David Orn Bjarnason, 28-year-old Icelander living in Sweden, was on Friday arrested in Turkey. Turkish authorities accuse him of smuggling antiquities; that will go through the land of marble stone, which he bought in a market in Turkey. Thora Birgisdóttir, wife of David, said his wait three to ten years in prison and eight to 24 million penalty. David will be brought before a judge in Turkey tomorrow.
“I’m really numb and do not know properly how I feel. This is like the movie and I thought this sort of thing could not happen to someone, “says Thor standing in Sweden. “I just want to hear him and know how he feels, samviskubitið is killing me over to go to sleep right here in our bed every night without any idea whether that be to beat him out there. I do not even know if he has a bed! I do not know anything! All out of some damn rock! I do not know if I get to see him again, and how tough it is out there. I have to say to a four-year-old boy in our father would not come home and the boy refuses to go on the plane with her grandparents. Daddy is not coming home. ”
Roared them on police station
Thora says he does not know if she can go out to meet him, “if there is a warrant of arrest against me or what. We just wait and see how he gets on the court tomorrow. Agent has done nothing to help us. The guide, which is equipped, just came and yelled at us in the police station we should have to present us with rules governing the country. He was just a talker and bored and so he did just that. He helped us nothing. I do not know how prisons are out there and this uncertainty damages the person. ”
From Turkey. AFP
Thora and David Orn were reportedly dry for a trip to Turkey with a travel agent Tom Travel. Included in the trip was a tour guide, hotels and more. “We went by way of the narrator in our view based Romans. Since we bought this stone for any woman in any of these markets, which are at this point. David has always been interested in history and wanted to acquire such a stone, “said Thora.
“We never thought that we could not buy this and take us out of the country. The guide who was with us never mentioned it. When we went up to the airport took us through the bag description before tékkuðum us into. Then a policeman came and went between me and David, and they took away the stone. From there I went with us to the police station where we waited for an hour, “said Thora.
“You can go – he will remain”
“When we went to ask about why we were kept, we were told that they were to evaluate the stone. So, I was ordered to go on a plane and leave David behind. We had child care for our children, three in Sweden who were self flight to Iceland so we had to get home to our children. Then the police officer handed me my pass and said, “You may go. He must leave. “I had then just take the bag and leave David behind. He was talking to his mom for 20 seconds on the phone, the phone was ripped from him in this Turkish prison he is. All he could say was that it was prepared to mistreat him and that he did nothing that was said to him and knew nothing of what he was in prison. ”
The Foreign Ministry had reportedly Thora interpreter to call the prison and then was able to talk to him and calm him a bit. “Then he went before a judge, where everyone expected that he would get a fine and able to go, but the judge said he should go to jail and that tomorrow (Monday) would be doomed if he went on a three to ten years imprisonment or would have to pay eight to 24 million in fines. So we are just waiting to get to know how big the shock will be, “said Thora.
“I do not know how prisons are there, I do not know how many he’s in a cell, I do not know if he’s been beaten up or if he has a bed to sleep on. Foreign Ministry knows basically nothing and gets nothing to know. David’s parents are coming to Sweden to attend the two youngest of our children, so I just have to pack up the apartment and cancel the job and go back to Iceland. I should not be here and is just one and you need all the support you gain under such circumstances. ”
Thora says that all who were with them on the trip was in shock and not understand why it would have reacted that.
Will be charged with smuggling
“The report we received from the Foreign Office said he is charged with smuggling of Antiquities. We were not smuggling anything. The stone was near the top of luggage panniers so it’s completely crazy that we intended to smuggle something. Are there tour operators to work like this, it locks people into the country and sell it as something it can not buy to make a little, and see behind innocent people in jail, “said Thora.
“I am one of three children and I can not pay the fines, which he could get. I own nothing. No one will ever lend me anything. I just do what I have with me right now. He needs the book to attend this off. ”
Incidents such as what happened in Turkey on Friday, when the Icelandic man was arrested and brought into custody because he planned to take a marble stone of the country, seem fairly frequent, but we simply search online you can find some similar examples.
As far as can be found not sell Icelandic travel agency package tours to Turkey, but the Norwegian travel wish-Travel sells trips from here to the Turkish riviera. Icelander, David Orn Bjarnason, on behalf of the German travel agency Travel Tom.
According to data from the Office Wanted-Travel in Iceland, the company has sold Norwegians Turkey Tours for years. It is not specifically stated to them that there buying trips to Turkey not to take stones from the land, provided that no traveling by their experienced a similar situation.
“This is not something we feel we need to specify,” says spokesman wish-Travel.
In terms of the travel company says that a traveler duty to enforce the regulations in the country and go in terms of Icelandic travel agency generally provides that a passenger is obliged to comply with laws and regulations of public authorities in the countries where they travel.
Some have experienced a similar situation and David
We simply search online found a few reports of travelers who have been in similar situations and David. For example, had a four-person Chinese family to spend six more days in Antalaya in Turkey last year after they wanted to go with a marble stone of the country. Stone they had bought at the market. There was a young Spaniard arrested at the airport in Antalya in Turkey last summer after two marble stones were found in his luggage.
The same can be said about the Swedish diplomat who had planned to go with a small marble stone out of the country last spring. There was a Swiss police officer arrested last summer when the stone was found in his bag.
I. Why Turkey does not qualify the tragic events of 1915-1916 as genocide?
1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
The main incrimination of the author is that Turkey denies recognizing the 1915-1916 Armenian genocide. Let us scrutinize if such an accusation is legally sustainable.
“The concept of the “Armenian genocide” is being used in a historical and political rather than in a legal perspective. It has become a catchword which reveals deep scars in the Armenian collective memory. Learned legal discussions on the issue of genocidal intent are of little or no relevance to the perception by the Armenians of one of the most defining moments of their history [1]”.
The term “genocide” is a legal term; it describes a crime specifically defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention and must be addressed accordingly. The existence of the crime of genocide can be legally determined only by the judges of a competent tribunal on the basis of the prescribed legal criteria and after a fair and impartial trial. The Genocide Convention does not allow for convictions on genocide by legislatures, scholars, pamphleteers, politicians or others. Some historians, sociologists, politicians and even political scientists who dealt with these issues tend to describe almost any incident which involves a significant number of dead[2] as genocide; they sometimes purposely mislead those who are not familiar with the law; they created an “Armenian taboo” and now they are prisoners of it.[3] Indeed,
“To term the events of 1915 as genocide is to detach genocide from its legal definition and to use it for political or moral purposes. Whether it is sound to keep hammering on a legal term based on non-legal considerations is doubtful… it adds to a wrong conceptualization of the legal system and eventually could lead to a devaluation of the norm itself…” [4]
But, Armenians and some of their supporters have deliberately set aside the legal aspects of the issue, because –they thought- it would weaken their genocide claims. They have chosen to adopt a dogmatic political approach to underline the tragic nature of the incidents so that they can make genocide claims more easily acceptable by the public.[5]
Dolus specialis – special intent
The most important characteristic of the Genocide Convention is that for the crime of genocide to exist, acts must have been committed with the intent to destroy the protected groups as such. The mental or subjective element (mens rea) is a constituent of that crime. The concept of “general intent,” which is valid for ordinary crimes, is inadequate in the identification of acts of genocide.
Sociologically and psychologically, the intent “to destroy a group as such” emerges in the most intensive stage of racism. Racial hatred is quite different from the ordinary animosity laced with anger, which parties engaged in a substantial dispute may feel toward one another. Racial hatred is a deeply pathological feeling or complicated fanaticism. Anti-Semitism is an example in this context.[6]
According to the Genocide Convention, the intent to destroy a group must be in the form of “special intent,” dolus specialis, beyond any doubt. This crucial aspect of the crime of genocide has been underlined by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in paragraph 187 of its verdict on Bosnia Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro[7]: The International Court of Justice (ICJ) examined the allegations by Bosnia and Herzegovina and conducted long and detailed investigations regarding the alleged atrocities, the findings of which are grouped according to the categories of prohibited acts described in Article II of the Genocide Convention. With regard to killing members of the protected group, the Court found that massive killings throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina were perpetrated during the conflict. However, with the exception of Srebrenica, the Court was not convinced that those killings were accompanied by the specific intent on the part of the perpetrators to destroy in whole or in part the group of Bosnian Muslims. So, if the “special intent” is not proven beyond any doubt, judicially an act cannot be qualified as genocide. The cases of civil war, rebellion, and mutual killings should not be confused with the crime of genocide.
A competent tribunal to judge the genocidal acts
Moreover, the existence of the crime of genocide must be decided by a competent tribunal. Article VI of the 1948 Genocide Convention on the subject reads as follows:
Persons charged with genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed or by such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect to those Contracting Parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction.
The issue of a competent tribunal had been debated extensively by the International Preparatory Conference of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The question of determining a competent tribunal was resolved[8] after lengthy discussion and the above-mentioned text was approved. During the discussions, a proposal of “universal repression” was rejected[9]. Universal repression foresees the judging of the suspects by any tribunal of any state. Without a valid decision from a competent court, an act cannot legally be qualified as genocide.
The Turkish government and the overwhelming majority of Turks, as well as other governments [10] and many scholars or experts reject qualifying the tragic events of 1915 as genocide, because the sine qua non legal conditions incorporated in the 1948 Genocide Convention have not been fulfilled. These torts may be legally qualified criminal acts foreseen by the Ottoman Penal Code and / or mutual killings.[11]
On this occasion we would like to underline that, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey Mr. Ahmet Davutoğlu very clearly stated he was not insensitive to the sufferings of the Ottoman Armenians, but was expecting the same understanding from the Armenian side with regard to the plight of the Muslim Ottomans which equally suffered during the same tragic events.[12] The Turkish government has more than once declared that it was ready to consider and eventually accept the conclusion of historians and legal experts who will meet to study the tragic events of 1915-1916; but Yerevan refused.[13] Regardless, Ankara has supported the Vienna platform since 2004, which in 2009 published a large compilation of documents.[14] Turkey fully opened its archives—unlike the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and the Armenian Patriarchate at Jerusalem—, and, according to Dr. Hilmar Kaiser, a supporter of the “Armenian genocide” label, there is no evidence for deliberate destruction of Ottoman documents.[15]
Other general principles of international criminal law on internationally wrongful acts
Thos who refer to internationally wrongful acts in the context of 1915 events, should also take into consideration the following principles of international law:
“Nulla crimen sine lege”[16] and “Nulla poena sine lege”[17]
The governing principles of criminal law are also valid for the crime of genocide: “Nulla crimen sine lege,” which means no crime shall exist without law, and “Nulla poena sine lege,” which means no person shall be punished without a law foreseeing such punishment.
Ne bis in idem
The principle “Ne bis in idem”[18] means that no person shall be tried with respect to conduct which formed the basis of crimes for which the person has been convicted or acquitted by the competent court.
The Turkish government and the great majority of Turks do not deny that Ottoman Armenians, together with Muslim and other Ottoman citizens, were the subject of a great tragedy[19] during the 1915-1916 events, that they lost their lives, properties, families as well as their homes. During the relocation or the transfer of a population within the borders of Ottoman territory, a number of military personnel or civil servants and other members of the population committed crimes in spite of orders given by the Ottoman government to protect the lives and properties of the displaced Armenians.
The 1915-1916 trials by the Ottoman government for crimes against Ottoman Armenians
In this respect it should be underlined that the criminality associated with the tragic events and the relocation of the Ottoman Armenians during the years 1915-1916 was addressed by the Ottoman judiciary. Individuals or members of the groups who attacked the Armenian convoys and officials who exploited the Armenian plight, neglected their duties or abused their powers were court-martialed and punished.
In 1915, more than 20 Muslims were sentenced to death and executed for such charges.[20] Following a report of Talat Pasha, the Ottoman government created three commissions[21] to investigate the complaints of Armenians and the denunciations of civil servants. As a result, in March-April 1916, 1673 Muslims—including captains, lieutenants, first and second lieutenants, commanders of gendarme squads, police superintendents, and mayors—were sent to martial courts. 67 were sentenced to death, 524 were sentenced to jail, 68 received other punishments such as forced labor, imprisonment in forts, and exile. Since the author of the manuscript stresses the alleged “confiscation” of Armenian properties by the Ottoman State, it is not unimportant to notice that several people were sentenced to death for plunder, and that other death sentences were justified not only by murders, but also by robberies.[22]
[1] Hans Wilhelm Longva, “The concept of genocide in international law , A wound not healed,”Conference on Turkish-Armenian relationship, University of Oslo, February 1st, 2010.
[2] William A. Shabas, Genocide in International Law, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 7.
[3] Ahmet Insel-Michel Marian “Dialogue sur le tabou arménien” Paris Liana Levi, 2009
[4] Der Jan van der Linde, “The Armenian Genocide Question and Legal Responsibility,” Review of Armenian Studies, n° 24, 2011, pp. 123-151
[5] Gündüz Aktan “The Armenian problem and International Law,” www.mfa.gov.tr//data/dispolitika/Ermeni iddialari/Document.pdf
[6] Aktan ibid p. 270
[7] Para 187 “Article II (of the Convention) requires a further mental element. It requires the establishment of the intent to destroy in whole or in part the protected group as such. It is not enough to establish, for instance in terms of paragraph. (a) That unlawful killings of members of the group have occurred. The additional intent must also be established and is defined very precisely. It is often referred to as the “specific intent” (dolus specialis). It is not enough that the members of the group are targeted because they belong to that group that is because the perpetrator has a discriminatory intent. Something more is required. The acts listed in Article II, must be done with the intent to destroy the group as such in whole or in part. The words “as such” emphasize that intent to destroy the protected group.
[8] See Travaux préparatoires Doc. E/794 page 294 and 97, the meeting of the Conference page 360 and following pages
[9]With regard to the “Power to Exercise Universal Repression” or “Universal Repression” (see: April 5, 1948. Doc. E/794. pp.29-33) The Committee rejected a proposal in this respect (Ibid, p.32).Those rejecting the principle of universal repression argued as follows: “ … universal repression is against the principles of traditional law; permitting the courts of one State to punish crimes committed in another state by foreigners will be against the sovereignty of the State; as genocide generally implied the responsibility of the State on the territory of which the crime was committed, the principle of universal repression would imply national courts to judge the acts of foreign governments. The result will be dangerous international tensions.”
[10] The British government on many occasions officially declared its position on the matter. On April 14, 1999 the Foreign Office spokesperson Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale said that “the British government has not recognized the events of 1915 as indications of genocide”; On February 7, 2001, acting on behalf of the British Government, Baroness Scotland of Asthal declared: “The government, in line with the previous British governments, have judged the evidence not to be sufficiently unequivocal to persuade us that these events should be categorized as genocide as defined by the 1948 United Nations on genocide….The interpretation of events in Eastern Anatolia in 1915-1916 is still the subject of genuine debate among historians.” The UK government did not accept qualifying as genocide the 1915 events. The Israeli government refused to accept the parallelism between the Holocaust and the tragic events of 1915. The Ambassador of Israel Rivka Kohen in Yerevan declared on February 7, 2002, during a press conference that “the 1915 events couldn’t be considered genocide because the main killings in these events were not planned and the Ottoman government had no intention to destroy a nation or a group of people as such. As a well-known fact many people from the Armenian and Muslim groups had lost their lives in these events. The Holocaust is unique. At this stage nothing should be compared with the Holocaust.” On April 10, 2001 the Nobel Prize-awarded Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Perez said that “the fate of Armenians in Anatolia was a tragedy, not genocide.” He added: “Armenian allegations are meaningless. We reject attempts to create a similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegation. If we have to determine a position on the Armenian issue it should be done with great care not to distort the historical realities.”
[11] Justin McCarthy,Esat Arslan,Cemalettin Taşkıran,Ömer Turan, The Armenian Rebellion at Van, Utah Ser ies in Turkish and İslamic Studies, The University of Utah Press,2006 : “The slaughter of Muslims that accompanied the Armenian revolt in Van Province inexorably led first to Kurdish reprisals on the Armenian, then to a general and mutual massaccre of the people of the East. The Armenian revolt began an intercommunal war, in which both sides, fearing their own survival, killed those who, given the chance,would have killed them.The result was unprecended horror. History records few examples of mortality as great as that suffered in Van Province…. pp.265”
[12] “WWI Inflicted Pain to Everyone, Davutoğlu Says,” Hürriyet Daily News, December 30, 2011 ; “Turkey ‘Ready to Share Pain’ With Armenians,” Hürriyet Daily News, March 1, 2012,
[13] For example: Anatolian News Agency, April 11, 2005; “Yerevan Rejects Turkish PM Erdogan’s Dialogue Letter,” The Journal of Turkish Weekly, April 14, 2005, ; Interview of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Charlie Rose, September 27, 2007; “Turkey’s Proposal Clears Last-Minute Snag in Zurich,” Today’s Zaman, October 12, 2009, ; Michael M. Gunter, Armenian History and…, pp. 125-129.
[14] İnanç Atılgan and Garabet Moumdjian (ed.), Archival Documents of the Viennese Armenian-Turkish Platform, Klagenfurt-Vienna-Ljubjana-Sarajevo: Wieser Verlag, 2009.
[15] “We should be really careful about not mixing information. Anything about the CUP archives is sheer speculation. We don’t have any indication that they have been destroyed.” Hilmar Kaiser, interview to Aztag, September 22, 2005. See also “Historian Challenges Politically Motivated 1915 Arguments,” Today’s Zaman, ; Yücel Güçlü, “Will Untapped Ottoman Archives Reshape the Armenian Debate?”, The Middle East Quarterly, XVI-2, Spring 2009, pp. 25-42, https://www.meforum.org/2114/ottoman-archives-reshape-armenian-debate
[16] Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Article 22.
[17] Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Article 23.
[18] Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Article 20.
[19] Shimon Perez: Statement in April 2001: “What happened to the Armenians was a tragedy, but not genocide.”
[20] Guenter Lewy, The Armenian Massacres…, p. 111.
[21] Yusuf Halaçoğlu, Facts on the Relocation of Armenians. 1914-1918, (Ankara: TTK, 2002), pp. 84-86; Hikmet Özdemir and Yusuf Sarınay (ed.), Turkish-Armenian Conflict Documents, (Ankara: TBMM, 2007), p. 294.
[22] Yusuf Halaçoğlu, The Story of 1915. What Happened to the Ottoman Armenians?, (Ankara: TTK, 2008), pp. 82-87; Guenter Lewy, The Armenian Massacres…, p. 112; Yusuf Sarınay, “The Relocation (Tehcir) of Armenians and the Trials of 1915-1916,” Middle East Critique, XX-3, Fall 2011, pp. 308-314.
David Orn Bjarnason, 28-year-old Icelander living in Sweden, was on Friday arrested in Turkey. Turkish authorities accuse him of smuggling antiquities; that will go through the land of marble stone, which he bought in a market in Turkey. Thora Birgisdóttir, wife of David, said his wait three to ten years in prison and eight to 24 million penalty. David will be brought before a judge in Turkey tomorrow.