INSIGHTS
What Türkiye must show before an extradition request can be sent, the thresholds and the ministerial screen applied to it, what the request and its annexes must contain, and what the file establishes for the defence abroad.
What Turkish law requires before a request can leave the country, the screen the Ministry applies to it, and what the Turkish documents can and cannot establish for the defence in the requested state.
Law stated as at 27 October 2026. There is no official English translation of the Turkish provisions discussed; translations are the author's own and the Turkish text governs.
When Türkiye (Turkey) seeks a person's extradition, the defence abroad needs a precise account of the Turkish proceedings. What conduct is attributed to this person? Which judicial decision supports the request? Is the person sought for proceedings or to serve a sentence? Has the position changed since the request was prepared?
The answers should come from identified documents. A summary may omit the distinction that matters at the next hearing: whether a passage records an allegation, the reasoning for an interim measure, or a finding in a judgment.
This article addresses the Turkish side of that work. The reverse procedure, where a foreign state asks Türkiye to surrender someone, is described in our article on extradition from Türkiye. Where the person is a Turkish national and surrender is barred altogether, what replaces it is described in our article on prosecution in Türkiye instead of surrender.
A Turkish warrant, an INTERPOL record and a formal extradition request are three different things and need separate examination. INTERPOL's own description is that a Red Notice seeks location and provisional arrest pending extradition or similar action; it is not an international arrest warrant, and each country decides its legal effect under its own law. A challenge to the INTERPOL record is a separate exercise with its own forum, described in our article on challenging INTERPOL red notices originating from Türkiye.
On the Turkish side the starting provision is Article 22/1 of the Law on International Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters (Law 6706). Extradition to Türkiye may be requested by the judicial authorities, for one of two purposes — so that an investigation or prosecution can be completed, or so that a conviction can be enforced — in respect of a person who is abroad and against whom an arrest warrant or a detention order has been issued.
Three things follow immediately for the defence. There must be an identified Turkish judicial decision behind the request, and it is either a yakalama emri or a tutuklama kararı; the request has a stated purpose which is either prosecution or enforcement, and the documents should match whichever is claimed; and the request originates with a court or prosecutor, not with the police or the Ministry. Where the foreign bundle does not make all three visible, that is the first thing to ask for.
This is the part most often missing from material prepared abroad, and it is where Turkish law itself does work for the defence.
There are two thresholds, and they are different. Under Article 22/2, extradition may be requested for an offence carrying an upper limit of one year or more imprisonment. Where the request is made to enforce a final conviction, the sentence actually imposed must be at least four months. Where the person has several offences, some of them below those limits may be joined to the same request — which means a request can properly include an offence that would not have supported one on its own, and the defence should know which of the listed offences is carrying the request.
And the request is screened before it leaves. Under Article 22/3 the request goes to the foreign state only if the Central Authority considers it appropriate; the Central Authority is the Ministry of Justice (Article 2/1-b). The same provision allows the Ministry to refuse to send it at all, on three grounds:
the request does not meet the conditions required for extradition;
having regard to the time that would actually be spent in prison, resorting to extradition would cause a clear disproportion between the individual interest and the public interest; or
there is a possibility of harm to Türkiye's national security or international relations.
The second of those is a proportionality test written into Turkish domestic law, and it is directed at exactly the case where a long, expensive international procedure is being used to secure a short sentence. It operates before transmission rather than at the foreign hearing, and it is a matter for the Ministry rather than for a court. Foreign counsel cannot invoke it in the requested state, but it is relevant background to any representation made on the Turkish side, and it explains why some requests are never sent.
The request is not free-form. The Ministry's guidance for requests made by Türkiye prescribes the headings of the iade talepnamesi and the documents annexed to it, and supplies three model templates — one each for suspects, defendants and convicted persons. It also flags that the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada and the Netherlands each have particular requirements, so the applicable template is not the whole answer.
The request itself is to set out, under separate headings: information on the person sought; information on the indictment; information on the offence; a summary of the events constituting the offence; the evidence; detention information; the steps taken during the proceedings; limitation information; the treaties relied on; whether a defence was made; information on the arrest warrant; for convicted persons, whether the judgment was given in the person's presence and the time remaining to be served; the guarantees offered; and the order sought.
The annexes are specified as well: the indictment or the conviction, or the relevant parts where it is voluminous; the müddetname, the document calculating the sentence to be served; the arrest warrant; a concise record of the file's contents and procedural history; the texts of the statutory provisions applied or likely to be applied, including those on limitation; identity and population records, passport, or a copy of the red notice where one exists; a fingerprint form; a photograph with a description record; and any other useful information, which the guidance describes as extending to card and bank account details, IP and telephone numbers and social media accounts.
For the defence this list is a checklist rather than background. Four of its entries do work straight away.
The "whether the judgment was given in the person's presence" heading is where the request itself should disclose a conviction in absence — the question that governs the retrial assurance dealt with below.
The müddetname and the "time remaining" heading are where the four-month threshold in Article 22/2 is tested on the documents, not on assertion.
The limitation heading, and the annexed limitation provisions, are supplied by the requesting side; they can be checked against the statutory text rather than accepted.
The "steps taken during the proceedings" record is the procedural history in summary form, and it is the document to compare against the decisions themselves.
Where one of these is absent from the bundle served abroad, that is a specific and answerable question — not a general complaint that the papers are thin.
The Ministry's guidance on preparing extradition papers for requests made by Türkiye calls for consistency between the offences stated in the request and those in the warrant, and distinguishes allegations in an indictment from facts accepted in a judgment where the request concerns a convicted person. Both are useful starting points for a defence review.
A comparison should connect each material statement in the request to its Turkish source and to any later decision affecting it:
Question / Material to examine / Point to report abroad
Why is this person sought? — The operative warrant or judgment and any subsequent order — The decision's purpose, scope and current status
What is this person said to have done? — The factual passages concerning them and the material said to support those passages — Individual conduct, dates and the role alleged
What has a court actually decided? — Reasoned decisions and operative provisions — The issue determined, and any review history
Is a sentence enforceable, and is it long enough? — The judgment, the record of finality, and the sentence as imposed — Whether the four-month threshold in Article 22/2 is met on the face of the documents
A discrepancy needs an explanation of its significance rather than simply being listed. An incorrect date, an omitted later order and a changed offence description raise different questions, and only some of them are capable of affecting the request.
In a file with several defendants, the account of the alleged organisation may occupy far more space than the conduct attributed to the person sought. The review should distinguish the wider narrative from the passages concerning that person.
For each relevant allegation, identify the act, the role alleged, the material said to support it, and where that material comes from. Where a passage concerns another defendant, say what connection the prosecution asserts rather than letting it stand as evidence against everyone named in the file. Where the case is put as an organisation case, the structural requirements are a question of Turkish law in their own right and are described in our article on Article 220 and organisation liability.
How far the requested state's court may go into evidential sufficiency is a question for foreign counsel and for that state's law. The Turkish-law contribution is to make the material intelligible and to state accurately what each document is.
Two problems recur, and both are addressed at length elsewhere in this series rather than repeated here.
The first is translation and procedural meaning. A fluent English account still needs comparison with the Turkish original at the passages a submission depends on: who is speaking, whether a statement is an allegation or a finding, whom it concerns, and what qualification accompanies it. A decision can recite substantial allegations while its operative part does something much narrower.
The second is what the file does not contain. Absence from the bundle supplied does not establish absence from the underlying file, and an assertion in a summary should not be treated as verified when its source has not been inspected.
Both belong to the same exercise — obtaining the Turkish file and reading it correctly — and the rules that govern it, including who may examine the file, what a restriction decision closes, and what each document actually is, are set out in our article on what is in a Turkish criminal file and what can be obtained from abroad.
Two questions arise here, and Turkish practice has a specific answer to each.
Speciality. On surrender, the person may be investigated, prosecuted or have a sentence enforced only for the offences covered by the extradition decision. The rule is Article 14 of the European Convention on Extradition, to which Türkiye is a party, and comparable provisions appear in the bilateral instruments. It is not absolute: it ceases to apply where the requested state consents to proceedings for an offence outside the request, and the Ministry's guidance on trying a surrendered person for offences not covered by the request sets out the consent request the Turkish judicial authorities must make. Where other Turkish files or allegations exist, the terms of the surrender decision should be preserved for use in the Turkish proceedings, because they define what may be done there.
A conviction given in the person's absence. Where extradition is sought to enforce a conviction given in the defendant's absence at the final hearing, the requested state may ask for an assurance that the person will be retried. The basis is Article 3 of the Second Additional Protocol to the Convention. On the Turkish side the mechanism is specific: under Article 3 of Law 3732, where such an assurance is sought, the court that gave the judgment decides that the person will be retried — whether or not the judgment has become final — and after surrender the matter proceeds on that decision.
That is a decision, with a date and a file number, and it should be obtained and read rather than described. What the retrial will consist of, and what the underlying judgment is vulnerable to, is a separate analysis set out in our article on proceedings held in your absence — which also explains why a conviction entered against a defendant who was never interrogated stands on different ground from one entered after interrogation.
Three provisions are worth knowing because they affect timing and what the defence should preserve. They govern surrender from Türkiye and apply, so far as appropriate, to a person being surrendered to Türkiye (Article 22/4).
Surrender can be postponed. Where the person is subject to another investigation, prosecution or unserved sentence in the state holding them, or is not fit to travel, surrender may be postponed by decision of the Central Authority, and that decision is notified to the person and to the requesting state (Article 20/3).
Delay has a consequence. Where the requesting state fails without just cause to take custody on the agreed date, the protective measures imposed on the person are lifted thirty days after that date (Article 20/2).
Property travels separately. Items useful as evidence, or obtained through the offence, that were found on the person or emerged later may be handed over — and this can happen even where no extradition decision is ultimately given, for example because the person has died or absconded (Article 20/4). Handing over may be postponed where the items are required for proceedings in the holding state (Article 20/5), and property belonging to good-faith third parties is not handed over at all (Article 20/6). Where a family member's device or funds have been seized, that last provision is the one to read.
Transit through Türkiye has its own regime: it may be permitted where the conditions for extradition are met as a matter of Turkish law, it is decided by the Central Authority, and where transit exceeds twenty-four hours and liberty has to be restricted, a criminal judgeship of peace may order provisional detention for up to seven days (Article 21).
A useful instruction identifies four things: the requested state, the person's current custody position, the next deadline in that state, and the precise Turkish-law question. With those, the response can give a sourced chronology, the Turkish originals that matter, any translation corrections with their legal significance, and a statement of what remains unverified and why.
For each issue the aim is the same: to show the path from the document to the conclusion, so that foreign counsel can judge its weight and decide the form in which it can be put — including whatever that state requires by way of proof of foreign law.
Our page for foreign counsel sets out how we work with instructing firms, and we can be contacted with the requested state, the stage reached and the Turkish-law question.
This article describes the Turkish side of an extradition request made by Türkiye. It is not a guide to extradition procedure in any requested state, and whether a point assists in that state depends on its law and on the instruments in force between it and Türkiye. The thresholds and periods stated are statutory and are taken from Law 6706 as in force at the date above. Speciality and retrial assurances depend on the applicable treaty, on reservations and declarations, and on the terms of the particular surrender decision, all of which should be checked for the states concerned. Nothing here is advice on a specific matter, and no lawyer–client relationship arises from reading it.
This publication is general information and does not constitute legal advice for a specific matter.