Offence · TCK 81 · 82
Murder and attempted murder in Türkiye: the distance between two articles.
A killing case in Türkiye is tried in the ağır ceza court, and the first question in the file is not whether you did it. It is which article the prosecutor writes: TCK 81, which carries life imprisonment, or TCK 82, which carries aggravated life. This page sets out those two articles, the provisions that move a sentence away from them, where a defence actually begins, and what changes because you are not a Turkish national.
If you are being questioned at this moment
- Remain silentYou are not obliged to answer the questions put to you. Silence is not an admission and may not be recorded as one.Say this in TurkishKonuşmak istemiyorum.
- Demand counselSay it clearly and repeat it. Ask for an interpreter in the same sentence — you are entitled to one.Say this in TurkishAvukat ve tercüman istiyorum.
- Sign nothingA record written in Turkish that you could not read still binds you.Say this in TurkishAnlamadığım belgeyi imzalamayacağım.
- Get word outSomeone outside must know where you are and which authority is holding you. Your consulate may be notified.Say this in TurkishAilemi aramak istiyorum.
“Avukatım gelmeden ifade vermeyeceğim ve hiçbir evrak imzalamayacağım.”
I will not give a statement and will not sign any document until my defence lawyer arrives.
CMK m. 147/1-e — susma hakkı · CMK m. 154 — müdafi ile görüşme hakkı
for the officer
Two articles, and everything that hangs on which one is written
TCK 81 is a single sentence. A person who intentionally kills another is sentenced to life imprisonment — müebbet hapis. There is no range to argue over, no lower limit, no fine.
TCK 82 lists eleven circumstances. If the court finds that any one of them is present, the sentence becomes aggravated life imprisonment — ağırlaştırılmış müebbet hapis. The act is the same. The article is not.
The eleven circumstances in TCK 82
- With premeditation (tasarlayarak).
- With monstrous feeling, or by inflicting torment.
- By fire, flood, destruction, sinking or bombing, or by using a nuclear, biological or chemical weapon.
- Against an ascendant or descendant, a spouse, a divorced spouse, or a sibling.
- Against a child, or against a person unable to defend themselves physically or mentally.
- Against a woman.
- By reason of a public duty the victim performed.
- To conceal an offence, destroy its evidence or facilitate its commission, or to avoid being caught.
- Out of the fury felt at having been unable to commit an offence.
- With the motive of blood feud (kan gütme saiki).
- With the motive of custom (töre saiki).
Two of these decide more files than the rest. Premeditation, and the purpose of concealing an offence or avoiding capture. Neither is proved by a witness saying so. Both are inferences drawn from what happened before and after the death — a weapon acquired, a journey taken, a message sent, a phone switched off, a first account given at the scene that later changes.
When the death was not completed, and when it was not intended
Most contested killing files in Türkiye are not arguments about identity. They are arguments about which offence the facts amount to. Four provisions carry that argument.
Attempt — TCK 35
Under 35/1, a person is liable for attempt where they began the commission of the intended offence directly, by acts capable of producing the result, and could not complete it for reasons outside their control. Both limbs matter: acts that could not have caused death, or a result abandoned voluntarily rather than prevented, do not sit inside the article.
Under 35/2, the sentence is set according to the gravity of the harm or danger caused. In place of aggravated life imprisonment, fourteen to twenty-one years. In place of life imprisonment, ten to eighteen years.
Possible intent — TCK 21/2
Possible intent (olası kast) exists where a person foresaw that the elements of the offence might come about and acted anyway. Where it is found, aggravated life becomes life, and life becomes twenty to twenty-five years.
Death resulting from intentional injury — TCK 87/4
This is the provision that decides fight cases. Where death results from an intentional injury, the sentence is ten to fourteen years where the case falls under TCK 86/1, and fourteen to eighteen years where it falls under TCK 86/3 — the aggravated forms of injury, which include injury committed with a weapon.
The question the court answers is what the person intended at the moment of the act: to kill, or to injure. A single blow, the part of the body struck, the number of wounds, whether the weapon was carried to the scene or picked up there, and what was done immediately afterwards all feed that finding. There is no separate Turkish provision for a death in a brawl. The file is characterised as 81, 82, 87/4 or negligent killing, and nothing else.
Negligent killing — TCK 85
Where death is caused by negligence and not intent, the sentence is two to six years. Where the act caused the death of more than one person, or a death together with injuries, two to fifteen years.
Provocation, self-defence, and the line between them
These are two different arguments with two different results. Confusing them is common and costly. One removes the sentence. The other reduces it.
Self-defence — TCK 25/1
No penalty is imposed on a person who acts to repel an unjust attack — against their own rights or another's — where the attack is occurring, or where its occurrence or repetition is certain, and where the response is proportionate to the attack according to the circumstances at that moment. Necessity (zorunluluk hali) under 25/2 works the same way for a grave and certain danger the person did not knowingly cause and could not otherwise escape.
When the limit was exceeded — TCK 27
Under 27/1, where the limit of a ground excluding criminal liability is exceeded without intent, and the act is also punishable when committed negligently, the sentence for the negligent offence is reduced by one sixth to one third.
Under 27/2 — and this is the provision that is under-argued — where the limit of self-defence was exceeded because of excusable agitation, fear or panic, no penalty is imposed at all. That is an acquittal on the sentence, not a discount, and it is decided on evidence about the accused's state at the moment: what was said, how many attackers there were, what was in their hands, how much time there was.
Unjust provocation — TCK 29
Unjust provocation (haksız tahrik) applies where the offence was committed under the influence of anger or severe distress produced by an unjust act. It is not a defence. It is a graded reduction:
- In place of aggravated life imprisonment: eighteen to twenty-four years.
- In place of life imprisonment: twelve to eighteen years.
- In all other cases: a reduction of one quarter to three quarters of the sentence.
The width of that range is the point. Between twelve and eighteen years there are six years, and the court chooses within it by assessing how serious the provoking act was against how the accused responded. Establishing that the other party acted unjustly is only half the work; establishing the degree is the other half, and it is argued with the scene record, the injuries on both bodies, the sequence in the camera footage and what the witnesses heard first.
How the sentence is actually built
Turkish sentencing is not a single figure chosen by the judge. It is an arithmetic performed in a fixed order, and each step is separately appealable. Under TCK 61/4, where several qualifying circumstances apply, increases are made first and reductions afterwards. Under TCK 61/5, the reductions are then applied in this sequence: attempt, participation, chain offence, unjust provocation, minority, mental illness, personal grounds of reduction, and finally discretionary mitigation.
What each provision substitutes
| Provision | Instead of aggravated life | Instead of life |
|---|---|---|
| TCK 35/2 — attempt | Fourteen to twenty-one years | Ten to eighteen years |
| TCK 21/2 — possible intent | Life imprisonment | Twenty to twenty-five years |
| TCK 29 — unjust provocation | Eighteen to twenty-four years | Twelve to eighteen years |
| TCK 32/2 — diminished capacity to direct one's conduct, but not to the degree described in 32/1, where no penalty is imposed and a security measure is ordered instead | Twenty-five years | Twenty years |
| TCK 83/3 — killing by an omission equivalent to an act | Twenty to twenty-five years, or no reduction at all | Fifteen to twenty years, or no reduction at all |
| TCK 62 — discretionary mitigation | Life imprisonment | Twenty-five years |
One row in that table is not like the others. TCK 83/3 is written permissively: the court may impose these ranges, or may decline to reduce the sentence at all and leave aggravated life or life standing. The remaining rows describe substitutions that follow once the finding behind them is made.
Two figures govern the arithmetic. Under TCK 61/7, a determinate sentence produced by this process cannot exceed thirty years. And under TCK 62/2, discretionary mitigation is assessed on the accused's past, social relations, conduct showing remorse after the act and during the proceedings, and the likely effect of the sentence on their future — but since the 2022 amendment, conduct in the courtroom adopted in order to influence the court is expressly excluded, and the reasons must be stated in the judgment.
Two procedures that exist elsewhere in Turkish criminal law do not reach here. Deferral of the announcement of the judgment (HAGB) under CMK 231/5 applies only to sentences of two years or less. Mediation (uzlaştırma) under CMK 253 is confined to a listed set of offences, and killing is not among them. There is no negotiated disposal of a murder file.
What this page cannot tell you is which line of that table your file sits on. That is decided by the indictment, and the indictment is written from the autopsy report, the scene record, the statements taken in the first days and the telephone data. Anyone who reads a charge sheet and predicts an outcome is guessing.
Where the defence begins, and how early
By the time a family abroad understands what has happened, the evidence that will decide the case is usually already fixed. Almost none of it is created in the courtroom.
The body
Under CMK 86, examination of the deceased is carried out in the presence of the public prosecutor with a physician appointed for the purpose, and all findings bearing on the time and cause of death are recorded. Under CMK 87, 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 them a general practitioner. It must involve opening the head, chest and abdomen where the condition of the body permits, and the proceedings are recorded in images.
The first statement
The account given in the first hours is the account the court will compare everything else against. In a killing file it is given while the person is exhausted, frightened, often injured, and frequently before the difference between 81, 82 and 87/4 has been explained to anyone.
Under CMK 150/3, defence counsel is appointed without the suspect having to ask in investigations and prosecutions for offences whose lower limit exceeds five years' imprisonment. In practice, no killing file proceeds without a müdafi. An appointed müdafi is a lawyer taken from the bar duty list; whether that lawyer shares a language with you, and how much time the file receives, is not something the appointment settles.
What the file is made of
Scene photographs and the sketch. Camera footage from the street and from private premises, which is overwritten quickly and has to be requested before it is. Telephone signal data and messages. The clothing and the weapon. The injuries recorded on every person present, not only on the deceased — in a provocation or self-defence case, marks on the accused's own body are evidence, and they fade within days if no one photographs and reports them.
What is different because you are not Turkish
Language
Under CMK 202, where the accused does not know Turkish well enough to express themselves, the essential points of the accusation and the defence are translated by an interpreter appointed by the court. The same applies to suspects and witnesses heard during the investigation, with the interpreter appointed by the judge or prosecutor. Note what that provision does and does not promise: essential points, not a full simultaneous record of the hearing.
CMK 202/4 adds a separate right. On the reading of the indictment and on the delivery of the prosecutor's final opinion, the accused may make an oral defence in another language they say they can express themselves in better, using an interpreter they choose from the official list. Those interpreter costs are not met by the State.
The consulate
Under CMK 95/2, where the person apprehended or taken into custody is a foreign national, their situation is notified to the consulate of their state unless they object in writing. A consulate cannot defend you, choose your lawyer or intervene in the case. It can confirm where you are being held, and that is often the only reliable information a family abroad has for several days.
Detention
Intentional killing under TCK 81, 82 and 83 is inside the catalogue in CMK 100/3, where a ground for detention may be presumed if there is strong suspicion resting on concrete evidence. Under CMK 102/2, in matters within the jurisdiction of the ağır ceza court the detention period is two years, extendable with reasons, the total extension not exceeding three years. At the investigation stage alone, CMK 102/4 sets a ceiling of one year. Under CMK 102/3, extension decisions are taken only after the views of the prosecutor, the accused and defence counsel have been obtained — a hearing, not a formality.
Foreign nationality is regularly treated as though it supplied the concrete facts that CMK 100/2 requires for flight risk. It does not supply them on its own, and the distinction is worth insisting on with material: an address here, a residence permit, employment, family, a surrendered passport.
Leaving the country
Where release does happen — on a reclassified file, on an attempt charge, or under CMK 109/7 when the detention periods expire — the condition that almost always comes with it is the one in CMK 109/3-a: a prohibition on leaving the country. It can last for the whole of the proceedings, including the appeal, and lifting it is a separate application.
After a conviction
Under Law no. 5275, Article 107/2, a person sentenced to a determinate term under TCK 81, 82 or 83 must serve two thirds of it before conditional release, not the half that applies to most other offences. Where a life sentence has been reduced to a term of years by attempt or provocation, that two-thirds rate is what governs the release date.
And under TCK 59, a foreign national sentenced to imprisonment has their situation notified to the Ministry of the Interior immediately once release under probation or conditional release is decided, and in every case once the sentence has been completed, so that deportation can be assessed. The end of the criminal sentence is the beginning of a separate administrative process with its own, much shorter, deadlines.
Questions we are asked most
Is there bail in a murder case?
He was defending himself. Does that end the case?
The other man started the fight. Does provocation apply automatically?
How long can he be held before the trial ends?
He does not speak Turkish. Who translates the hearing?
Turkish terms on this page4 terms
The file is written in Turkish. These are the words you will see in it, with the provision behind each.
- müdafi — defence counsel
- The lawyer who defends the suspect or accused (CMK 2/1-c). Under CMK 154/1 they may meet the person at any time, without a power of attorney, where nobody else can hear.
- ağır ceza mahkemesi — heavy penal court
- The trial court for the listed serious offences and for any offence carrying more than ten years' imprisonment, life or aggravated life (Law no. 5235, art. 12).
- hükmün açıklanmasının geri bırakılması — deferral of the judgment (HAGB)
- Where the sentence is two years or less, the court may defer announcing the judgment (CMK 231/5) for a five-year supervision period (CMK 231/8). If the period passes cleanly the judgment is set aside and the case dismissed (CMK 231/10).
- uzlaştırma — criminal mediation
- A settlement procedure run through a mediator for the offences listed in CMK 253/1. A performed settlement closes the file without a conviction.
Legislation this page relies on
- TCK 81 · 82 · 83 · 85 · 86 · 87 (Law no. 5237) — Life imprisonment for intentional killing; the eleven circumstances in Article 82 that make the sentence aggravated life; the ranges of twenty to twenty-five and fifteen to twenty years that the court may, but need not, substitute under Article 83/3 for killing by an omission equivalent to an act, where it may equally decline to reduce the sentence at all; two to six and two to fifteen years for negligent killing; the tiers of intentional injury; and ten to fourteen and fourteen to eighteen years in Article 87/4 where death results from intentional injury.
- TCK 21/2 · 25 · 27 · 29 · 35 · 61 · 62 — Possible intent and its substitution of life and of twenty to twenty-five years; self-defence and necessity, for which no penalty is imposed; the reduction of one sixth to one third where the limit is exceeded without intent and the absence of penalty where it is exceeded out of excusable agitation, fear or panic; unjust provocation at eighteen to twenty-four and twelve to eighteen years; attempt at fourteen to twenty-one and ten to eighteen years; the order of application in 61/4 and 61/5 and the thirty-year ceiling in 61/7; and discretionary mitigation, including the exclusion of courtroom conduct adopted to influence the court.
- CMK 86 · 87 · 95/2 · 100 · 102 · 109 · 150/3 · 202 · 231/5 · 253 (Law no. 5271) — Examination of the deceased before the prosecutor; the composition of the autopsy team, the requirement to open head, chest and abdomen, the right of a physician brought by defence counsel to be present, exhumation, and image recording; consular notification for a foreign national absent written objection; the catalogue of offences including Articles 81, 82 and 83; the two-year detention period with a three-year total extension and the one-year investigation ceiling; judicial control and the prohibition on leaving the country; assignment of counsel without request where the lower limit exceeds five years; interpretation of the essential points and the separate right of oral defence in another language at the accused's cost; the two-year limit on deferral of the announcement of the judgment; and the closed list of offences open to mediation.
- Law no. 5275, Article 107 — Conditional release after thirty years served for aggravated life imprisonment and twenty-four years for life imprisonment; and the two-thirds rate applicable to determinate sentences imposed for the killing offences in TCK 81, 82 and 83, in place of the half that governs most other determinate sentences.
Read against the consolidated text published by mevzuat.gov.tr on 29 August 2026. Turkish legislation is amended frequently and monetary penalties are revalued; where a figure decides something for you, it should be read from the decision served on you rather than from this page.
Related pages
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