Kutlu Adali

New York, March 31, 2005—The European Court for Human Rights ruled today that Turkish authorities did not conduct an effective investigation into the July 1996 murder of journalist Kutlu Adali in Cyprus and ordered the government to pay 20,000 euros (US $26,000) in damages to his wife.

Ilkay Adali sought damages in 1997 from the Turkish government, which maintains effective control over the renegade Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). She claimed that Turkish or TRNC authorities ordered the killing, but the court said there was not enough evidence to conclude that security agents were involved in the murder.

Some 35,000 Turkish troops are stationed in the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), founded after Turkey invaded the northern half of the Mediterranean island in 1974. The island remains divided into a more prosperous ethnic Greek sector in the south and an isolated and impoverished ethnic Turkish sector in the north. Cyprus' capital, Nicosia, is also divided in two, with one side controlled by the internationally recognized Greek-Cypriot authorities and the other by the Turkish government.

New York, October 4, 2002—An appeals court in the northern breakaway region of Cyprus yesterday released from prison two journalists with the opposition daily Afrika, according to international press reports.

On August 8, a court of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) sentenced Afrika editor-in-chief Sener Levent and editor Memduh Ener to six months in prison for libeling Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash in a July 1999 article titled "Who is the number one traitor?" The journalists appealed the sentence.