The Extradition File That Never Arrives: the deadline that ends provisional arrest

Article 14/1 of Law no. 6706 allows a person to be provisionally arrested before the extradition request reaches the Central Authority. Three things have to be present: strong suspicion that an offence capable of founding an extradition request was committed; a request from the state concerned, made under a treaty Türkiye is party to or on the basis of reciprocity; and the Central Authority — the Ministry of Justice — finding that request appropriate.

One route needs no foreign request at all. Article 14/2 permits provisional arrest where there is strong suspicion that the person committed an offence falling within Article 12/3(a) of the Turkish Criminal Code — an offence committed abroad against a foreign victim which, under Turkish law, carries a minimum of not less than three years' imprisonment.

The mechanics of the first day are in Article 14/3. The request is passed by the Central Authority to the Ministry of the Interior so that the person can be apprehended for extradition purposes and delivered to the public prosecutor. The person is then brought before a criminal judge of peace (sulh ceza hâkimi) within twenty-four hours at the latest. Before ruling, the judge must explain the possibility of extradition by consent and what consenting means in law.

Be clear about what has not happened at this point. No Turkish court has examined the grounds on which extradition can be refused, because there is nothing yet to examine. An Interpol red notice or diffusion is the instrument that produced the arrest; it is not the extradition request. The request is a file of documents that a foreign ministry has to compile, translate and transmit, and the whole of Article 14 turns on whether it arrives.

Article 14/4 sets the period in two stages. Where a treaty applies between Türkiye and the requesting state, the treaty determines how long provisional detention may last. Where there is no treaty and the matter proceeds under the reciprocity principle, the ceiling is fixed by statute: the person may be held provisionally for no more than forty days.

Two consequences follow, and they are routinely confused. Forty days is a maximum, not an allowance — it is the outer limit the law permits, not a period the requesting state is entitled to use up. And where a treaty governs, the applicable period may be shorter than forty days, so the number that matters in your file is the one in the instrument named in the arrest decision, not the one in this paragraph. Ask which basis the arrest was ordered on, and have the answer recorded.

Article 14/6 states the consequence plainly: if the requesting state does not send the extradition documents within the period in 14/4, the provisional detention order or the judicial control order is lifted. This is not a discretion to be argued on the merits of the case; it is a condition that has failed.

What stops the clock is the arrival of the extradition file at the Central Authority. A message from a foreign police force, an email confirming that papers are being prepared, or a renewed notice does not do it. Article 13 sets out what follows: the Central Authority examines the request, may ask for further information and documents, and rejects requests that do not carry the necessary conditions; those that do are sent to the public prosecutor attached to the competent ağır ceza court. Under Article 15 that is the ağır ceza court where the person is located, or Ankara if their location is unknown.

The second sentence of Article 14/6 is the one people miss: lifting the measure does not prevent protective measures being applied for extradition purposes once the request is received. A state whose papers were late can send them afterwards, and the ordinary procedure then begins. Article 16/1 gives the ağır ceza court power to order protective measures under the Code of Criminal Procedure at any stage of that process.

From then the timetable changes shape. Where the person is detained, Article 16/2 requires the ağır ceza court to review the detention at intervals of no more than thirty days until surrender. Article 16/4 caps the total: detention may not exceed the period it would take to serve the sentence the person could receive, or the sentence already imposed, for the offence in the request.

Two further deadlines sit at the far end. Under Article 16/3, where the court's decision that the request is admissible has become final and no extradition decision under Article 19 is taken within one year, the protective measures are lifted. A year can pass because a finding of admissibility is not the end: under Article 19 its execution depends on the opinions of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the Interior, a proposal by the Minister of Justice and the approval of the President. Before that, Article 18/4 allows the court's decision to be taken to the Court of Cassation, which decides such applications within three months. And under Article 20/2, where extradition has been ordered and the requesting state does not collect the person on the agreed date without a justified reason, the protective measures are lifted thirty days after that date.

Detention is not the only option available. Article 14/5 allows judicial control under Article 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to be ordered instead of provisional detention, provided the measure prevents flight. The obligations in CMK 109/3 can be combined: a ban on leaving the country, reporting to a designated place at set intervals, surrender of a driving licence against receipt, a security deposit whose amount and instalments the judge fixes on the prosecutor's application, not leaving your home, or not leaving a designated area.

Know what this costs. Under CMK 109/6 time spent under judicial control is not deducted from a sentence, with two exceptions — treatment obligations, and house arrest, where every two days count as one. The ban on leaving the country is usually the obligation that lasts longest; how it is imposed, reviewed and lifted is covered in the note on travel bans during a criminal case, and the wider framework of detention and its alternatives in remand, judicial control and release.

Three dates decide whether the Article 14/6 argument can be made at all: the date and hour of the arrest, the date the person was brought before the criminal judge of peace, and the date the extradition file reached the Central Authority. The first two are in the custody record. The third will not be volunteered; it has to be asked for in writing and the answer put in the file. Article 5 of Law no. 6706 provides that where that Law and other statutes are silent the Code of Criminal Procedure applies — which is the route to CMK 141, covering a person arrested or detained outside the conditions laid down by law (141/1-a) and a person not brought before a judge within the lawful custody period (141/1-b).

All of this concerns the clock. What the court eventually examines — the thresholds a request must meet, the grounds on which extradition cannot be granted, and the rule of speciality — is set out on the extradition page.