An extradition request, and the court that decides it.

Under Article 10 of Law no. 6706, a foreign national who, in connection with an offence committed in a foreign country, is the subject of a criminal investigation or prosecution or has been convicted, may on request be extradited so that those proceedings can be concluded or the sentence executed.

• At the investigation or prosecution stage, the request may be accepted for offences carrying an upper limit of one year or more of a penalty depriving liberty — assessed under both the requesting state's law and Turkish law.
• For final convictions, the sentence imposed must be at least four months of a penalty depriving liberty.
• Where the person is sought for several offences, some of which fall below these thresholds, those offences may be included together in the same extradition.

Speciality

Article 10/4: where extradition takes place, the person may only be tried for, or have executed against them, the offences on which the extradition decision was based. This is a substantive protection, and it is one of the reasons the scope of the request has to be examined rather than accepted.

More than one country asking

Article 10/3: where several states request the same person, the Central Authority determines which request is dealt with first, taking into account the gravity of the offences and where they were committed, the order in which the requests arrived, the person's nationality, and the possibility of onward extradition.

Article 11 is the core of any defence. A request is not accepted where:

• The person sought is a Turkish citizen — except for obligations arising from being a party to the International Criminal Court.
• There are strong grounds to suspect that the person will be subjected to investigation, prosecution or punishment on account of their race, ethnic origin, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinions, or that they will be subjected to torture or ill-treatment.
• The act underlying the request is: an offence of opinion, a political offence or one connected with a political offence; a purely military offence; an offence against the security of the Turkish State or committed to the detriment of the Turkish State, a Turkish citizen or a legal person established under Turkish law; an offence within Türkiye's own jurisdiction; or an offence that is time-barred or covered by an amnesty.
• The person has already been acquitted or convicted in Türkiye for the act in question.
• The request concerns offences requiring the death penalty or a penalty incompatible with human dignity.

Two qualifications

Article 11/2: whether an act is a political offence is assessed on all its elements — in particular the manner of commission, the means used, and the gravity of the consequences — and it may be found not to be political on that basis. Genocide and crimes against humanity are not accepted as political offences.

Article 11/3: where the ground of refusal concerns the nature of the penalty, the request may nonetheless be accepted if the requesting state gives sufficient assurance that the penalty will not be executed.

The personal-circumstances ground

Article 11/4 is easy to overlook and directly relevant to people who have built a life in Türkiye. Where, because of personal circumstances — being under eighteen at the date of the request, having been in Türkiye for a long time, or being married — extradition would harm the person or their family disproportionately to the gravity of the act, the request may be refused.

Under Article 14, a request for provisional arrest is transmitted so that the person can be apprehended for extradition purposes and brought to the public prosecutor. A person arrested is brought before a sulh ceza judge within twenty-four hours at the latest for a decision on provisional detention. Before deciding, the judge informs the person about the possibility of extradition by consent and its legal consequences.

Under Article 14/4, the period of provisional detention is set by the applicable treaty; where the matter proceeds on reciprocity a person may be held provisionally for no more than forty days, and under Article 14/6 the provisional detention or judicial control is lifted if the requesting state does not send the extradition papers within that period. Under Article 16, the ağır ceza court may order protective measures under the Code of Criminal Procedure at any stage of the extradition process. Where the person is detained, the detention is reviewed by the ağır ceza court at intervals of no more than thirty days until surrender. Two outer limits sit above that review: under Article 16/3 the protective measures are lifted if no extradition decision is taken under Article 19 within one year of the acceptance decision becoming final, and under Article 16/4 the total period of detention cannot exceed the period of execution of the sentence the person may receive or has received for the offence underlying the request.

Under Article 20, surrender may be postponed by decision of the Central Authority in defined circumstances, and that decision is notified to the person and to the requesting state.

Article 17 provides that a person who consents to extradition may be extradited to the requesting state without the ordinary extradition procedure being applied.

The ağır ceza court explains to the person their rights under the Code of Criminal Procedure together with the nature and legal consequences of extradition by consent, and asks whether they accept it.

Article 22 deals with the reverse position. Turkish judicial authorities may request the return of a person who is abroad and against whom an arrest or detention order has been issued, in order to conclude an investigation or prosecution or to execute a sentence. Extradition may be requested for offences carrying an upper limit of one year or more of imprisonment, and for final convictions on the terms set out in that article.