Judge approves extradition of teen to face charges in Turkey he killed somebody as he drove daddy's Porsche at five times the speed limit around a curve

A federal magistrate today approved extradition to Turkey for a teenager facing the equivalent of motor-vehicle homicide charges after  he allegedly sped around a 17-m.p.h. curve at more than 100 m.p.h., slamming into people on the side of the road, killing one of them and injuring four others.

The teen and his mother were arrested at the British International School of Boston in Jamaica Plain last June just before they were to tour the campus as a possible new school after their sudden departure from Istanbul following the deadly crash - and a stay in Florida, with a trip to see the sights in New York.

In his ruling, US District Court Magistrate Judge Donald Cabell rejected all of the teen's arguments to let him stay in the U.S., including that the victim didn't die from internal hemorrhaging caused by being hit by a speeding SUV but by the long ambulance ride to a more distant hospital and the slow treatment he got there.

Cabell also rejected the idea that the teen - not named in court documents because of his age - could not be extradited because the crime he is wanted for in Turkey is not exactly the same as what he might be charged with here, as required by the American/Turkish extradition treaty. Cabell concluded the key thing is that killing somebody by recklessly ramming into them at a high rate of speed is a felony on either side of the Atlantic.

T.C.'s conduct entailed driving a Porsche at more than five times the speed limit late at night on a two-lane road and not listening to requests by passengers in the Porsche to slow down. The prosecutor's report details T.C.'s conduct including exceeding the speed limit. Unable to take the bend in the road, the Porsche skidded and crashed into the ATV riders standing on the side of the road. Although not intentional, such conduct was nonetheless reckless. The prosecutor's report further describes T.C.'s conduct as causing the death of O.M.A. and injuries to the four other ATV riders. The foregoing conduct is criminal under Turkish law, as explained in detail in the prosecutor's report. ...

Further, such conduct, if committed in the United States, is proscribed under federal law as involuntary manslaughter. 18 U.S.C. § 1112(b) (defining manslaughter as "unlawful killing of a human being without malice"). Relative to Article 2(1)(b), the appendix lists "manslaughter" as an extraditable offense.

Cabell also rejected the argument that just because a prosecutor in Istanbul issued an arrest warrant for the teen that doesn't mean the teen has been formally "charged" with a crime, as required by the treaty, only that he is being investigated for it. It is unclear if Cabell raised an eyebrow as he discussed the definition of the noun "charge" and the verbs "to charge" and "to formally charge" as cited in Black's Law Dictionary and decisions involving other people who have tried this argument to say this was nonsense. Also:

In a related argument, T.C. relies on the Turkish, as opposed to the English, version of the Treaty and notes that the Turkish version uses the word "Kovusturma". Based on "representations by Turkish counsel," T.C. states that Kovusturma "is the process after an indictment is filed and accepted by the Turkish court." Further, so he contends, the Turkish version of the Treaty does not reference "Sorusturma" which, he represents, refers to the investigatory stage. From this, T.C. posits that the Treaty allows the extradition of "individuals that have been charged ('Kovusturma') rather than those that are wanted by investigators in relation to a pending investigation ('Sorusturma')." The argument is not convincing.

First and foremost, Article 6 of the Treaty requires the supporting documents of an extradition request to be in English.

Although the teen has gone unnamed in court documents, his mother, Eylem Tok, has been named in her own extradition proceedings. She's a Turkish author married to Bülent Cihantimur, a prominent Turkish plastic surgeon who specializes in "amazing butt surgery." 

Innocent, etc.