10 November 2016
"On the night of the failed coup in Turkey, eight Turkish military officers fled to Greece. They applied for political asylum, arguing that they were afraid for their lives, if returned to Turkey. They insist that they had no involvement in the attempted coup and they claim that they were transporting injured people in Istanbul when they came under fire by police.
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"On the night of the failed coup in Turkey, eight Turkish military officers fled to Greece. They applied for political asylum, arguing that they were afraid for their lives, if returned to Turkey. They insist that they had no involvement in the attempted coup and they claim that they were transporting injured people in Istanbul when they came under fire by police.
Following their arrest, they received a two-month suspended prison sentence for illegal entry into Greece. While they remain in administrative detention, the asylum applications of seven of them were recently rejected. The issue of the eight has given rise to a diplomatic row between Greece and Turkey. In August 2016 Turkey officially requested the extradition of the “traitors”.
It is well established that Greece must deny extradition, if there are substantial grounds to believe that the eight will run a real risk of a fragrant denial of justice if returned to Turkey. The declared state of emergency and Turkey’s official derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights dramatically increase this risk.
However, substantiating the “flagrant denial of justice” claim in extradition cases is subject to an exceptionally high threshold. The European Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg Court) has found only once that the applicant proved the existence of such a risk."
See: Can Greece Extradite the 8 Turkish Military Officers to Turkey? The Real Risk of a Flagrant Denial of Justice in Post-Coup Turkey (Fair Trials, link)
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