Turkey sentences a schoolboy

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32860, 8 March 1972, Page 16

Turkey sentences a schoolboy

The sentence imposed by a Turkish court on a 14-year-old British schoolboy convicted of conspiring to traffic in drugs has been noted in Britain with a profound sense of shock. Timothy Davey was sentenced to six years and three months in gaol and a fine of about $9OOO. His sentence may be reduced to four years for good behaviour; but if he cannot pay the fine—and his family has said he cannot—his sentence may be extended. “ The Times ” summed up British opinion when it wrote; “ It seems absurd “ and inhuman that any boy of 14 should be sentenced “anywhere for any offence to six years and three "months imprisonment, let alone to a fine of over “ £4OOO in addition. The punishment may fit the crime, “ but by no stretch of the imagination can it be said “to fit the criminal”.

The British Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have expressed concern; but the flurry of newspaper comment in Britain criticising the sentence has had an adverse effect on the case. Where last week the Turkish Prime Minister’s office indicated that the Turkish Parliament had power to exercise clemency, the Prime Minister (Dr Nihat Erim) this week has said he regards British reaction to the sentence as “insulting to Turkish justice” and has cancelled a private visit to England. If the Davey case grows into a diplomatic incident the victim will almost certainly be the boy in gaol in Istanbul. Reactions to the sentence have been influenced by other factors than the youth of the offender. While Timothy Davey did not deny an attempt to sell 561 b of hashish, he denied, unsuccessfully, the allegation that he had conspired with others and said he had been attempting to help his mother and her five other children who were in financial trouble on the way home from India. Two Frenchmen and an Austrian found by the court to have conspired with Davey received much longer sentences because they were older.

Few will quarrel with the main purpose of the trial and the sentences—to serve as a deterrent to others in Turkey. The country has been under strong international pressure for some years to clamp down on the production of drugs and drug trafficking. The Turks, indeed, have agreed to do so at a considerable financial loss. The cultivation and sale of opium will be banned in Turkey from next year and the courts have handed down heavy sentences on traffickers caught recently. It is thus hardly surprising that the Turks should be offended when the operation of laws demanded of them by other countries, including Britain, brings harsh criticism upon their judicial processes. But Timothy Davey has already served six months in prison since his arrest A long term in a foreign gaol at a time when the boy should still be at school can do no good and may do much harm. The case has still to go to appeal, a process which might take another five months. If the Appeal Court, or the Turkish Parliament, does not see fit to exercise clemency the suggestion has been made that the boy might be sent to Britain under a Turkish law which allows foreigners to serve sentences in their own countries. A Dane sentenced to 30 years in gaol for drug smuggling was returned to Denmark last year Britain has no legal process under which it could accept the boy to serve a sentence imposed by a foreign court; it should not be beyond the powers of the British Government to devise a suitable formula before the appeal is heard. In the meantime, the less unofficial pressure from Britain, the better it will probably be for Timothy Davey. The Turks are more likely to show clemency if it does not appear that they are simply giving way to a public outcry in Britain.