Why a Robbery Charge in Türkiye Usually Ends in Remand

Detention rests on CMK 100. Its first paragraph sets two conditions and one limit: strong suspicion supported by concrete evidence, a ground for detention, and no detention order where the measure is out of proportion to the importance of the case and to the sentence or security measure expected. The third paragraph then allows a ground to be presumed for a list of offences. Subparagraph (a)(8) of that list names theft (TCK 141, 142) and robbery (TCK 148, 149) in the same breath.

The presumption is therefore available in both. What differs is the second half of the test.

• Theft, TCK 141: one to three years. Qualified theft, TCK 142/1: three to seven; TCK 142/2: five to ten.
• Robbery, TCK 148: six to ten years. Qualified robbery, TCK 149: ten to fifteen.

Against a one-to-three-year range, months of pre-trial custody can be argued to be disproportionate, and TCK 51 keeps a suspended sentence in view because it applies to prison sentences of two years or less. Against a six-year floor, neither argument works in the same form. Getting from six years to two requires the low-value reduction in TCK 150/2 and the effective-remorse reduction in TCK 168/3 to be applied together and near their maximum. That can happen at the end of a trial. It is not what a judge is working with in the first week.

Jurisdiction moves as well. Law no. 5235, article 12 names yagma (TCK 148) expressly among the cases heard by the agir ceza court, alongside offences carrying more than ten years. A theft file usually stays with a single judge in the asliye ceza court. The detention clock in CMK 102 is keyed to that distinction, and is set out on the remand and judicial control page.

Four things, each with concrete facts

CMK 101/1 requires the prosecutor's request to be reasoned and to state the legal and factual reasons why judicial control would be insufficient. CMK 101/2 then requires the order itself — for detention, for its continuation, or refusing release — to show, through concrete facts: strong suspicion; the existence of a detention ground; that detention is proportionate; and that judicial control would be inadequate.

The grounds in CMK 100/2 are only two. Paragraph (a): flight, hiding, or concrete facts raising a suspicion of flight. Paragraph (b): conduct creating strong suspicion that evidence will be destroyed, concealed or altered, or that pressure will be attempted on a witness, a victim or others.

For a foreign national, limb (a) is where the file is weakest, and it is answered with documents rather than assurances: a verifiable address in Türkiye, a residence or work permit with its expiry date, an employment or study record, family in the country, and a passport that can be surrendered.

The list the court chooses from instead

CMK 109 allows judicial control where the CMK 100 grounds exist. Its third paragraph includes: not leaving the country (a); reporting to a named place at set intervals (b); surrender of a driving licence (d); a security deposit whose amount and instalments the judge fixes on the prosecutor's request, taking the suspect's means into account (f); a weapons ban (g); security for the victim's rights (h); house arrest (j); and a ban on leaving a defined area (k).

One figure is worth knowing. Under CMK 109/6 time under judicial control does not count against a later sentence. Two obligations are excepted: treatment under (e) and house arrest under (j). For house arrest the Code sets the rate expressly — every two days count as one day against the sentence.

Most of that documentary file can be assembled from abroad. What relatives can and cannot do is set out on the page for families of a detainee.

A detention hearing is not the place to argue innocence. It is the place to argue which article applies, because the expected sentence is what the proportionality limit measures. Three lines do that work.

Was there compulsion of the kind TCK 148 describes? The article requires force, or a threat of an attack on the life, bodily or sexual integrity of the victim or a relative, or of large-scale damage to property, used to make the victim hand something over or not resist its taking. Taking property from the hand or the person by snatching, without that, is TCK 142/2-b: five to ten years, and asliye ceza. TCK 148/3 counts as force any means that leaves the victim unable to know what is happening or to defend themselves.

Was money being collected rather than taken? Under TCK 150/1, where force or threats are used to collect a debt resting on a legal relationship, only the provisions on threat or intentional injury apply. Unpaid wages, a disputed fare or bill, and the recovery of one's own property are the situations this covers, and it takes the file out of the agir ceza court altogether.

Was the value low? TCK 150/2 permits a reduction of one third to one half where the value of the property is small. It is discretionary and it is not automatic.

Two provisions run the other way. TCK 149 lifts the range to ten to fifteen years where the offence is committed with a weapon, in disguise, by more than one person together, by blocking a road or inside a home or workplace or their annexes, against someone unable to defend themselves, by using the frightening power of a criminal organisation or for its benefit, or at night. And TCK 43/3 excludes robbery from the chain-offence rule: three incidents are three separate sentences added together, not one sentence increased by a quarter to three quarters. Multi-incident files are the ones that stay in custody.

TCK 168 treats robbery separately from theft. For theft, fraud and related offences, returning the property or fully compensating the victim before prosecution begins can cut the sentence by up to two thirds under TCK 168/1; done after prosecution begins but before judgment, by up to one half under TCK 168/2. TCK 168/3 halves both figures for robbery: up to one half in the first situation, up to one third in the second.

Two conditions are easy to miss. The remorse must be shown by the person himself — offender, instigator or accomplice — and the return or compensation must be complete. Where only part is returned, TCK 168/4 requires the victim's consent before the article can be applied at all.

Effective remorse releases nobody by itself. It lowers the sentence the court expects to impose, and that number is what the proportionality limit in CMK 100/1 is measured against.

Nothing in a robbery file moves on its own. Three mechanisms exist, and each has to be used.

• Objection. CMK 101/5 makes decisions under CMK 100 and 101 open to objection. The target is the reasoning: where an order recites the statute without concrete facts, that is the ground.
• Thirty-day review. Under CMK 108/1, during the investigation the sulh ceza judge decides at intervals of no more than thirty days, on the prosecutor's request and after hearing the suspect or defence counsel, whether detention should continue. CMK 108/2 lets the suspect ask for that review within the same period instead of waiting for it. Once trial begins, CMK 108/3 requires a decision at every hearing.
• Judicial control instead of detention. A CMK 109 application is not a form. It is the address, the permit, the passport, the deposit and the reporting schedule presented as one package, because that is what answers CMK 101/2-d.

The outer limits sit in the background: within agir ceza jurisdiction, CMK 102/2 sets a two-year maximum with extensions on stated grounds, and CMK 102/4 caps the investigation stage at one year. Those are ceilings, not expectations.

All of this assumes the charge is already framed as yagma. Where the article itself is in issue — whether there was compulsion, whether a debt was being collected, which paragraph of TCK 149 is alleged — the elements are set out on the robbery charges page, and the first-statement rules that shape everything downstream are on what happens after arrest in Türkiye.