Capital punishment in Turkey

As of 2004, Turkey does not have capital punishment. Since October 1984, Turkey has not executed any prisoners. Prior to that date executions would usually happen after military interventions. Adnan Menderes, who served as Prime Minister was hanged on 17 September 1961 following the 1960 coup d'état, along with two other cabinet members, Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Hasan Polatkan. The student leaders Deniz Gezmiş, Hüseyin İnan and Yusuf Aslan were hanged on 6 May 1972 after the 1971 coup d'état. After the 1980 coup d'état, between 1980 and 1984 a total of 50 men including 27 political activists but no women were executed in Turkey.^[1]

Twenty-four articles of the 1926 Turkish Penal Code (Law 765) provided for a mandatory death penalty, 19 of them for crimes against the state, the government, the Constitution and military, and a further ten for criminal offences like murder and rape. These 24 articles defined a total of 29 offences.^[2]

Under Article 12 of Law 765 death sentences were to be carried out by hanging after being approved by act of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi, the TBMM. Within the TBMM they were reviewed by the Judicial Committee before being voted on by parliament as a whole. This decision had to be ratified by the President, who had the power to commute death sentences on grounds of age or ill-health.^[2]

By Law 4771 of 9 August 2002 (the 3rd Package for Harmonization with the European Union) the death penalty was abolished for peace time offences. Law 5218 of 14 July 2004 abolished the death penalty for all times.^[3] Turkey ratified Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights in February 2006.

The death sentence was replaced by aggravated life imprisonment (ağırlaştırılmış müebbet hapis cezası). According to Article 9 of Law 5275 on the Execution of Sentences^[4] these prisoners are held in individual cells in high security prisons and are allowed to exercise in a neighbouring yard one hour per day.

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