Note · CMK 67 · 87
The adli tıp report in a Turkish homicide file: what it decides, and how it is challenged
A Turkish homicide file is built on the forensic medicine report. It fixes the cause, mechanism and time of death, whether the deceased survived a period after the injury, and what was in the blood. It does not say which article applies: CMK 67/3 forbids the expert from making the legal assessment. The openings against the report are set by CMK 67/5, 67/6, 68 and 69, and the first of them expires within days.
What the report decides, and what it is forbidden to decide
The report answers medicine; the indictment converts medicine into an article. Under CMK 67/3 an expert may not, in the report or in oral explanations, go beyond matters whose resolution requires expertise or special or technical knowledge, and may not make the legal characterisations and assessments that belong to the judge. No forensic report in Türkiye says murder. It says what happened to a body.
What it fixes is narrow and decisive. Under CMK 86/2 the forensic examination of the deceased records the medical indications and all findings needed to establish the time and the cause of death. Around that the file gathers which wound was fatal and in what order the wounds were inflicted, the distance and direction for a firearm, whether the person survived a period after the injury, and toxicology for alcohol, narcotics and medication.
Two findings carry the charge on their own. Where the deceased first survived, whether the injury created a life-threatening condition is the finding TCK 87/1-d attaches to. And whether death resulted from an intentional injury is what TCK 87/4 turns on: ten to fourteen years where the case falls under TCK 86/1, fourteen to eighteen where it falls under TCK 86/3.
There is a second body in most fight files, and it is usually documented badly. Injuries on the accused are what a provocation or self-defence argument is later built from, and they fade within days. How injuries are medically graded is set out under assault and public order charges.
Who writes it, and the one right that expires in days
Under CMK 86/3 the examination of the deceased is carried out in the presence of the public prosecutor, with a physician appointed for the purpose. Under CMK 87/1 the autopsy is performed before the prosecutor by two physicians, one a forensic medicine specialist and the other a pathologist or a specialist from another discipline, or one of the two a general practitioner; where there is a necessity a single physician may perform it, and that must be stated expressly in the report. CMK 87/2 requires the head, chest and abdomen to be opened where the condition of the body permits, and CMK 87/5 requires the proceedings to be recorded in images. Where poisoning is suspected, CMK 89 requires the visible damage to the organ to be described as tissue is taken, and suspicious substances to be analysed by the appointed expert.
CMK 87/1 also provides that a physician brought by defence counsel or by the victim's counsel may be present at the autopsy. Attending is not arguing. It means standing in the room while samples are taken, seeing what was measured and what was not. Autopsies are performed within days of the death, usually before a family abroad has instructed anyone. If someone has been detained, counsel is instructed for the custody stage and for the autopsy in the same hour.
The material then goes to a specialist board, at the Adli Tıp Kurumu, a university department of forensic medicine, or both in sequence. Under CMK 66/1 the decision ordering the examination states the questions, the subject and the period for completing it, and that period cannot exceed three months; on the expert's request it may be extended, by a reasoned decision of the appointing authority, by up to three further months. Six months on one report, with the accused detained throughout, is lawful.
Four ways a forensic report is challenged
A forensic report is not unchallengeable, but every route has to be taken deliberately and most are time-limited.
| Route | Provision | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Object, and demand a fresh examination | CMK 67/5 | Once the examination is complete, time is given to the parties to request a new expert examination or to state objections. A refusal must be given as a reasoned decision within three days. |
| Commission your own expert | CMK 67/6 | The suspect or accused and counsel may obtain a scientific opinion from an expert of their own choosing: about the incident, for use in preparing the official report, or about the finished report. No extra time may be requested on that ground. |
| Have both doctors questioned aloud | CMK 68/1 and 68/3 | The court may call the appointed expert to the hearing, and may be asked by a party to do so. The same applies to the expert who wrote your scientific opinion. |
| Challenge the expert, or bring your own | CMK 69 and CMK 178 | The grounds requiring a judge's recusal apply to experts, and a rejection refused by the prosecutor during the investigation is reviewed by the sulh ceza judge. Where the court refuses to summon an expert you named, you may bring that person to court and they are heard — subject to the sentence added to CMK 178 in 2016, under which requests made in order to prolong the trial are refused. |
Two further provisions make those routes worth using. CMK 67/2 requires appointed experts who reach differing views, or who hold separate views on a common conclusion, to write that disagreement into the report with reasons; a divided board report is a document to read line by line, not to summarise. And CMK 217/1 permits a judgment to rest only on evidence brought to the hearing and discussed in the judge's presence. A report nobody was made to explain aloud is a report nobody has tested.
One timing point is missed constantly. CMK 67/6 allows a scientific opinion to be obtained about the incident before the official report exists, and the article expressly refuses extra time for doing it afterwards.
What exhumation recovers, and where the argument goes next
Under CMK 87/4 a buried body may be exhumed for examination or autopsy, by decision of the prosecutor during the investigation or of the court during the prosecution, with a relative notified immediately where that does not endanger the purpose of the investigation. What exhumation recovers is limited: skeletal injury, a fracture pattern, a projectile track. It recovers almost nothing about soft tissue, blood alcohol or drug levels, or the state of an organ. For a family that arranged repatriation quickly, that distinction decides whether a second opinion is possible at all.
The order of work is therefore fixed. Read the report before deciding what the defence is. A finding that one blow was fatal, that the deceased survived four hours, or that the accused was struck first moves a file between intentional killing, death resulting from injury, and the provocation and self-defence provisions long before any of it is argued aloud. Those provisions and the sentencing arithmetic that follows are set out on the page on murder and attempted murder charges. Where a report has been accepted and judgment given on it, the objections recorded under CMK 67/5 and the reasons given for refusing them are the material an istinaf appeal is written from.
Questions we are asked most
The forensic report is against us. Is the case over?
Can we have our own doctor examine the body?
How long does the report take, and is he held while it is written?
Turkish terms on this page3 terms
The file is written in Turkish. These are the words you will see in it, with the provision behind each.
- sulh ceza hâkimliği — criminal judgeship of peace
- The judge who takes the decisions a judge must take during the investigation — remand, judicial control, search orders — and who hears objections to them (Law no. 5235, art. 10).
- istinaf — appeal to the regional court of appeal
- The first appeal against a judgment, to the bölge adliye mahkemesi, within two weeks of service of the reasoned judgment (CMK 273/1).
- Adli Tıp Kurumu — Council of Forensic Medicine
- The official forensic institution whose reports — on injuries, substances, cause of death — are the ones courts most often rely on.
Where this leads
Reach the duty desk
Tell us where the person is and what they have been told. An enquiry commits you to nothing. If it is urgent, message or call rather than write.