Court fines state to pay around 550,000 liras to family of 1980 coup prisoner victim

A local court in Turkey's southeastern province of Diyarbak?r has fined the Ministry of Defense a total of 548,000 Turkish Liras for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages to a victim, who died in custody allegedly due to torture.

The Ministry of Defense was fined by Diyarbak?r's 2nd Administrative Court to pay 68,000 liras for pecuniary damage and 480,000 liras for non-pecuniary damage to the eight children of Seyfettin Sak, who died imprisoned in 1982, during the government formed after the 1980 military coup, on grounds of the state being responsible for the individuals' right to life in prison and for providing a plausible reason in case of death. The court decision stated that the state could not provide a plausible explanation because no autopsy was conducted on Sak's body. Instead, coronary and renal failure and high blood pressure were listed as cause of death, and the prosecutor's office then closed the case into Sak's death without further investigation. 

Sak was detained in May 1982, on grounds of allegedly bribing to save his son, who was under arrest due to political reasons during the 1980 coup era. Sak was allegedly tortured for 45 days and then sent to the Diyarbak?r 5th Military Jail, where he died on Nov. 21, 1982. 

Because the prosecutor had closed the case on Sak's death, his family could not appeal the cause of death, until after the referendum on Sept. 12, 2010, which lifted a temporary article in the law that had banned the prosecution of people responsible for the Sept. 12, 1980 coup. 

The eight children of Sak made a denunciation of their father's death in 2012 via their lawyer Rojbin Tu?an Kalkan but because the prosecutor's office did not take the denunciation seriously and conduct a thorough investigation,...