Your Medication Was Seized at a Turkish Airport and you were asked for a statement: what that file is

Three quite different things can begin at the same counter, and from where you are standing they look alike.

• No criminal file at all. The item is refused entry or held and the matter is administrative. If you are being asked for a statement, this is not where you are.
• A customs file. Article 3/1 of Law no. 5607 punishes bringing goods into the country without subjecting them to customs procedure with one to five years imprisonment and a judicial fine of up to ten thousand days; the sentence is increased by one third to one half where the goods are brought in outside a customs gate. That framework is set out under customs and smuggling offences.
• A narcotics file under Article 188/6. That paragraph applies the preceding paragraphs of Article 188 to any substance whose production requires official permission, or whose sale depends on a prescription written by an authorised physician, where the substance produces a narcotic or stimulant effect. Importation under Article 188/1 carries twenty to thirty years and a judicial fine of two thousand to twenty thousand days. Article 188/6 adds one sentence in your favour: the penalty may be reduced by up to one half. Half of twenty years is still ten.
• A personal-use file under Article 191/1. Two to five years, but on a different track: Article 191/2 requires the prosecutor to defer prosecution for five years, Article 191/3 imposes at least one year of supervision, extendable in six-month periods by up to two further years, and Article 191/7 requires a decision of non-prosecution if you keep the conditions. The wider framework is set out under drug offences in Türkiye.

Nobody at the counter will tell you which of these you are in, because at that moment it has not been decided. It is decided later, on the strength of the analysis and of the papers that made it into the file.

The conversation ends when your flight is called. The record does not.

Under Article 127/1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, officers may seize on a judge's decision, or in cases where delay is prejudicial on the written order of the public prosecutor, or where the prosecutor cannot be reached on the written order of the senior police officer. The officer's full identity goes into the seizure record (Article 127/2). A seizure made without a judge's decision must be submitted to the competent judge within twenty-four hours, and the judge announces the decision within forty-eight hours of the seizure; otherwise the seizure lapses of its own accord (Article 127/3). If the goods were in your possession, you may at any time ask the judge for a decision about them (Article 127/4).

Getting the medicine itself back is a separate and usually disappointing question. Article 131/1 allows return where the item is no longer needed for the investigation and is not liable to confiscation. But where the file is handled as smuggling, Article 11/1 of Law no. 5607 requires seized goods to be delivered to the customs administration under a record showing quantity, type, brand, model and serial number, and Article 11/5 provides that seized medicines and medicinal raw materials whose packaging carries no official banderole, label, hologram, stamp or similar mark are recorded, sampled and destroyed — and it reserves, for medicines in particular, disposal by methods other than destruction under a regulation issued by the Ministry of Trade.

So the box is probably gone. What survives is the sample, the analysis made from it, and the record. Read the record before you sign it: the quantity written down, how the packaging is described, and whether your prescription and the language it is written in were noted at all.

The statement is taken under Article 147, which sets out what must happen before you say anything.

• You must answer questions about your identity truthfully (Article 147/1-a), and the alleged offence must be explained to you (Article 147/1-b).
• You must be told that you may choose a defence lawyer, that he may be present while your statement is taken, and that if you are not in a position to appoint one the bar association will assign one (Article 147/1-c).
• A relative of your choosing must be told immediately that you have been detained (Article 147/1-d).
• You must be told that saying nothing about the alleged offence is your legal right (Article 147/1-e).
• You may ask that concrete evidence be collected to clear the suspicion (Article 147/1-f). This is the provision under which your prescription, the doctor's letter and a translation of them enter the file.
• The record is signed after it has been read (Article 147/1-i-4), and if you refuse to sign, the reasons for the refusal are recorded (Article 147/1-i-5).

If you cannot explain yourself in Turkish, an interpreter is appointed at the investigation stage by the prosecutor or the judge (Article 202/1 and 202/3). What that entitles you to, and what to do when the interpreting is poor, is set out under interpreter rights in a Turkish case.

Four rules in Article 148 matter more here than anywhere else. Your statement must rest on your free will (148/1). No unlawful benefit may be promised (148/2), so an assurance that signing gets you onto the aircraft has no legal value. Statements obtained by prohibited methods cannot be treated as evidence even if you consented (148/3). A statement taken by the police without a lawyer present cannot be the basis of a judgment unless you confirm it before a judge or court (148/4). And a further statement about the same matter can only be taken by the prosecutor (148/5).

Three things are worth doing while you are still at the airport. Ask what substance is recorded and in what quantity. Ask that your prescription, packaging and leaflet be entered into the file under Article 147/1-f, with a translation attached. Do not sign a Turkish record you have not heard read back in your own language.

Three things are worth not doing. Do not characterise your own conduct; sentences such as some of them were for a friend describe acts listed in Article 188/3. Do not agree to a quantity you have not seen written down. Do not treat being allowed to fly as the end of the matter.

Because the analysis and the classification take weeks, the decision usually arrives long after you are home. Article 172/1 requires a decision of non-prosecution to be notified to the injured party and to a suspect whose statement has already been taken, which includes you, but only at the address in the file. Leave an address that will reach you, keep a copy of every document, and have the file checked before it becomes an indictment served somewhere you no longer live.

What is controlled here, what to carry and whether to declare are set out on the practice page for prescription medication at the Turkish border.