6.9 million named suspects in 2016: Turkish appeals court

ISTANBUL – Doğan News Agency

Nearly seven million people were named suspects across Turkey in one year, Court of Cassation head İsmail Rüştü Cirit said on Nov. 23 while commenting on the 2016 judicial figures.

“According to the 2016 criminal record statistics, there were around 6.9 million suspects in our country,” Cirit said during an event at Istanbul’s Okan University, adding that this refers roughly to 8 percent of society.

“The delay in justice brings many problems for our citizens,” he said.

Some 2.5 million of the 6.9 million suspects in 2016 were deeply probed and one million were sentenced or fined, Cirit added.

He also said the courts ruled for no probe into 2.9 million suspects and no action for 800,000 people, due to reasons such as lack of jurisdiction in the rulings.

Separately, the Court of Cassation ruled that illegally gathered GPS information could not be considered evidence in court.

The Court of Cassation’s Second Civil Court ruled on a 2015 divorce case in the western province of Afyonkarahisar that a GPS device a husband planted in his wife’s car, who was the plaintiff, and a spying program he installed on his handset could not be used as evidence.