Should you name others in a Turkish drug case? weighing the reduction against everything it does not touch

Effective remorse after the offence is known is a sentencing provision and nothing more. TCK 192/3 states that where a person, after these offences have been learned of, voluntarily serves and helps in bringing the offence to light and in the apprehension of the perpetrator or the other accomplices, the sentence to be imposed is reduced by from one quarter to one half, according to the nature of the help. Supply inside Türkiye under TCK 188/3 carries imprisonment of not less than ten years, and Article 188/4(a) increases that by half where the substance is heroin, cocaine, morphine, base morphine, a synthetic cannabinoid, a synthetic cathinone, a synthetic opioid or an amphetamine derivative.

Then the execution rules take over, and 192/3 does not reach them. Under Article 107/2 of Law no. 5275 a person serving a fixed-term sentence becomes eligible for conditional release after half of it; the two-thirds rule in that paragraph applies to TCK 188 only for children. Article 105/A allows the last year before conditional release to be executed under supervised release, on request, for a well-behaved convict in an open prison, and a sentence added in 2025 requires at least a tenth of the remaining period — never less than five days — to be spent inside. How the sentence is actually executed decides how much of the reduction you will feel.

The band is graded by the nature of the help, which is a polite way of saying that the more you give, the more there is to work with. What is easy to miss is that the same account also draws a structure.

TCK 188/5 increases the sentence by half where the offence is committed by three or more persons together, and doubles it where it is committed within the activity of an organisation formed to commit crime. TCK 220/1 punishes founding or directing such an organisation with five to ten years and states that an organisation exists only where there are at least three members; 220/2 punishes membership with two to five years; and 220/4 provides that where an offence is committed within the organisation's activity, a sentence is imposed for that offence as well.

Execution moves with the label. Article 107/4 of Law no. 5275 sets conditional release at two thirds where a fixed-term sentence is imposed for an offence committed within the activity of an organisation formed to commit crime. One man, one bag and one buyer is executed at a half. The same events described as four people with roles can be executed at two thirds of a doubled sentence — which is how a reduction of a quarter to a half is swallowed whole. If the file does turn that way, effective remorse on the organisation charge is a different provision with its own terms: TCK 221/4 removes the penalty where the person surrenders voluntarily and gives information about the structure, and reduces it by from one third to three quarters where the information comes after arrest, with supervised release for a year under 221/5, extendable to three, and one use only under 221/6. What has to be proved for supply itself is set out on the page on trafficking under TCK 188.

Witness protection is governed by Law no. 5726. Article 3 makes it available for offences carrying aggravated life imprisonment, life imprisonment, or a lower limit of ten years or more — TCK 188/3, at not less than ten years, is inside; TCK 191, at two to five years, is not — and for offences with a lower limit of two years or more committed within an organisation's activity.

Article 5 lists the measures: keeping identity and address confidential; being heard without those entitled to be present, or with voice or image altered; placing a remanded or convicted person in a suitable institution; physical protection; changing identity documents and registry records; temporary financial support; changing workplace or school; relocation to another settlement inside Türkiye; and, under 5/1(ğ), relocation to another country only in accordance with international agreements and the principle of reciprocity. Article 6 puts the first four in the hands of the prosecutor during investigation and the court during prosecution, and reserves the rest to the Witness Protection Board, decided after the person has testified. Article 8 requires each measure to be reviewed at intervals of no more than a year, and 8/4 allows it to be lifted where the protected person gives false information about the events or breaches the terms.

Read Article 2(a) before relying on any of it. The Law defines a witness as a person heard as a witness in criminal proceedings, together with victims heard as witnesses and the listed relatives. A suspect answering questions about his own offence is not being heard as a witness. Separately, CMK 58/2 and 58/3 allow a witness's identity to be kept confidential and the witness to be heard without those entitled to be present — but 58/5 provides that those paragraphs apply only in relation to offences committed within the activity of an organisation. In an ordinary two-defendant supply file, the machinery for keeping a name out of the room does not exist. And it stops at the border: relatives under Article 4 are protected by measures applied in Türkiye, and no Turkish order reaches a household in another country.

Nothing in TCK 192 touches residence. TCK 59 requires that a foreign national sentenced to imprisonment be reported immediately to the Ministry of the Interior, so that his position may be assessed in relation to deportation, once execution under supervised release or conditional release has been decided and in any event once the sentence has been served.

Article 54/1 of Law no. 6458 then lists who a deportation decision is taken against. Subparagraph (a) covers those assessed as requiring deportation within the scope of TCK 59. Subparagraph (d) covers those who constitute a threat to public order, public security or public health. Subparagraph (b) covers directors, members or supporters of a criminal organisation formed for profit — the ground a cooperation narrative can create where none existed before. Article 9/3 caps the entry ban that follows at five years, but allows it to be extended by up to ten more where there is a serious threat to public order or public security.

The procedure is short and runs separately from the criminal case. Article 53/3 gives seven days from service to apply to the administrative court, requires the applicant to notify the authority that made the decision, has the court decide within fifteen days of the file being complete, and makes that decision final; the person is not removed during the time limit or while the case is pending unless he consents. Article 57/2 allows administrative detention pending removal, and 57/3 caps it at six months, extendable by up to six further months where removal cannot be completed because the person does not cooperate or does not give correct information about his country. How a deportation decision is taken and challenged follows that timetable, not the sentencing one.

TCK 192/3 rewards service and help that contributes to the offence coming to light and to the perpetrator or the other accomplices being caught. A court choosing between a quarter and a half looks for what the information produced: a person detained, an address searched, a quantity seized, a date on a document. A first name and a district produce nothing, and are worth nothing.

A name you cannot support is worse than silence. TCK 267/1 punishes with one to four years anyone who, by report or complaint to the competent authorities, attributes an unlawful act to a person knowing that the person did not commit it, in order to have an investigation or prosecution started or an administrative sanction imposed; 267/2 increases that by half where material evidence of the act is fabricated. Honest error is not that offence — but an account that collapses under checking makes the rest of what you said look built rather than remembered, and it is that account the judge weighs at the detention hearing.

Four things decide this, and none of them can be settled alone at three in the morning: what the file already holds, so that you know whether you are being asked for something the investigation has anyway; what you can give that is capable of being verified; whether your own account places you inside a structure under TCK 220; and what the people you would name can actually reach. The paragraph-by-paragraph conditions, including the immunity in 192/1 and 192/2 that depends on the authorities not yet having learned of the offence, are set out on the main page on effective remorse in a drug case.