Life imprisonment for torture in Turkey

ISTANBUL – Four prison guards, one of them a warden,  have been sentenced to life time imprisonment in Turkey for the torture of an inmate in 2008. The victim, at the time 29 year old leftist activist Engin Ceber, died of the injuries. This is according to reports in several Turkish newspapers on Wednesday.

The case caused quite a fuss at the time: the death of Ceber showed that Turkey had its laws against torture in order, but that in practice torture had not disappeared. Justice Minister Sahin publicly apologized to Ceber’s family, which was remarkable, since the Turkish government had never done that before.

Initially it looked like the torturers would get away with it: the police themselves investigated the case and an initial medical report came out in favour of the guards without any physician examining the body. A new report showed that Ceber died of internal injuries caused by beatings on the back and the head.

Click here to read a previous ANP-article about Engin Ceber.