A British man has been spared extradition to Turkey after the high court heard he had been repeatedly beaten, tortured, forced to convert to Islam and made to clean the floor with a toothbrush when last held in a Turkish jail.

Two senior judges in London on Tuesday allowed an application by Rosslee Charles after hearing that assurances offered by the Turkish government about the special unit in which he was due to serve his sentence proved, according to his lawyer, to be wholly unworkable.

Charles, who is gay and denied the charge of homosexual rape, was convicted in his absence by a Turkish court in 2006. He had been held for six months in prison and returned to the UK before the trial amid fears for his safety.

The high court decision by Lord Justice Irwin and Mr Justice Garnham follows recent refusals in the UK and elsewhere to send suspects for trial in Turkey. There has been growing international concern over the state of criminal justice in the country following official crackdowns after the attempted coup last July.

Charles, according to findings made by a senior district judge at a previous extradition hearing, had been assaulted by Turkish guards and prisoners between August 2004 and January 2005.

He was forced to clean the floor with a toothbrush while being kicked and punched and called “gay, homo, girl”, the court was informed. He was given contaminated food, his hands and knees were burnt by cleaning materials and he was forced to sleep in a toilet for three months.

At one stage, according to written submissions to the court, Charles was “forcibly converted to Islam and beaten when he made mistakes in the Arabic text that he was forced to read out loud. He received quite significant injuries – two black eyes – and bruising to his shoulder, knees and face. He was deemed no longer dirty after the forced conversion.”

Ben Cooper, counsel for Charles, said extraditing his client to Turkey would expose him to a real risk of further inhuman and degrading treatment.



A lower court had agreed to his extradition on the basis of assurances given by the Turkish government that Charles would only ever be held in a specific wing of Maltepe Prison No 2, in Istanbul, which was said to house LGBT inmates.

An influx of prisoners into Turkey’s jails after government mass arrests of suspects supposedly associated with the failed coup in 2016 had, however, disrupted the promised arrangements in Maltepe prison.



Cooper told the court his client would need close monitoring for his own safety but there was a lack of staff in the prison.

“There’s a cultural hostility to homosexuals that you find in Turkish prisons,” Cooper said. “There’s no precise instructions to replace the assurances originally given. The regime falls within the definition of solitary confinement.”

The Turkish government says Charles is required to serve a seven-year sentence for his conviction of homosexual rape. Charles’s time served on remand has been taken into account.



Saoirse Townshend, who represented the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “I have to accept that the assurances given have changed.” But Turkey, she added, denied Charles would be subjected to torture or inhumane treatment. He would be able to move freely between his cell and a dayroom where there was a television. He would also be allowed to go to the exercise yard.



Charles’s solicitor, Karen Todner, said: “I’m delighted the high court ruled in Mr Charles’s favour. Judgment is still reserved so we do not yet know the basis for the decision but they have indicated that the appeal is allowed.

“Clearly if Mr Charles had been extradited there was a real possibility that his human rights would have been breached.”

Both judges allowed the appeal. They will give their reasons at a later date.