Kutlu Adali Murder Dossier

Last Updated March 31st, 2005

Kutlu Adali was murdered on July 6th 1996 around 23:30 in front of his house. He was an outspoken critic of the Turkish Cypriot leadership who took up the issue of an armed raid to St Barnabas monastery and wrote a series of articles trying to shed light on allegged involvement of the Civilian Defense organization and a Turkish army officer. It is believed that this led to his murder. Adali himself actually wrote about the threats he was receiving shortly before.

There are many indicators which surfaced since then linking the murder to a larger groups of extra-judicial murders, kidnappings, bombings and other events that fall under the title "Counter-Guerilla Operations". On going trials in Turkey about the so called "Susurluk Scandal" regularly mentioned Cyprus and issues Adali was writing about as part of the picture.

A special parliamentary comission was formed in north Cyprus to investigate this case which was hindered by both civilian government and military officials. This increases the suspicions of the so-called "deep government" involvement in this murder.

There is also a case at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) filed by his widow Ilkay Adali. The judgement was delivered on March 31, 2005 finding Turkey guilty of several of the charges. The court has awarded the applicant 20,000 euros (EUR) for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 75,000 for costs and expenses (less EUR 7,236.74 ).