PROCEDURE

The case originated in an application (no. 17103/10) against the Federal Republic of Germany lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a Turkish national, Mr Zekeriya Karaman (“the applicant”), on 22 March 2010.

The applicant was represented by Mr O. Isfen, a lawyer practising in Wetter, North Rhine-Westphalia. The German Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr H.-J. Behrens, Ministerialrat, of the Federal Ministry of Justice.

The applicant alleged under Article 6 § 2 of the Convention that references to his participation in a criminal offence in a judgment rendered against separately prosecuted co-suspects violated his right to be presumed innocent.

On 18 October 2012 the application was communicated to the Government.

The applicant and the Government each filed observations on the admissibility and merits of the application. The Turkish Government, who had been informed of their right to intervene under Article 36 of the Convention, did not make use of this right.

THE FACTS

I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE

A. Background to the case

The applicant was born in 1952 and lives in Istanbul. He is the founder of the Turkish TV station Kanal 7 and director of the management board of its operating company Yeni Dünya Iletisim A.S. Kanal 7’s programme contents are broadcast nationwide in Turkey and in Germany through the TV station Kanal 7 Int. The latter is operated by private limited-liability companies established under German law and, since 2001, by Euro 7 Fernseh- und Marketing GmbH (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung) with the applicant as one of its shareholders. The applicant alternately occupied the position of managing director (Geschäftsführer) or authorised signatory (Prokurist) in such companies.

Since 1998 a specific programme slot in the channel’s broadcasting schedule had been allocated to the non-profit association Deniz Feneri Yardimlasma Dernegi, founded, inter alia, by the Kanal 7 head of human resources who was also a member of the association’s board of directors. During that programme, broadcast in Turkey and in Germany, the association reported on charitable aid projects being run by it and appealed for monetary donations. In 1999 a similar association was founded in Germany under the name of Deniz Feneri Dernegi e.V. (hereinafter “Deniz Feneri”) by G., one of the other shareholders and managing directors or, alternately, authorised signatories of Euro 7 Fernseh- und Marketing GmbH. G. was also appointed chairman of the association and remained in that position until 2006. In its donation appeals on television Deniz Feneri stressed that the funds donated would be used directly and exclusively for charitable purposes and for the funding of social projects.

In 2006 the Frankfurt am Main prosecution authorities (Staatsanwaltschaft) launched investigations against the applicant and several co-suspects, including G., on suspicion of having fraudulently used the majority of funds donated to the associations for commercial purposes and their own benefit.

On 11 March 2008 the preliminary criminal proceedings against the applicant were separated from the investigations against the co-suspects.

In the middle of 2008 criminal investigations based on the same allegations of fraud were also initiated against the applicant in Turkey.

B. The criminal proceedings against the co-suspects

By a judgment, the operative part of which together with a summary of its reasoning was pronounced orally on 17 September 2008 (file no. 5/26 Kls 6350 Js 203391/06 4/08), the Extended Economic Crimes Chamber (Große Strafkammer als Wirtschaftsstrafkammer) of the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court convicted two of the applicant’s co-suspects, G. and T., of aggravated fraud (Betrug in einem besonders schweren Fall) acting as members of a joint criminal enterprise with its leaders in Turkey. Another co-accused, E., was convicted of having aided and abetted the commission of the offence. G. and T. were sentenced to prison sentences of five years and ten months and two years and nine months respectively, while E. was given a suspended prison sentence of one year and ten months. The full judgment, with the complete reasoning, was subsequently delivered in writing between 17 September and the beginning of November 2008.

The Regional Court found it to be established that G. had created and maintained a complex structure for the purpose of concealing the fact that the majority of the donations obtained for charitable purposes as advertised by Deniz Feneri were in reality earmarked and used to finance the entrepreneurial activities of private companies in which G. and the applicant, among others, became shareholders. At G.’s request, T. had contributed to the fraudulent misrepresentation by, inter alia, fabricating minutes of virtual association meetings of Deniz Feneri in order to conceal the unauthorised use of donated funds from the tax authorities. E., for his part, also acting upon instructions from G., had omitted to record the actual use of the donations in the association’s official accounts and had documented them in separate unofficial accounts (Nebenbuchhaltung).

The court’s findings were primarily based on confessions made by T., E. and G. following a plea bargain reached between the court, the prosecution authorities and the defence and also on further evidence obtained in the course of the trial. Whereas G. maintained that he alone had decided how the donated funds would be used without having consulted any contact persons in Turkey, T. and E. testified that G. had been integrated into the hierarchy of a criminal organisation whose leaders were in Turkey and in which the applicant had played a leading role. According to T. and E.’s testimony, G. had to obtain the applicant’s prior approval with respect to all essential decisions relating to the use of donations obtained by the association. The court was therefore satisifed that G. had not been at the top of the criminal organisation’s hierarchy but had received orders from its leaders residing in Turkey.

The judgment’s reasoning is divided into six parts headed by Roman numerals. Part I provides information on the personal background of the accused. Part II contains a description of the circumstances of the case. Part III sets out the type of evidence on which the Regional Court based its establishment of the facts and the court’s assessment of the veracity and credibility of the relevant evidence. Parts IV and V contain the legal assessment of the offences committed by the accused and the determination of their relative guilt and the resulting sentence. Part VI stipulates that the accused are to bear the costs of the proceedings. The judgment refers on several occasions to the role that the heads of the criminal organisation in Turkey played in connection with the use of donated funds for non-charitable purposes. In that context the applicant’s full first and last names are mentioned numerous times in the judgment running to some thirty‑two pages. The most relevant passages of the judgment in parts II to V of its reasoning read as follows: “II. ... It was neither the association’s chairman nor the registered members of the association [Deniz Feneri] who decided on the use of funds obtained on behalf of the association but the accused G. in coordination with and upon the instructions of the separately prosecuted (gesondert Verfolgte) Zekeriya Karaman, ..., ... and ..., ... (pp. 8 to 9) ... The accused G. and the persons in charge of Kanal 7 in Turkey were ... aware that donations collected in the German association’s [Deniz Feneri] name would only partly be used for charitable purposes or social projects. At any rate, since the year 2002 it had been the intention of G. and the separately prosecuted persons behind the scenes (Hinterleute) to also use a large part of the collected funds for economic activities, in particular for the start-up financing of entrepreneurial projects of private-law companies in which G. or the separately prosecuted Zekeriya Karaman, ..., ... and ... became shareholders. (pp. 9 to 10) ... For this reason, the accused G. and the separately prosecuted Zekeriya Karaman instructed the co-accused E. to keep unofficial accounts (Nebenbuchhaltung). (p. 11) ... Every month the contents of the unofficial accounts in Germany were coordinated between G. and ..., ... or Zekeriya Karaman. (p. 12) ... According to the entries in the unofficial accounts a total amount of 4,504,000 euros was handed over to the separately prosecuted Zekeriya Karaman. (p. 15) ... The separately prosecuted Zekeriya Karaman, ..., ..., ... and ... decided on the use of the funds collected by means of donations. In his capacity as director of the management board of Yeni Dunya Iletisim A.S., Zekeriya Karaman was accorded a pre-eminent role in this respect. (p. 15) ... The accused T. was not aware of the exact amount of donated funds that had been used for non-charitable purposes. However he endorsed appeals for further donations while knowing that they were to a large extent going to be used for unauthorised purposes ... Following G.’s arrest in April 2007 he was the contact person of Zekeriya Karaman with respect to all matters related to Deniz Feneri in Germany. The latter provided him with a mobile phone and a prepaid card in view of suspected telephone surveillance. (p. 21) ...

III.

The circumstances of the case (Sachverhalt) have been established (steht fest) on the basis of the confessions made by the accused and further evidence obtained in the course of the trial as set out in the record of the hearing. (p. 22). ... The Chamber did not follow G.’s submissions that he alone had decided on the unauthorised use of donated funds without consulting the persons behind the scenes in Turkey. The accused E. and the accused T. had stated in the course of their confessions during trial and during previous police questioning that G. had been integrated into a hierarchy and had to coordinate all essential decisions with the separately prosecuted Zekeriya Karaman, ... and ..., while Zekeriya Karaman, in his capacity as director of the management board of Yeni Dunya Iletisim A.S., played a pre-eminent role. (p. 23) Such integration into a structure controlled from Turkey, as described by the two co‑accused, is sufficiently proved by the implementation of an unofficial accounting system, a parallel structure to the television station and the association Deniz Feneri in Germany and Turkey for the collection of donations, the shareholding in the companies funded by donations, and the fact that cash withdrawals had been handed over at the premises of Kanal 7 in Turkey. By assuming sole responsibility for the donation appeals and the unauthorised use of the donated funds, the accused G. apparently tried to protect the persons behind him in Turkey from criminal prosecution in Germany and/or Turkey. (p. 23) ...

IV.

... The accused T. is guilty of fraud committed in his capacity as successive joint offender (in sukzessiver Mittäterschaft) pursuant to Articles 263 and 25 § 2 of the German Criminal Code. Not only did T. want to support the actions of others but he also wanted to participate in a joint operation (gemeinschaftliche Tätigkeit) together with G. and the persons behind the scenes in Turkey. (p. 25) ...

V.

... Furthermore, it had to be considered in [G.’s] favour that he was not positioned at the top of the hierarchy which organised the fraud (Spitze der Organisation des Betrugs) but received instructions from the persons behind the scenes in Turkey. He could not decide alone on the unauthorised use of the donated funds but only develop ideas that ultimately had to be approved by the persons behind the scenes in Turkey. He was an executing organ rather than a decision maker (mehr ausführendes als bestimmendes Organ). (p. 28) ... [T.’s] confession was not limited to his own participation in the commission of the offence. He also revealed his knowledge regarding the background and in particular concerning the persons behind the scenes. His knowledge was limited since G. and the persons behind him deliberately granted him only a restricted insight. In the hierarchy he was placed far below G. and the responsible persons in Turkey. (p. 29) ... By keeping unofficial accounts [E.] made a significant contribution to the functioning of the overall system. The fact that he was not only requested by G. but also directly by the separately prosecuted Karaman to keep off the recorded accounts demonstrates the importance of such unofficial accounting. (p. 30) ... The persons behind the scenes in Turkey had previously attempted to prevent [E.] from testifying before the investigative authorities by establishing contact with his first counsel and members of his family.” (p. 31) 15. According to an article published by the German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau on the Internet on 18 September 2008, the Acting President of the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court’s Extended Economic Crimes Chamber had stated, when delivering the judgment, that the donated funds had been used by the persons behind the scenes for a mixture of their own economic and political purposes even though part of the money had indeed been spent on aid projects. The same newspaper had reported in an article published on the Internet on 15 September 2008 that the prosecution authorities (Staatsanwaltschaft) had referred to the applicant as the “main perpetrator and leader (führender Kopf) of the whole organisation”. Similar quotations were published in several Turkish newspapers on 17 and 18 September 2008. For instance, according to an article published in the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet on 18 September 2008, the presiding judge had declared when delivering the judgment, that “strings were pulled at the level of Kanal 7. G. and T. acted in accordance with instructions they had received from Kanal 7, in particular from Zekyria Karaman, ..., ... and ... The main persons in charge were located in Turkey.” 16. The judgment was published on the Regional Court’s website on 25 November 2008. In the judgment’s Internet version the names of the accused and separately prosecuted were replaced by letters and the names of the companies involved by numbers. The introductory comments to the Internet publication included a paragraph stating that the judgment had become final and was binding only on the three convicted persons. It was specified that references and findings in the judgment with respect to the actions of other persons, in particular those separately prosecuted, were not binding in relation to those persons and that the latter still benefited from the presumption of innocence. The text of the judgment itself does not contain a similar specification. 17. The judgment became final on 13 November 2008.

C. The applicant’s constitutional complaint

By written submissions dated 16 December 2008 the applicant lodged a complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court. He argued that the references in the reasoning of the Regional Court’s judgment of 17 September 2008 to his role in the fraudulent use of the donated funds had violated the principle of the presumption of innocence, which constituted one aspect of the constitutionally guaranteed right to a fair trial taken in conjunction with the principle of the rule of law.

By a decision of 3 September 2009, served on the applicant on 25 September 2009, the Federal Constitutional Court dismissed the complaint as inadmissible (file no. 2 BvR 2540/08).

The Constitutional Court found that while defendants were not categorically prevented from challenging a judgment delivered in proceedings conducted against third persons, an applicant who had not been party to the proceedings did have to be able to claim that his or her legitimate interests were directly affected by the impugned decision and not only in an indirect de facto manner. The Constitutional Court reiterated its established case-law according to which, by virtue of the constitutionally guaranteed principle of the presumption of innocence, no measures effectively amounting to a penalty could be taken against an accused without his guilt having been established beforehand in the course of a fair trial. Furthermore, that finding of guilt had to become final before it could be held against the person concerned. However, in the context of criminal proceedings the presumption of innocence did not prevent the law-enforcement authorities from making an assessment as to whether and to what degree a person could be suspected of having committed a criminal offence.

Turning to the circumstances of the case at hand, the Constitutional Court pointed out that the presumption of innocence did not protect the applicant ab initio from any factual impact of statements made in a judgment rendered in criminal proceedings against third persons with respect to his own involvement in the commission of the offence. That judgment did not constitute a decision that required the determination of the applicant’s guilt or exposed him to disadvantages amounting to a conviction or sentence. Statements made in criminal proceedings against third persons did not have a binding effect on the courts or the prosecution authorities, whether with respect to preliminary proceedings pending against an applicant or in relation to any other court or administrative proceedings to which an applicant might possibly become a party in the future. The applicant could not be regarded as guilty on the basis of that judgment and was still protected by the principle of the presumption of innocence. The fact that the establishment of the facts by the Regional Court not only concerned the accused, who were convicted at the end of the proceedings, but also the applicant was an inevitable consequence of the fact that in complex criminal proceedings it was hardly ever possible to conduct and terminate the proceedings against all the accused simultaneously.

D. Subsequent developments

A request for legal assistance was sent to the Turkish authorities on 20 January 2009 with a view to obtaining the applicant’s examination in Turkey. No information was submitted to the Court as regards compliance with that request.

On 20 August 2009 the Frankfurt am Main prosecution authorities brought charges against the applicant and three co-accused in connection with the events in issue. It further appears that on 9 April 2012 the Ankara General Prosecutor’s Office brought similar charges against the applicant and that his trial in Turkey commenced on 16 January 2013. According to the Government’s submissions, the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court, by an order dated 19 August 2013, opened the main hearing in the proceedings against the applicant. These are apparently still pending.