the Ministers’ Deputies meeting held on 13-14 February 2007, the draft resolution drawn up by the Secretariat was adopted without debate and thus the supervision of the execution of the Court’s judgment on the Öcalan case was removed from the agenda of the Council of Europe.