478

 EXTRADITION IN THE OTTOMAN INTERNATIONAL
LEGAL PRACTICE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Extradition in the Ottoman International Legal Practice of the Nineteenth Century
This dissertation examines extradition (iade-i mücrimin), the rendition of criminals,
in nineteenth century international legal practice of the Ottoman Empire. An
examination of extradition cases in the nineteenth century shines a light on the
diplomatic stage of world politics, which was characterized mainly by international
security policies against transnational crime and crime mobility across the borders.
Extradition directly pertained to the major questions hovering over the Ottoman legal
operation: capitulations, extraterritoriality (haric-ez memleket), and subjecthood. It is
mainly because the capitulatory system and the operation of the consular system
hampered the practice of extradition in the Ottoman Empire. However, the increasing
mobility at the Ottoman borders necessitated regular communication and diplomatic
channels to surrender criminals. It was a world of skillful diplomats, of state officials
with expertise in law, and of cunning state politics. It was also a world of
professional impostors, fugitive criminals, political refugees, and armed rebels whose
transnational mobility and offenses shaped international security policies. These
entailed domestic legislative efforts as well as stricter preventive and punitive
measures on the international stage. Extradition as a legal practice thus evolved into
a protean political question and a diplomatic tool, necessitating its analysis within the
broader context of Ottoman history. This study challenges the portrayal of an
Ottoman judicial system as weak in legislative and jurisdictional power, which is
regarded as operating at the behest of the capitulatory system.
v
ÖZET
19. Yüzyıl Osmanlı Uluslararası Hukuk Pratiğinde Suçlu İadesi
Bu tez çalışması, 19. yüzyıl Osmanlı uluslararası hukuk pratiğinde suçlu iadesini
(iade-i mücrimin) incelemektedir. 19. yüzyılda suçlu iadesi vakaları ülkeler arası suç
ve sınırlardaki suç mobilizasyonuna karşı alınan uluslararası güvenlik politikalarının
belirlediği dönemin dünya politikasındaki diplomasi ilişkilerine ışık tutmaktadır.
Suçlu iadesi Osmanlı hukuki işleyişini doğrudan etkileyen kapitülasyonlar, yargı
dokunulmazlığı (haric-ez memleket), ve tabiiyet konularıyla doğrudan ilintilidir.
Kapitülasyon ve konsolosluk sisteminin işleyişi suçlu iadesi pratiğini engelleyen asıl
sebepleri oluşturmaktadır. Ne var ki, Osmanlı sınır bölgelerindeki artan hareketlilik
suçluları teslim etmek için düzenli bir haberleşme ağı ve diplomasi kanalını gerekli
kılmıştır. Bahsettiğimiz bu dünya yetenekli diplomatları, hukuk alanında yetkin
devlet adamlarını ve de akıllı devlet politikalarını bir araya getirmiştir. Diğer taraftan
ülkeler arası hareketlilikleri ve suçları uluslararası güvenlik politikalarını belirleyen
silahlı isyancıların, politik sığınmacıların, kaçak suçluların ve profesyonel
sahtekarların dünyasıdır. Bu figürlere karşı açılan mücadele ülke içinde yasa
yapmayı ve uluslararası arenada önleyici ve cezalandırıcı önlemleri gerektirmiştir.
Bu açıdan incelediğimizde, hukuki bir pratik olarak suçlu iadesi Osmanlı Devleti için
gittikçe çok yönlü politik bir sorun halini almıştır. Bu durum suçlu iadesini daha
kapsamlı bir Osmanlı tarihi içerisinde incelemeyi gerektirmektedir. Bu çalışma
kapitülasyonların gölgesinde işleyen, yasama ve yargılama alanlarında zayıf bir
Osmanlı hukuk sistemi portresine karşı çıkmaktadır. Hukuk sistemi ve pratikte
hukukun nasıl işlediğini birbirleriyle ilişkisi içerisinde yakından inceleyen bu çalışma
ağırlıklı olarak hukuk tarihi okuması yapmaktadır.
vi
CURRICULUM VITAE

AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST
Late Ottoman history, diplomatic encounters, legal history, legal theories,
international law, state sovereignty in international relations
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

TTK PhD Scholarship (2013-2016)
PUBLICATIONS
Journal Articles
Kamay, B. (2021). The Ottoman Empire, the United States, and the legal battle over
extradition: the ‘Kelly Affair.’ New Perspectives on Turkey (SSCI), 65, 78-99.
Conference Proceedings
Kamay, B. (2021). The ‘Frenkhâne of Rossi’: An Inheritance Story from a Port City,
Smyrna, Levantine Heritage Foundation, London (Online Talk).
Kamay, B. (2018). Ottoman Legal Diplomacy: The Place of Extradition in
Nineteenth Century Interstate Relations. In the Panel: ‘Beyond Great Powers’:
Foreign Relations, Secondary States and the Ottoman Empire in the Modern Age,
WOCMES (World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies), Seville.
Kamay, B. (2014). Ottoman Conduct of Public Diplomacy in Europe, 1839-1876”,
Panel: Creativity and Renewal in Ottoman Diplomacy. MESA (Middle East Studies
Association), Washington D.C.
vii
Kamay, B. (2014). Ottoman Bureaucrats Monitoring Europe: European Newspapers
as a tool for Tanzimat Diplomacy. CIEPO (Comité International des Études Pré-
Ottomanes et Ottomanes), Budapest.
viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This project would not have been possible without the support and friendship of
many people along the way. First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my
supervisor, Prof. Edhem Eldem, for his guidance, continuous support, and patience
throughout my Ph.D. journey. His academic insight, blended with a sense of humor,
has always encouraged me to pursue my goals in this research project and think out
of the box. I am also indebted to my committee members for their invaluable advice
at every stage of my studies. I would like to thank Prof. Cengiz Kırlı for his
comments, encouragement, and critical approach, which helped a lot in my framing
and analysis of this research. I would also like to thank Prof. Emre Öktem, without
whom this project on the extradition question would not be on my research agenda.
He not only introduced me to this topic but contributed thoroughly to my limited
knowledge of the law and legal studies through his expertise and suggestions. I am
also indebted to two other members of my defense committee. Ramazan Hakkı Öztan
encouraged me to expand the scope of my research field with his valuable comments.
Will Hanley, with his expertise in Ottoman legal studies, gave me illuminating ideas
for the future publication of this research. The conversations among my committee
members during my thesis progress and defense meetings were thought-provoking
and always inspired me. Their comments made me confident that my research topic
is worthy of investigation.
The History Department of Boğaziçi University widened my knowledge of
history and the social sciences as a discipline. Thanks to the seminars I participated, I
endorsed a critical approach for my future studies. I am indebted to Edhem Eldem,
Cengiz Kırlı, Noémi Levy, Meltem Toksöz, late Yavuz Selim Karakışla for the
ix
courses they taught. I feel lucky to work with Lale Babaoğlu, Çiğdem Kafescioğlu,
Oya Pancaroğlu, Aslı Özyar, and Paolo Girardelli during my years as research
assistant in the department. I am indebted to Buket Sargan and Oya Arıkan for their
friendship and cooperation, as well. I would like to thank Jonathan Philips for his
help copy-editing my dissertation.
I really appreciate the valuable comments of Sinan Kuneralp, who introduced
me to the complex world of Ottoman foreign archives. Houssine Alloul and Darina
Martykonavo shared their valuable comments on the first phase of this research.
Thanks to their initial encouragement, one part of this study came out as a
publication. I express my heartfelt thanks to them.
I am fortunate to have many good friends whose companionship was always
comforting and enjoyable. This Ph.D. journey earned me lifetime friendships that I
am grateful for. Firuzan Melike Sümertaş has become more than a friend. She is a
sister and an old home mate with whom I shared a lot of joy, anxiety, and
conversations on life. Kutay Şen and Ezgi Burcu Işıl are the dear friends that made
this journey more fun with the time I spent with them. I am truly lucky to count on
my dearest friends Şahika Karatepe, Fatma Öncel, Şeyma Afacan, Canan Balkan,
Mustafa Onan, Gülseren Duman, Yener Koç, Murat Yolun, Atacan Atakan, Alex
Schweig, Özgün Deniz Yoldaşlar, Nihad Dostovic, Ozan Yıldız, İkbal Dursunoğlu,
Naz Özkan, Yasin Arslantaş, Christian Hillman and Philip Bourmaud for their
company. I am also thankful for my recent colleague Mehmet Kuru for his friendship
and sincere support in my new career at Sabancı University, where I began working
during the final phase of this dissertation.
Lastly, my family deserves endless gratitude. I am always grateful to my
father Sedat, my mother Nuran, and my brother Murat for their unconditional,
x
unequivocal, and loving support. I am forever thankful to Kaya for his love, support,
and encouragement throughout this journey and every single day.
xi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................1
1.1 Literature review........................................................................................7
1.2 Methodology............................................................................................24
1.3 Sources.....................................................................................................26
1.4 Chapter outline.........................................................................................28
CHAPTER 2: EXTRADITION PRACTICE: EUROPE AND THE OTTOMAN
EMPIRE .....................................................................................................................36
2.1 Extradition in history................................................................................39
2.2 Extradition in the Ottoman empire...........................................................50
2.3 The question of extradition and capitulations..........................................57
2.4 Hukuk müşavirliği istişare odası (the Ottoman office of legal counsel).65
2.5 Conclusion................................................................................................90
CHAPTER 3: SEEKING JUSTICE ABROAD: OTTOMAN INTERSTATE
COLLABORATION AGAINST KAİME FORGERS ..............................................94
3.1 Forgery and extradition............................................................................99
3.2 The Crimean war through rogues and impostors: the kaime forgers.....104
3.3 The penal codes: symbol of change and sovereignty.............................123
3.4 Conclusion..............................................................................................134
CHAPTER 4: THE 1874 EXTRADITION TREATY AND THE LEGAL BATTLE
OVER JURISDICTION BETWEEN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE
UNITED STATES ...................................................................................................138
4.1 The historical background of the 1874 extradition treaty......................139
4.2 The legal battle over extradition: the Kelly affair..................................150
4.3 The slippery foundation of foreign diplomacy.......................................164
4.4 Conclusion..............................................................................................174
xii
CHAPTER 5: THE 1877-78 WAR AND THE SURGE OF CRIMINAL MOBILITY:
SURVEILLANCE AT THE OTTOMAN BORDERS ............................................176
5.1 The concept of border in the Ottoman empire.......................................178
5.2 Crime, surveillance and extradition at the Balkan borders....................180
5.3 The 1879 judicial reforms and the Ottoman code of criminal
procedure.......................................................................................................190
5.4 Crime, surveillance and extradition at the Russian borders...................203
5.5 Conclusion..............................................................................................241
CHAPTER 6: POLITICAL CRIME AND EXTRADITION IN THE AGE OF
REVOLUTION ........................................................................................................244
6.1 Historical overview of political crime....................................................245
6.2 Political crime, anarchism and extradition in the Ottoman empire........259
6.3 Armenian anarchists and the extradition question.................................288
6.4 1919-1920 Istanbul trials and the extradition of the CUP leaders.........301
6.5 Conclusion..............................................................................................307
CHAPTER 7: EPILOGUE .......................................................................................311
APPENDIX A: OTTOMAN-GERMAN EXTRADITION TREATY.....................322
APPENDIX B: THE 1874 OTTOMAN-US EXTRADITION TREATY ...............329
APPENDIX C: THE 1869 OTTOMAN NATIONALITY LAW ............................332
APPENDIX D: THE RUSSO-OTTOMAN EXTRADITION TREATY PROJECT
.......................................................................................................................333
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................334
xiii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. The Office of Legal Counsel – Staff List in 1883 ......................................72
Table 2. Salary increase proposed for the Office of Legal Counsel in 1889 ............73
Table 3. The Office of Legal Counsel – Staff List in 1901 ......................................73
Table 4. The Office of Legal Counsel – Staff List in 1920 ......................................76
Table 5. A list of Major Ottoman International Law Books .....................................85
Table 6. The Forgery Network of Turin-Istanbul-Bologna ....................................132
Table 7. Beyoğlu: Crime Scene of Forgery (1856-59) ...........................................134
Table 8. The Exchange of Criminals Between the Years 1863-1875 .....................211
Table 9. Extradition Negotiations After the 1877-78 War .....................................233
xiv
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Paris peace conference (1856) ...................................................................65
Figure 2. Gabriel Noradunghian efendi ....................................................................77
Figure 3. Portrait of the transnational thief Paolo Maltese .......................................98
Figure 4. The Map of Italian unification (Risorgimento) .......................................107
Figure 5. A Canadian dollar from 1856 using Seropyan’s technique .....................113
Figure 6. Diplomatic networking vis-à-vis the forgers (1858-1860) ......................120
Figure 7. Forgery network (1853-1859) ...............................................................120
Figure 8. Notorious brigand Sayef .......................................................................187
Figure 9. The borderlines described by article 58 of the 1878 treaty of Berlin.....214
Figure 10. Levon Kirişçiyan (Leon Larents), and his brother ..............................297
Figure 11. The CUP cadre evaluating suitable candidates for the new regime ......300
1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This dissertation examines extradition (iade-i mücrimin), the rendition of criminals,
in nineteenth century international legal practice of the Ottoman Empire. Extradition
is defined as “the process by which one state, upon the request of another, effects the
return of a person for trial for a crime punishable by the laws of the requesting state
and committed outside the state of refuge.”1 In the context of international law,
extradition was, and still is, a valuable diplomatic tool that can be leveraged to
control crime mobility across states. That being the case, the practice of extradition
has been subject to many political constraints and diplomatic controversies.
A cursory examination of newsfeeds from the last decade highlights some
well-known extradition cases and allows us to easily acknowledge the weight of its
place in international politics. For example, in April 2022, a U.K. court officially
confirmed the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States.2 Assange, an
Australian activist and founder of the Wikileaks database, was accused of espionage
in 2016 for leaking reports of U.S. Army Intelligence that contained confidential
information on U.S. military operations undertaken in Iraq, and Afghanistan. The
years-long trial and extradition requests went beyond the nature of the charges
imposed on him and set the ground for extensive debates on asylum rights, freedom
of expression, and transparency of state policies.3 Likewise, in 2019, the Fugitive
1 Andreopoulos, “Extradition.” https://www.britannica.com/topic/extradition
2 “UK court approves extradition of Julian Assange to US,” The Guardian, 20 April.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/apr/20/uk-court-approves-extradition-of-julian-assange-tous
3 For a lengthy analysis of his trial process and the political developments taking place in the
meantime; see Melzer, The Trial of Julian Assange: A Story of Persecution.
2
Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation Bill
proposed by the Hong Kong government was denounced by a protest march that saw
hundreds of thousands of participants. The legislation brought the risk of arresting
dissenters and silencing the protests against the political regime of the People’s
Republic of China. This meant the possibility of torture, arbitrary prosecution, and
incarceration by the Chinese judicial system. After months-long local protests as well
as reactions received from the international community, the Hong Kong government
withdrew the bill. Moreover, the legacy of these protests lasted longer as human
rights were considered at stake with the ambiguities in the proposed regulations.4
If we turn our attention to Turkish foreign politics, we follow the most recent
dispute on the extradition of Sezgin Baran Korkmaz, a Turkish businessperson in
charge of SBK Holding. Accused of money laundering and tax fraud, Korkmaz was
arrested in Vienna at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice in 2021. As there
was an ongoing criminal procedure in Turkey and Austria, the U.S. and Turkish
governments demanded his extradition. Both parties justified their claims with
evidence of financial damage to the U.S. Treasury and many Turkish companies.
Even though the Austrian court approved his extradition to Turkey last August and
the United States last March, he still remains in detention.5
It is evident from these examples that extradition stands out as a critical
political issue in our contemporary world. Similarly, an examination of extradition
4 Martin, “Hongkong’s Proposed Extradition Law Amendments,”
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/IF11248.pdf ; and “Hongkong-China extradition plans explained,” BBC
News https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-47810723
5 “US and Turkey Caught in Extradition Fight for Businessman With Ties to Turkish Elite,” The Wall
Street Journal, Aug. 2, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-and-turkey-caught-in-extraditionfight-
for-businessman-with-ties-to-turkish-elite-11627905600 ; “Request for Businessperson Sezgin
Baran Korkmaz’s extradition to Turkey accepted,” Bianet Aug. 31, 2021,
https://m.bianet.org/english/politics/249518-request-for-businessperson-sezgin-baran-korkmaz-sextradition-
to-turkey-accepted ; and “Sezgin Baran Korkmaz Davası,” Junshu, 2 May, 2022,
https://apos.to/s/608ebc106686bb0006226e61?utm_source=aposto
3
cases in the nineteenth century shines a light on the diplomatic stage of world
politics, which was characterized mainly by international security policies against
transnational crime and crime mobility across the borders. As Christopher Pyle
argues, extradition as a legal concept and diplomatic practice was, at the time,
designed “to replace the politics of abduction and deportation with the rule of law.”6
Many states signed bilateral extradition treaties to guarantee international security
across their borders. Even though the extradition practice formed one central
argument that states frequently resorted to in controlling crime mobility, the
application of the treaties was far more complicated. Many state actors and informal
agents were involved in judicial policing, and an elaborate information network was
required internationally. Border security, anarchism, and severe crimes generated
their own political trajectories in the nineteenth century. The diplomatic efforts and
principles of international law did not follow a standard pattern, and ad-hoc policies
usually superseded the treaty agreements. Ultimately, the power contest, conflicts of
law, and claims to sovereignty were most decisive in shaping each state’s policy
towards transnational crimes. Therefore, extradition opened a new window into
nineteenth century international relations when considering all these factors.
Despite the importance of extradition, the Ottoman Empire did not sign any
official treaties, except for the 1874 Treaty of Extradition with the United States. It is
mainly because the capitulatory system and the operation of the consular system
hampered the practice of extradition in the Ottoman Empire. However, the increasing
mobility at the Ottoman borders necessitated regular communication and diplomatic
channels to surrender criminals. The diplomatic documents and legal reports reserved
in the Ottoman archives reveal numerous negotiations and regulations on extradition.
6 Pyle, Extradition, Politics, and Human Rights, 322.
4
They constitute a valuable source of information as they reveal that extradition was
not merely a diplomatic tool instrumental in stopping overseas impunity, but that it
also manifested the value of territorial jurisdiction with equal force. Ottoman
officials reflected those considerations in their reports, underscoring the changing
Ottoman perception of territorial law.
These were the crucial points that compelled me to undertake this research
project. The existing literature in Ottoman legal history is significantly silent about
extradition practices, which is in stark contrast to the Ottoman officials' time and
efforts spent dealing with this issue. Therefore, this dissertation aims to contribute to
Ottoman legal studies through the analysis of the neglected diplomatically legal issue
that occupied Ottoman international diplomacy in its last century. Extradition
directly pertained to the major questions hovering over the Ottoman legal operation:
capitulations, extraterritoriality, and subjecthood. In this respect, this study
challenges the portrayal of an Ottoman judicial system as weak in legislative and
jurisdictional power, which is regarded as operating at the behest of the capitulatory
system. Despite its critical approach, this study does not overlook or repudiate the
weight of the capitulatory system in the Ottoman Empire; on the contrary, it clearly
shows that capitulations were always present and fully operational until the end of
the empire. However, it argues that as legislative efforts gained pace at home, the
capitulations gradually lost their sanction of power, though they remained binding on
the title.7
7 Turan Kayaoğlu, in his work, comes up with a similar argument: “Extraterritoriality negotiations
from the Treaty of Paris (1856) to the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) show a legal-institutional logic. I
argue that the abolition of extraterritoriality in the Turkish case was related to the comprehensive legal
reforms that accompanied the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic.”
Kayaoğlu, Legal Imperialism: Sovereignty and Extraterritoriality in Japan, the Ottoman Empire, and
China, 15.
5
The Ottoman legal transformation underwent a painstaking and slow process,
which followed an erratic course of progress. When Namık Kemal expressed his
reservations about abolishing the capitulations in 1871, he had strong reasoning
behind his arguments. He claimed that legal formalism still had a way to attain its
perfection by evincing the presence of false witnesses crowding the courts and the
inefficacy of laws to assert the level of competence they already had in the courts.8 A
few decades later, similar problems were still occupying the minds of the Ottoman
bureaucracy. In 1912, the Ministry of Justice requested Count Léon Valérien
Ostrorog, an Ottoman legal advisor of Polish origin, to compose a legal work
promoting judicial reform. Ostrorog described Ottoman justice as too antiquated to
succeed with an urgent call for progress in the legal field. 9
Those voices from the Ottoman intelligentsia and state officials clearly reveal
that the Ottomans were in a quandary regarding their own judicial system up until the
end of the empire. It was rightly so considering the problems encountered regarding
the operation of justice at home. However, a close examination of official
correspondences shows that this transformation did not follow a linear path; instead,
it came in leaps and bounds. There were setbacks and achievements that ruled out a
single holistic approach to the operation of Ottoman justice. In this respect,
reviewing the practice of extradition constitutes a novel medium of research, placing
the Ottoman legal studies beyond the arguments of the capitulatory system and its
8 “…doğrusu ben yalnız kapitülasyonların devam-ı vücudundan dolayı ilâ-nihâye müteessif kalarak
bunların ilgâsı içün bir ecnebi ile pençeleşmeğe cesâret alamam. Mahkemelerimizin bu hâlde
bulunmasından dolayı yalnız kapitülasyonların devamı içün değil kendi hukukumuzu dahi nazar-ı
dikkate alarak anın içün dahi başkaca müteessir ve mütessif olurum. Mahakim-i Şeriyye’de yalan
şahidlerin hali ikinci derecede teessüf etdiğim bir şey olup birinci derecede teessüf ettiğim hal ise
Mahakim-i Nizamiye’de bunca milyon nüfusun muhafaza-i hukukunu kafil olan bir kanunun dahi
hükmünü ‘Ben Yeniçeriyim Yeniçerice hareket ederim’ den ibaret bulan bir fikir tarafından yok
hükmüne konulduğu halde hiçbir mesuliyyete duçar olmaması ve halkın o kanuna olan emniyeti
yerine başka bir emniyet gösterilmemiş bulunması kaziyyesidir.” Namık Kemal, “Kapitülasyonlar,”
Diyojen, 1871.
9 Ostrorog, Pour la Reforme de la Justice Ottomane, 54.
6
judicial quagmires. Despite the shortcomings of the juridical operations, Ottoman
diplomacy owes a lot to the legal transformation it underwent at home. For the
extradition question, this worked out as a mutual process; extradition negotiations
had a direct impact on the evolution of Ottoman legislative reforms. Accordingly,
extradition is treated here as an umbrella term as the issue of extradition sheds light
on the broad processes of Ottoman legal transformation.
This study also opens a new avenue to examine the changing state discourse
in law and Ottoman claims to sovereignty. This novel discourse was primarily
achieved thanks to the interaction between the empire and international law. This
study shows that the legal transformation of the Ottoman Empire created its own
social and informal agency that involved various state actors, legal scholars, and
diplomatic agents beyond the circles of the Sultan and senior bureaucrats. The
Ottoman representatives abroad relied heavily on the principles of international law
and penal codes in their diplomatic endeavors. At home, a newly emerging group of
legal scholars, who were entirely preoccupied with these issues, pioneered the
advancement of legal knowledge.
Finally, this study establishes a closer dialogue with the law as a written code
and its application by providing a historical context. It aims to address the gap
between legal theory and its practice in daily politics. This study covers the last
century of the empire; it primarily focuses on the years between the 1860s and 1914.
The timeframe is selected on purpose as the Ottoman legal evolution gained pace
from the 1850s onwards, allowing us to comprehend this transformation process
better. On the other side, the advent of WWI in 1914 changed the political
atmosphere and diplomatic balances halting the extradition negotiations for a while.
7
Thus, this study follows a chronological and thematic order, although it frequently
gives place to comparative accounts from different regions around the same period.
1.1 Literature Review
In the Turkish Republic, extradition is also regulated by bilateral treaties but under
the principle of national jurisdiction. The Turkish Penal Code states that if a Turkish
or foreign citizen commits a crime in Turkey, they will be tried by Turkish courts. In
the scenario that a Turkish citizen commits a crime abroad and is found guilty,
jurisdiction belongs to the country of the crime. If a country demands the extradition
of its citizen for a crime committed in Turkey, the Ministry of Justice maintains the
right to conduct a trial in Turkish courts. This is to say that, the Turkish Penal Code
is guided by the same principle of territorial sovereignty as all other modern nations,
and there is no discrimination on the basis of national, ethnic, or religious
affiliation.10
On the other hand, the Turkish Republic signed many bilateral extradition
treaties with several states.11 The Turkish Republic was also a party, among 33 other
countries, to Protocol 2 of the European Convention on Extradition. In 1957, this
10 The 2nd clause of the 3rd article of the Turkish Penal Code states that “Ceza Kanununun
uygulamasında kişiler arasında ırk, dil, din, mezhep, milliyet, renk, cinsiyet, siyasal veya diğer fikir
yahut düşünceleri, felsefi inanç, millî veya sosyal köken, doğum, ekonomik ve diğer toplumsal
konumları yönünden ayrım yapılamaz ve hiçbir kimseye ayrıcalık tanınamaz”. Also see the Articles 9
to 19 of 2004 Turkish Penal Code https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/kanunlar/k5237.html and
https://www.mevzuat.gov.tr/mevzuatmetin/1.5.5237.pdf Also see, Yenisey, Milletlerarası Ceza
Hukuku: Ceza Yargılarının Milletlerarası Değeri ve Mevzuat, 35.
11 The Turkish Republic signed extradition treaties with Jordan in 1975 (renewed in 2015), the United
States in 1980, Syria in 1982 (renewed in 2009), Tunisia in 1982, Pakistan in 1984, Libya in 1987
(officially in force in 1989), Egypt in 1987 (renewed in 1990), Northern Cyprus in 1988, Morocco in
1990, Polonia in 1990, Romania in 1991 (officially in force in 1994), Australia in 1994 (officially in
force in 2004), Kazakhstan in 1997 (renewed in 2015), Kosovo in 2011 (officially in force in 2018,
and renewed in 2021), Russia in 2017, Uzbekistan in 2019, Serbia in 2019. For the treaty agreements,
see https://diabgm.adalet.gov.tr/home/BilgiDetay/7#collapse1
8
convention was put in force, regulating the extradition proceedings among its
signatories, including the Turkish Republic.12
On the other hand, there was no legislation regulating international judicial
collaboration until 1984. Along with separate treaties for such collaborations, the
Ministry of Justice occasionally issued an official circular to fill the legal loopholes
in the procedures. Legal statute no. 3002, issued on May 8, 1984, regulates the
procedures of a criminal prosecution brought on foreign citizens in the Turkish
Republic and Turkish citizens in foreign courts. Relying on the reciprocity principle,
this statute is designed to ensure the trial of each side’s nationals by their own
jurisdiction. The recent statute no. 6706, which came into force on April 23, 2016,
elaborates on this and lays down the rules for international judicial collaboration.
Comprehensive in content, this new statute places the Ministry of Justice as the
leading authority to administer and oversee the means and channels of that
cooperation.13
It is evident that penal codes, bilateral treaties, and special statutes are
complementary for the practice of extradition in Turkey. Nevertheless, we cannot say
the same for the Ottoman Empire. The origin of the practice of extradition as
formulated by bilateral treaties dates back to the nineteenth century. Many European
states signed bilateral treaties; however, this was not the practice in the Ottoman
state. The only agreement in such form was signed with the United States in 1874,
12 “European Convention on Extradition,” https://rm.coe.int/1680064587 ; and “Suçluların İadesine
Dair Avrupa Sözleşmesi’ne Ek İkinci Protokol,”
https://diabgm.adalet.gov.tr/arsiv/adli_yardimlasma/adli_isbirligi_ceza/suclularin_iadesi_ek/SİDAS%
20EK%20İKİNCİ%20PROTOKOL,%20yürürlük%20%201992,%20No%2098.pdf
13 Turhan, “6707 Sayılı Cezai Konularda Uluslararası İş Birliği Kanunu’nun Kapsamı ve Genel
Hükümleri Hakkında Bir Değerlendirme,” 3069; for the legal statute no. 3002 see “Türk Vatandaşları
Hakkında Yabancı Ülke Mahkemelerinden ve Yabancılar Hakkında Türk Mahkemelerinden Verilen
Ceza Mahkumiyetlerinin İnfazına Dair Kanun,”
https://www.mevzuat.gov.tr/MevzuatMetin/1.5.3002.pdf ; and for the legal statute 6706 see “Cezai
Konularda Uluslararası Adli İş Birliği Kanunu,”
https://www.mevzuat.gov.tr/MevzuatMetin/1.5.6706.pdf
9
but it was plagued by many controversies, as we will see in Chapter 4. The
extraterritorial regime was one major factor as the Ottoman Empire was considered
to be among the semi-civilized states, and capitulations barred the possibility of
maintaining diplomatic relations on equal terms. This state of affairs directly affected
the extradition practice as consular jurisdiction frequently replaced for Ottoman
justice for foreign criminals who had escaped to the empire. Consequently, the
alternative scenario was not even taken into consideration.
The abundance of correspondence addressing the issue of extradition in the
archives is the reason that encouraged me to delve into this subject, whereas the
desire to better understand its practice in the Ottoman Empire at the expense of the
capitulatory system was another powerful incentive. In this respect, I place my
research among the works that provide a critical examination of the questions of
capitulations, extraterritoriality, and Ottoman sovereignty.
1.1.1 On Transnational Crime, Ottoman Legal Transformation, and
Extraterritoriality
Extradition is usually addressed by legal scholars who examine it under normative
international and criminal laws. This was also the case in the nineteenth century. The
volume of scholarship on this question in the world was largely the compilation of
bilateral treaties and the analysis of particular legal cases.14 Books on international
law vaguely touch upon this question as it appears in Ottoman scholarship.
Therefore, the value of addressing it in a historical framework becomes quite
14 For some of them see Bernard, Traite Théorique et Pratique de l’Extradition Comprenant
L’Exposition d’un Projet de Loi Universelle sur l’Extradition; Soldan, L’extradition des criminels
politiques; and Fiore, Traite Droit Pénal International et de L’Extradition; and Clarke, A Treatise
upon the Law of Extradition; and Cornewall, On Foreign Jurisdiction and the Extradition of the
Criminals.
10
evident, considering the relevance of this legal concept to many other crucial issues
and the light it sheds on issues as legal jurisdiction and the role of the Ottoman
Empire on the international stage.
Two recent works on American history achieved a similar goal by focusing
on extradition practices. Uncle Sam's Policemen by Katherine Unterman accounts for
the mobility of crime across U.S. borders between the 1840s and 1930s with a focus
on U.S. policing, legal apparatuses, and foreign policy. The "boodler phenomenon,"
as Unterman terms it, opens a new window into understanding how official
extradition treaties vs. quasi-official manhunt policies of the United States shaped its
foreign policy, asserting legal influence abroad in search of transnational embezzlers.
This work places extradition into a larger historical framework that shows the advent
of technology and the rising imperialist vision of the United States.15
The work of Bradly Miller, on the other hand, discusses extradition practices
through the lens of the U.S.-Canada border security and the migration question. In
Borderline Crime, he portrays the challenges posed by fugitive criminals, escaped
slaves on the run, and refugees searching for political asylum, demonstrating how the
U.S. government promoted diplomacy for judicial collaboration and law
enforcement. Through an analysis of law and state formation, Miller argues that
sovereignty was always at stake at the borders, necessitating alternative policies as
the rule of law could never be taken for granted. Instead, he takes law “not as a clear
and coercive force but rather as a continually riven, often underwhelming, and
perpetually shifting aspect of governance.”16
In a similar vein, my study explores transnational crime mobility and border
security in Ottoman international politics through an examination of the extradition
15 Unterman, Uncle Sam’s Policemen: The Pursuit of Fugitives across Borders.
16 Miller, Borderline Crime: Fugitive Criminals and the Challenge of the Border, 1819-1914, 11.
11
practice and aims contributing to few existing works. This study examines how the
Ottoman state frequently responded to the challenges posed to border security under
the aegis of extradition talks. Whereas border politics has been subject to a variety of
research,17 there are not many studies that place particular emphasis on the impact of
legislative efforts in controlling crime at the borders. In the existing literature, crime
is usually studied with an emphasis on its relevance to domestic security and
legislative efforts at home. While some of the research focuses on the agency of
perpetrators, 18 others address the crime in light of state policies and coercive
measures to get it under control.19
Despite the rich and analytical content of the existing works, the historical
overview of criminal mobility across the Ottoman borders and transnational crime is
conspicuously absent. To Kill a Sultan, recounting the 1905 assassination attempt
against Sultan Abdülhamid II achieved this aim by investigating the anatomy of a
crime in the axis of Ottoman-European relations. Each scholar who contributed to the
volume centered their research on a different story behind the plot that placed the
episode in trans-imperial politics.20 Likewise, the security concerns of the Hamidian
regime across imperial borders, mainly due to a surge in anarchist actions, have been
addressed in the works of İlkay Yılmaz. Yılmaz explores the Ottoman state's
17 See the two edited volumes recently published, which offer ample scope for analyzing various
border stories of the Ottoman and post-Ottoman worlds: Öztan, Yenen ed., Age of Rogues: Rebels,
Revolutionaries, and Rackeeters at the Frontiers of the Empire; and Tezel, Öztan ed., Regimes of
Mobility: Borders and State Formation in the Middle East, 1918-1946.
18 For some of them; Lévy-Aksu, Osmanlı Istanbul’unda Asayiş, 1879-1909; Türker, “Toxic Murder,
Female Poisoner, and the Question of Agency at the Late Ottoman Law Courts, 1840-1908,” 114-137;
Tuğ, Politics of Honor in Ottoman Anatolia; Deal, Crimes of Honor, Drunken Brawls and Murder –
Violence in Istanbul under Abdülhamid I.
19 Schull, “Criminal Codes, Crime, and the Transformation of Punishment in the Late Ottoman
Empire,” 156-178; Lévy-Aksu, “A Capital Challenge: Managing Violence and Disorders in Late
Ottoman Istanbul,” 52-69; Lévy-Aksu, “Institutional Cooperation and Substitution: The Ottoman
Police and Justice System at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries,” 146-168; Miller, Legislating
Authority: Sin and Crime in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey; Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in
Istanbul: 1700-1800.
20 Alloul, Eldem, de Smaele (eds.), To Kill a Sultan: A Transnational History of the Attempt on
Abdülhamid II (1905).
12
surveillance system such as passport regulations and hotel registers by setting her
account around the state policies that were largely used to track down Armenian
suspects and suppress the anarchist activities they were actively involved.21
Likewise, David Gutman's The Politics of Armenian Migration to North America
examines Armenian migration to the United States, examining the identity crisis,
political conflicts due to the migration, and criminal mobility by investigating their
repercussions on Ottoman-U.S. diplomacy.22
My research joins these works on the nineteenth century by exploring the
dynamics of organized transnational crime and individual criminal actions across
international borders, while taking into account the Ottoman state’s reactive and
preventive measures through extradition. Firstly, this study examines the timeline of
judicial cooperation beginning in the 1850s, the period in which large-scale
transformation took place within the legal system in the Ottoman Empire. This
underscores the organic tie between domestic legislative forces and international
diplomacy. Around the same time, the Ottoman Empire established an elaborate
diplomatic network abroad. The focus of this study shifts to examine the
phenomenon of transnational crime in a diplomatically legal framework. It surveys
various political trajectories by adopting a micro-scale approach to diplomatic
conflicts of a legal nature in the larger historical context. It undertakes a closer
reading of the law to better understand its application, practice, and interpretation in
Ottoman politics. I place my research among an increasing number of studies that
21 Yılmaz, “Conspiracy, International Police Cooperation, and the Fight Against Anarchism in the
Late Ottoman Empire 1878-1908,” 208-234; and Yılmaz, “Governing the Armenian Question
Through Passports in the Late Ottoman Empire (1876-1908),” 1-16; and Yılmaz, Serseri, Anarşist ve
Fesadın Peşinde: II. Abdülhamid Dönemi Güvenlik Politikaları Ekseninde Mürur Tezkereleri,
Pasaportlar ve Otel Kayıtları.
22 Gutman, “The Politics of Armenian Migration to North America 1885-1915; and Gutman, “Travel
Documents, Mobility Control, and the Ottoman State in the Age of Global Migration,” 347-368.
13
look into the discourse of Ottoman legal texts and contextualize them in the political
milieu of their time.23
The existing scholarship addressing the capitulatory system has been recently
reexamined and enriched by alternative narratives that call for an analytical inquiry
into extraterritorial regime. Extraterritoriality, a term used to identify the diplomatic
and jurisdictional immunities in a foreign land, gave an excuse to the Europeans to
exploitatively operate their consular system in the Ottoman territories for centuries,
which will be analyzed in the following chapter at length.24 Addressing
extraterritoriality, Philip Marshall Brown argues that “one invents fiction when one
does not know how to justify rules which are perceived to be necessary.”25
Therefore, the excuse behind the extraterritorial fiction relied on the political
discourse generated by European states for their non-European contemporaries.
Some studies, including the Ottoman example, have brought a critical approach to
23 See Kırlı, Yolsuzluğun İcadı: 1840 Ceza Kanunu, İktidar ve Bürokrasi; Heinzelman, “The Ruler’s
Monologue: The Rhetoric of the Ottoman Penal Code of 1858,” 292-321; Fahmy, “The Anatomy of
Justice: Forensic Medicine and Criminal Law in Nineteenth Century Egypt,” 224-271; Terzibaşoğlu,
“Eleni Hatun’un zeyin bahçeleri: 19. yy’da Anadolu’da mülkiyet hakları nasıl inşa edildi?” 121-147;
Aytekin, “Agrarian Relations, Property and Law: An Analysis of the Land Code of 1858 in the
Ottoman Empire,” 935-951. Many works Ottoman constitution(s) present fruitful approaches for
reading the constitutional period through different episodes: see Lévy-Aksu, “An Ottoman variation
on the state of siege: The invention of the idare-i örfiyye during the first constitutional period,” 1-24;
Strauss, “A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire: Translations of the Kanuni Esasi and Other
Official Texts in Minority Languages,” 21-52; Kılıç, “1876 Anayasa’sının Bilinmeyen İki Tasarısı,”
557-635; Erdoğdu, “The Administrative and Judicial Status of the First Ottoman Parliament according
to the 1876 Constitution,” 67-89; Koçunyan, “The Transcultural Dimension of the Ottoman
Constitution,” 235-258; and Tuğ, “Gendered Subjects in Ottoman Constitutional Agreements, ca.
1740-1860;” Ardıç, “Islam, Modernity and the 1876 Constitution,” 89-107.
24 For a lengthy treatment of the capitulation system with different historical perspectives: See,
Rausas, La Régime des Capitulations dans l’Empire Ottoman; Sousa, The Capitulatory Regime oF
Turkey: In History, Origin and Nature; Angell, “The Turkish Capitulations;” Eldem, “Capitulations
and Western Trade,” Boogert, The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System: Qadis, Consuls, and
Beartlıs in the 18th Century; and Blumi, “Capitulations in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Shifting
Parameters of Russian and Austrian Interests in Ottoman Albania, 1878-1912;” Thayer, “The
Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire and the Question of Their Abrogation as it Affects the United
States;” Mughal and Sadiki, “Shari’ah Law and Capitulations Governing the Non-Muslim Foreign
Merchants in the Ottoman Empire;” Groot, “The Historical Development of the Capitulatory Regime
in the Ottoman Middle East from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries”; and Ahmad, “Ottoman
Perceptions of the Capitulations 1800-1914,” 1-20; Augusti, “From Capitulations to Unequal Treaties:
the Matter of an Extraterritorial Jurisdiction in the Ottoman Empire,” 285-307.
25 Brown, Foreigners in Turkey: Their Juridical Status, 116.
14
this understanding on theoretical grounds. They have argued that Europe advocated
positivism that propagated the idea of European superiority. The justification of this
notion stemmed from the idea that some non-European countries were not considered
civilized in the same way that their European counterparts were. These studies
formulated their arguments on civilization criteria as either “legal, legitimate, and
morally justified or illegal but fundamentally legitimate.”26
Jennifer Pitts argues that European international law served a ready-made
agenda to justify European imperialist visions for those states.27 Turan Kayaoğlu
shares similar ideas claiming that the unequal relations resulted from the modern
theory of sovereignty. This notion sprang out of the ideals of legal positivism and the
colonial venture of European expansion.28 Similarly, Ntina Tzouvala and Arnulf
Berker Lorca punctuated the importance of capitalist interests in the overseas
intervention policies.29 With the comparative methodology they used, these works
join similar critical studies on other regions that were identically positioned in the
international order. China, Siam, Japan, and Korea were the other states that were
considered to exist in the gray area between civilized and uncivilized societies.30
Among these states, as Umut Özsu argues, the Ottoman state became the first
“laboratory” region for Europeans to calculate their future moves in other
26 Rodogno, European Legal Doctrines on Intervention and the Status of the Ottoman Empire within the
‘Family of Nations’ throughout the Nineteenth Century,” 6.
27 Pitts, Boundaries of International: Law and Empire.
28 Kayaoğlu, Legal Imperialism: Sovereignty and Extraterritoriality in Japan, the Ottoman Empire
and China, 34.
29 Tzouvala, “The Specter of Eurocentrism in International Legal History,” 426; and Lorca, “Universal
International Law: Nineteenth-Century Histories of Imposition and Appropriation,” 519.
30 The article of Aimeé Genell on the autonomous provinces of the Empire, namely Mt. Lebanon and
Egypt, reveals a good example of how the semi-sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire was called into
question when addressed in light of the arguments of international law. Thus, this study also shows
that the in-between positioning of the states in the European world order was closely related to the
established arguments while portraying the non-European states. See, “Autonomous Provinces and the
Problem of ‘Semi-Sovereignty’ in European International Law,” 533-549.
15
territories.31 Along the lines of Özsu, Nobuyoshi Fujinami argues that “it was
through the Muslim Ottoman’s incorporation that European international law
claimed its universality over non-Christian countries.”32 Therefore, the Ottoman case
gains further importance among these states considering its centuries-old capitulation
tradition in its interplay of diplomacy with Europe. The Empire was indeed the first
laboratory to experiment with international law, before it gets transported to other
non-European settings.
Most of these works argue that the countries labeled as semi-civilized
transplanted the European legal system to their own domestic judicial operations to
empower their own legal structure to refute the extraterritorial regime in a natural
course of adaptation.33 Others have regarded the rise of the nation-state as the
momentous milestone that struck a blow to the extraterritorial regime.34 These works
enable us to understand the power of the political discourse the European world
imposed on other states, which they treated on unequal grounds. However, they do
not address how efficiently the legal systems of those states operated independently
of European influence. It is mainly because most research lacked archival data to
illustrate the legal operation in action. In the last few decades, however, the
proliferation of publications on the daily operation of local legal systems has made
31 Özsu, “The Ottoman Empire, the Origins of Extraterritoriality, and International Legal Theory,”
128.
32 Fujinami, “The First Ottoman History of International Law,” 246.
33 See the following works for a comparative analysis: Horowitz, “International Law and State
Formation in China, Siam and the Ottoman Empire during the 19th Century,” 445-486; Slys, Exporting
Legality: the Rise and Fall of Extraterritorial Jurisdiction in the Ottoman Empire and China; Cassel,
Grounds of Judgement: Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power in Nineteenth century China and
Japan; Jones, Extraterritoriality in Japan, and the Diplomatic Relations Resulting in Its Abolition,
1853–1899.
34 Umut Özsu evaluates the 1922 population exchange, in the post-Ottoman world, as one of the
watershed moments of political change for Republican Turkey to eliminate the remnants of the
extraterritorial regime. The more the country became homogenously Turkish, the less the state
authorities encountered similar problems similar to the capitulatory system. See Özsu, Formalizing
Displacement: International Law and Population Transfers, and also see Liu, Extraterritoriality: Its
Rise and Decline, 232.
16
up for the shortcomings in the field. Most of them also underscore how those states’
diplomatic and legal interactions with Europe were far from unilateral, which instead
reveals contest and struggle to claim sovereignty and autonomy in their jurisdictional
system.35
Similar studies on the functioning of the Ottoman justice system have
portrayed a complicated judicial world. The institutional reforms are examined by
many scholars on account of the legal transformation throughout the nineteenth
century. Even though the European examples largely inspired the initiatives for new
codifications, the Ottoman legal transformation follows a pattern of continuity at a
large-scale level. It was an amalgam of Islamic law, customary practices, and secular
legislative reforms that ultimately resulted in a legal system that carried its own
unique character.36 Some of these studies also show that the operation of Ottoman
justice already carried pluralistic traits before the nineteenth century. In earlier
periods, law was instrumental in standing against injustice as well as maintaining the
35 See some of these for a comparative framework; Auslin, Negotiating with Imperialism: the Unequal
Treaties and the Culture of Japanese Diplomacy; Chen, Chinese Law in Imperial Eyes: Sovereignty,
Justice & Transcultural Politics; Martines-Robles, “Constructing Sovereignty in Nineteenth-Century
China: the Negotiation of reciprocity in the Sino-Spanish Treaty of 1864,” 719-740; and Tzouvala, “
‘And the laws are rude … crude and uncertain’ Extraterritoriality and the emergence of territorialized
statehood in Siam,” 134-150.
36 Demirel, Adliye Nezareti: Kuruluşu ve Faaliyetleri(1876-1914); Shaw, “The Central Legislative
Councils in the Nineteenth Century Ottoman Reform Movement before 1876,”51-84; İnalcık,
Seyitdanlıoğlu (eds.), Tanzimat ve Değişim Sürecinde Osmanlı İmparatorluğu; Ekinci, Osmanlı
Mahkemeleri: Tanzimat ve Sonrası; Bingöl, “Tanzimat Sonrası Taşra ve Merkezde Yargı Reformu,”
533-545; Akiba, “The Local Councils as the Origin of the Parliamentary System in the Ottoman
Empire,” 176-204; Akiba, “From Kadı to Naib: Reorganization of the Ottoman Sharia Judiciary in the
Tanzimat Period,” 43-60; Akiba, “A New School for Qadis: Education of Sharia Judges in the late
Ottoman Empire,” 125-163; Kayalı, “Elections and Electoral Process in the Ottoman Empire, 1876-
1919,” 265-286; Yılmaz, Osmanlı Devleti’nde Batılıllaşma Öncesi Meşrutiyetçi Gelişmeler, 1-30;
Bedir, “Fikih to Law: Secularization Through Curriculum,” 378-401; Bozkurt, “Batı Hukuku’nun
Türkiye’de Benimsenmesi: Osmanlı Devleti’nden Türkiye Cumhuriyetine Resepsiyon Süreci; Bozkurt,
“Review of the Ottoman Legal System,” 115-128. Unlike most of the studies, Gülnihal Bozkurt
evaluates the Ottoman legal transformation, especially considering its effects during the first years of
Republican Turkey, as full of ruptures as well as continuities. For a comparative study on Egypt,
Petricca, “Filling the Void: Shari’a in Mixed Courts in Egypt: Jurisprudence (1876-1949),” 718-745.
17
social order. Above all the written laws and customs, the discretion of the sultans
also had an influential role in dispensing justice.37
Many works have come out on the daily operation of Ottoman courts, which
cautions us not to take the arguments of borrowed modernization at face value.
Instead, they have shown that the traditional courts and newly established Nizamiye
courts coexisted, though occasionally in tension, to respond to Muslim and non-
Muslim subjects’ quest for justice.38 Whereas kadı sicilleri (Qadi court records)
provided comprehensive data on the operation of Sharia courts,39 especially before
the nineteenth century, the outstanding work of Avi Rubin on Nizamiye courts has
become an example in the transformation of Ottoman courts. Describing his work as
a socio-legal analysis, Rubin argues that the course of modernity followed a global
pattern in which the Ottoman Empire should be examined independently of this path
to modernization. He claims that the old and new courts were “the entwined
components of a single judicial system, converging in some respects and departing in
others.”40 His extensive use of Ceride-i Mehakim, the weekly official newspaper that
the Ministry of Justice first published in 1873, reflects the standardization of the
Ottoman judicial operation, thus testifying to the advancement of legal formalism.
In light of these studies, the legal pluralism in the Ottoman judicial system
has underscored the agency of Ottoman subjects, who engaged in forum shopping by
37 Kurz, “Gracious Sultans, Grateful Subjects: Spreading Ottoman Imperial ‘Ideology’ throughout the
Empire,” 104.
38 Paz, “Documenting Justice: New Recording Practices and the Establishment of an Activist Criminal
Court System in the Ottoman Provinces (1840-late 1860s),” 81-113; Agmon, Family Court: Legal
Culture and Modernity in Late Ottoman Palestine; Baer, “The Transition from Traditional to Western
Criminal Law in Turkey and Egypt,” 139-158; Rubin, “Legal borrowing and its impact on Ottoman
legal culture in the late nineteenth century,” 279-303; and Peters, “Islamic and Secular Criminal Law
in Nineteenth-Century Egypt: The Role and Function of Qadi,” 70-90; and Gerber, State, Society, and
Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in Comparative Perspective.
39 For some of the studies on qadi court records; see Jennings, Studies on Ottoman Social History in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Women, Zimmis and Sharia Courts in Kayseri, Cyprus and
Trabzon; Peirce, Morality Tales: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab; Ergene, “Pursuing
Justice in an Islamic Context: Dispute Resolution in Ottoman Courts of Law,” 51-71.
40 Rubin, Ottoman Nizamiye Courts, 7 and 15.
18
resorting to different courts to meet their individual needs.41 The analyses of
Ottoman legal pluralism could be placed among others that brought a revisionist
outlook to colonial studies, featuring the implications of cultural and religious
diversity along with the local conflicts against authorities in the evolution of legal
structures. The case studies from various regions have demonstrated assorted
mediums of judicial operation that gave room to the individual subjects to assert selfagency
in seeking their own justice. On the domestic level, they shed light on law
making in action that blurred or downplayed the role of the state, which sometimes
did not even exist.42 Conversely, their critical approach refuted the idea that the
mission civilisatrice of the European world ushered in a legal system strictly based
on the interpretation of “the rule of law” in colonized regions and semi-civilized
states. Instead, this research focused on various local legal regimes, which functioned
equally competently by relying on a myriad of agents and institutions. Avoiding the
pitfalls of modernist reductionisms that portrayed the law of indigenous societies as
sui generis in character, these studies show that the nineteenth-century legal regimes
across the world shared a lot with their European counterparts.43
Similarly, a group of studies focusing on the Ottoman Empire deconstructed
the existing arguments on the treaty system. Instead, they portrayed an Ottoman legal
world that was not immune to political conjecture and manipulated by several actors,
which have presented an alternative to the dominant narratives on extraterritoriality.
41 Petrov, “Everyday Forms of Compliance: Subaltern Commentaries on Ottoman Reform, 1864-
1868,” 730-759; Al-Qattan, “Dhimmis in the Muslim Court: Legal autonomy and religious
discrimination,” 429-444; Anastaspoulos, “Non-Muslim and Ottoman Justice(s?), 275-292; Barkey,
“Aspects of Legal Pluralism in the Ottoman Empire,” 83-108; Fahmy, “Jurisdictional Borderlands:
Extraterritoriality and “Legal Chameleons” in Precolonial Alexandria, 1840-1870,” 305-329; Shahar,
“Legal Pluralism and the Study Shari’a Courts,” 112-141; Mughal and Sadiki, “Shari’ah law and
Capitulations Governing the non-Muslim Foreign Merchants in the Ottoman Empire,” 138-160;
Toprak, “From plurality to unity: Codification and jurisprudence in the late Ottoman Empire,” 26-39.
42 Berman, “From Legal Pluralism to Global Legal Pluralism,” 258, and 264.
43 Ross and Benton (eds.), Legal Pluralisms and Empires, 1500-1850; and Law and Colonial
Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400-1900.
19
Most recently, the edited volume of The Subjects of Ottoman International Law has
redirected our attention to the trans-imperial context of Ottoman foreign relations
while dealing with the question of extraterritoriality. The articles in this volume show
that the treatment of the issue of subjecthood and the Ottoman leverage in
international law displays the complicated nature of foreign diplomacy that go
beyond the boundaries of the capitulation system.44
Subjecthood was always a thorny issue impossible to evaluate from a single
perspective. As the main focus of this study is on the nineteenth century, the 1869
Ottoman Nationality Law is of particular interest as it marked a watershed moment in
treating that question in the Ottoman context. After all, the disputes over who could
hold the jurisdictional rights for criminals primarily derived from the question of
subjecthood.45 In his critical overview of the issue, Will Hanley has examined the
content of the 1869 Law and determined it to be distinct from the European
citizenship laws since it was a specific regulation of naturalization and
denaturalization. It separated the issue of nationality from the concept of citizenship,
which was emblematic of civic rights and duties usually designated in citizenship
laws. When it is read in the Ottoman imperial context, the claims over Ottoman
nationality created a contested arena, further placing this issue apart from its
European counterparts.46
44 Can, Low, Schull, and Zens (eds.), The Subjects of Ottoman International Law.
45 In the early centuries, religion became decisive for the claims of Ottoman subjecthood and legal
belonging. See Hanley, “The Burden of Subjecthood: The Ottoman State, Russian Fugitives, and
Interimperial Law, 1774-1869,” 73-93.
46 For a critical review of the existing works on Ottoman subjecthood and nationality law; see Hanley,
“What Ottoman Nationality Was and Was Not,” 277-298. In another work on Egypt, Hanley
challenges the idea that Egypt should be taken independent of the Ottoman Empire after the 1882
British occupation. On the contrary, he shows how the legal belonging of Egyptians still carried the
traits of Ottoman subjecthood. See Hanley, “When Did Egyptians Stop Being Ottomans? An Imperial
Citizenship Case Study,” 89-109.
20
The contested nature of Ottoman subjecthood has reversed the established
accounts of extraterritoriality in many ways.47 Aviv Derri, like Hanley, also argued
that Ottoman nationality law did not primarily aim to designate rights for
participation to the Ottoman political system. It was instead the desire of the state to
control the movements of Ottoman subjects and foreign nationals. Hanley also
argues that the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law emerged to resolve the problem
stemming from the protégé legislations.48 By examining the economic activities both
groups engaged in, however, Derri claims that the privileges granted by protégé
status and Ottoman subjecthood were not defined by a set of rules outlined in the
1869 Ottoman Nationality Law but contingent on the mutual interests between the
state authorities and consulates that would generate economic benefits on both
sides.49 On the other hand, the work of Berke Torunoğlu on the Ottoman Greeks
subjects, whom he called as neo-Hellenes, examines how the 1869 Ottoman
Nationality Law formed the legal basis of the Ottoman State’s arguments to expel a
large number of Ottoman Greeks. His research critically calls on Ottomanism as an
inclusive identity policy of the Ottoman State.50
Among these publications, the work of Lale Can and Michael Cristopher Law
focuse on a different side effect of this law. Lale Can examines how the Central
Asian subjects, that is, Bukharans, Afghans, and Turkic Muslim populations, residing
in the Ottoman empire were left in legal limbo devoid of extraterritorial rights. They
were not officially accepted as Russian or English naturalized subjects because of the
47 The recent work of David Todd can well represent how extraterritoriality violated Egypt's
sovereignty rights after the 1882 occupation. Todd argues that the extraterritoriality 'hollowed out'
sovereignty, whereas the newly established courts represented by foreign magistrates warded the
Egyptian government's efforts to impose power and legal sanction. See Todd, “Beneath Sovereignty:
Extraterritoriality and Imperial Internationalism in Nineteenth-Century Egypt,” 105-137.
48 Hanley, “What Ottoman Nationality Was and Was Not,” 284-285.
49 Derri, “Imperial Creditors, ‘Doubtful’ Nationalities and Financial Obligations in Late Ottoman Syria:
Rethinking Ottoman Subjecthood and Consular Protection,” 1060-1079.
50 Torunoğlu, “The Neo-Hellenes in the Ottoman Empire, 1830-1869,” 49-70.
21
weak diplomatic networks the Ottoman Empire had with those far-away regions.
Unlike the assumption that capitulations could protect them as colonial subjects, they
did not; further to that, the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law precluded them from the
rights of Ottoman subjecthood. The stipulations of the law effaced the flexibility of
Ottoman justice for foreigners, although the Hamidian state discourse raised hopes of
protection for non-Ottoman Muslim subjects in the name of the caliphate. 51
Likewise, as Michael Cristopher Low examines, the non-Ottoman Muslim Indians in
Hijaz became the cat’s paws of British colonial authorities in their contest to extend
capitulations to these people. In return, the Ottoman officials had to frequently rebuff
European claims with the arguments of international law and sovereignty rights.52
These two situations apply to one facet of the Hamidian regime, as Ebru Akçasu
maintains, promoting “a secular and territorial nationalism based on rational law,”
whereas it contradicts the other facet she points out that relied on “extraterritorial
transnationalism based on divine jurisdiction.”53
Building upon these arguments, this study, especially in Chapters 4 and 5,
shows that legal belonging and Ottoman identity were in a precarious position in
Ottoman foreign politics. The patterns of the extraterritorial regime were equally
outlined by Ottoman authorities alongside European agents when they address
51 Can, “The Protection Question: Central Asians and Extraterritoriality in the Late Ottoman Empire,”
679-699.
52 Low, “Unfurling the Flag of Extraterritoriality: Autonomy, Foreign Muslims, and the Capitulations
in the Ottoman Hijaz,” 299-323.
53 Akçasu, “Migrants to Citizens: An Evaluation of the Expansionist Features of Hamidian
Ottomanism, 1876-1909,” 393. Also, see the work of Karen Kern, which addressed the 1869 Ottoman
Nationality Law in light of restrictive regulations imposed on the Ottoman women and Iranian men. In
contrast to the content of the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law, which did not differentiate ethnic
communities and religious denominations, she shows how the Shiite identity of the Iranians compelled
the Ottoman state to promote the nationality law as a safeguard of Ottoman women’s subjecthood
against acquiring foreign nationality. Kern, Imperial Citizen: Marriage and Citizenship in the
Ottoman Frontier Provinces of Iraq.
22
criminal mobility and the right of jurisdiction, as concomitant to the political
expedience under change.
Another group of studies has posed a critical approach to extraterritoriality by
exploring the active role of international law in Ottoman foreign politics. Some of
them have already addressed Ottoman international law as a discipline, explaining its
reception by the Ottoman school curriculum and the Ottoman legal scholars in the
nineteenth century.54 Unlike the notion that international law was a European
construct, scholars such as Serdar Palabıyık and Zülâl Muslu have sought and found
its origins in the Ottoman diplomatic culture of earlier centuries.55 While these
studies provide us with a historical background on the evolution of international law
in the empire, the historical episodes that others examined further reveal the decisive
role of international law and the power of treaty agreements in Ottoman diplomacy.
For example, Mostafa Minawi, in The Ottoman Scramble for Africa,
illustrates the inter-imperial rivalry between the Ottoman Empire and European
powers in the Sahara and Hijaz regions after 1878. This episode shows how the
Ottoman delegates successfully used the 1884 Act of Berlin when addressing the
empire's position in the region's entangled colonial politics. Calling this Ottoman
venture “new imperialism,” Minawi argues that the Ottoman Empire took an active
part in the global power contest despite the recent economic and political burdens
and territorial losses after the Russo-Ottoman War. Going against the grain of the
imperial image portrayed as weak and in decline, he shows that the Ottoman Empire
54 Aral, “The Ottoman ‘School’ of International Law as Featured in Textbooks,” 70-97; Erozan,
“Türkiye’de Uluslararası İlişkiler Disiplininin Uzak Tarihi: Hukuk-u Düvel,” 53-80; Fujinami, “The
First Ottoman History of International Law,” 245-270; Fujinami, “Law for Tanzimat: Islam and
Sovereignty in Kemalpaşazade Sait’s Legal Thought,” 171-188; and Palabıyık, “International Law for
Survival: Teaching International Law in the late Ottoman Empire (1859-1922),” 271-292.
55 Palabıyık, “The Emergence of the Idea of ‘International Law’ in the Ottoman Empire before the
Treaty of Paris,” 233-251; and Muslu, “Language and Power: The Dragoman as a Link in the Chain
Between the Law of Nations and the Ottoman Empire,” 50-74.
23
secured an equal legal standing in the international order. As this study has revealed,
that achievement owed a lot to the Ottoman government’s engagement with
international law.56 In a similar fashion, Michael Christopher Low, by examining the
colonial power politics of the Hijaz region, counts on the role of Ottoman diplomacy
and international law. Even though Low describes the whole diplomatic course as a
limited success, his emphasis is on the success of novel state discourse in adopting
the alternative diplomatic mediums.57
In the nineteenth century world, the new legal profession of lawyers gained
significant importance in the Ottoman Empire.58 While many states established legal
bureaus in state departments for counseling on domestic and foreign legal matters,
including the Ottoman Empire, lawyers played a crucial role in Ottoman foreign
relations each day.59 Initially staffed by European lawyers, they were eventually
replaced with Ottoman officials who graduated from law school and were able to
provide legal counsel on a variety of state policies and matters of diplomacy.60
The works of Aimee Genell and Will Hanley approach the Ottoman
engagement with international law by exploring the agency of Ottoman lawyers.
Genell examines the operation of the Office of Legal Counsel in her article,
56 Minawi, The Ottoman Scramble for Africa: Empire and Diplomacy in the Sahara and the Hijaz;
also see Minawi, “International Law and the Precarity of Ottoman Sovereignty in Africa at the End of
the Nineteenth Century,” 1098-1121.
57 Low, “Unfurling the Flag of Extraterritoriality: Autonomy, Foreign Muslims, and the Capitulations
in the Ottoman Hijaz,” 299-323.
58 On the role of lawyers in the state politics of different geographies in the nineteenth century; see
Jacobson, Catalonia’s Advocates: Lawyers, Society and Politics in Barcelona, 1759-1900; Flaherty,
Public Law, Private Practice: Politics, Profit, and the Legal Profession in Nineteenth-Century Japan;
Cheta, “A Prehistory of the Modern Legal Profession in Egypt, 1840s-1870s,” 649-668; and Reid,
Lawyers and Politics in the Arab World, 1880-1960.
59 Rubin, “From Legal Representation to Advocacy: Attorneys and Clients in the Ottoman Nizamiye
Courts,” 123. For the advocacy in the early periods; Jennings, “The Office of Vekil (Wakil) in 17th
Century Ottoman Sharia Courts,” 147-169.
60 On the reports of the Ottoman Office of Legal Counsel; Kuneralp, Öktem (eds.), Chambre des
conseillers légistes de la Sublime Porte: Rapports, avis et consultations sur la condition juridique des
ressortissants étrangers, le statut des communautés non musulmanes et les relations internationales
de l’Empire Ottoman.
24
portraying the inner structure of that institution. While doing so, she sheds light on
the changing attitude of the legal professionals in the office in applying international
law to state politics over time.61 On the other hand, Genell’s other research on Egypt
focuses on the Ottoman and European international law books by revealing the
conflicting views on “semi-sovereignty” while both parties addressed the
autonomous Ottoman provinces of Mt. Lebanon and Egypt.62 Likewise, Hanley
adopts a comparative lens to investigate the way in which Egyptian, Ottoman, and
European lawyers in Egypt incorporated international law into their practice. His
study on the jurisdiction of Eduard Joris, the Belgian journalist accused of the
assassination attempt against the Sultan, takes up the debates the Ottoman legal
advisors and their European peers had with one another on the extradition of Joris in
detail.63
In the same vein, my study aims to enrich the scope of studies on Ottoman
engagement in international law and the role of Ottoman legal scholars in
international state diplomacy. This study probes into how Ottoman diplomatic agents
and legal advisors utilized international law by scrutinizing diplomatic exchanges
and legal reports. Davide Rodogno was hesitant about the impact of international
law, arguing that “the Porte was repeatedly disappointed by international law.”64
However, this study, like the ones mentioned above, shows that the discourse of
international law reoriented the course and influence of Ottoman diplomacy to an
extent that could not be underrated.
61 Genell, “The Well-Defended Domains: Eurocentric International Law and the Making of the
Ottoman Office of Legal Counsel,” 255-275.
62 See Genell, “Autonomous Provinces and the Problem of ‘Semi-Sovereignty’ in European
International Law,” 533-549.
63 Hanley, “International Lawyers without Public International Law: The Case of Late Ottoman
Egypt,” 98-119; and Hanley, “Extraterritorial Prosecution, the Late Capitulations, and the New
International Lawyers,” 163-192.
64 Rodogno, “European Legal Doctrines on Intervention and the Status of the Ottoman Empire within
the ‘Family of Nations’ Throughout the Nineteenth Century,” 19.
25
1.2 Methodology
This dissertation is not built on a particular legal theory, but it features the
importance of law in shaping nineteenth-century world politics and international
order. In this respect, law plays a crucial part here as a discourse in diplomatic and
political relations.65 Thus, this study adopts a legal approach that establishes a
dialogue with the law as a concept and practice in daily politics. Bruno Latour
supports the idea that “fiction does not imply either cynicism or unreality but a
solution to make the law move forward.”66 This study does not use a fictional
narrative. However, similar to what Latour achieved in his work on the French
Council of State, it offers a historical narrative based on a close reading of the
judicial operation and the text of the law to highlight the place of law in Ottoman
international politics.
A close reading of normative law could not provide an exhaustive analysis of
historical context on its own. Law as a tool in action was contingent upon the
agencies of many actors, the legal discourse adopted, and shifting state politics.
Accordingly, this study treats law as an interactive process to explain the political,
social, and diplomatic implications of extradition.67 Since the mobility of criminals
and the fears that they would go unpunished is the primary concern behind the
question of extradition; being a diplomatic and legal practice, it stands as a valuable
subject matter for both transnational history and domestic politics in this study. It is
65 Anthony Anghie comes up with a similar argument. He underscores the importance attached to law
and international legal theory for influencing the political order in the world. See Anghie,
“Imperialism and International Legal Theory,” 157. On the other hand, Fisk and Gordon invite the
researcher to avoid law and the causal relationship it builds with other disciplines. Instead, the law is
treated as an interactive process in social, economic, and political actions. See Fisk and Gordon,
“Foreword: ‘Law as Theory...’: Theory and Method in Legal History,” 523-524.
66 Latour, The Making of Law: An Ethnography of the Conseil d’Etat, 58. In this work, Latour
portrays the operation of the French Council of State in a fictional narrative.
67 Benton and Ross, Empires and Legal Pluralism, 1500-1850, 12; and Lorca, “Universal International
Law: Nineteenth-Century Histories of Imposition and Appropriation,” 486.
26
grounded on comparative analysis to promote a better understanding of
interconnections, networks, and divergences of historical events. Therefore, each
chapter is centered around a legal episode that moved beyond the spatial patterns
characterized by the limits of the concept of the nation-state and geographical
boundaries.68
The comparative method has enabled this study to avoid the potential pitfalls
of Eurocentrism. As a historical construction, Eurocentrism followed the advent of
modernity and held the aspirations of a global order that the Euro-American world
projected. Accordingly, the progress each state experienced was subjected to specific
standards of being civilized for which the Ottoman Empire, treated as a semicivilized
state in the nineteenth century, forms a perfect example. However, a
comprehensive analysis of interstate relations reveals that the process of
modernization was not immune to various political, cultural, economic, and legal
interplays between states. Without delving too deeply into the debates regarding the
extent to which Eurocentric model of modernity was imposed on countries under the
sphere of influence of those nations wishing to impose this view on them, this
dissertation demonstrates that the path to modernity was dependent on various
factors, interactions, and contingencies.69 A micro-level analysis of particular
Ottoman legal episodes within a broad historical and transnational framework
revealed the multiplicity of dimensions in interpreting the historical phenomena.70
68 See Bayly, Beckert, Connelly, Hofmeyr, Kozol, Seed, “Conversation: On Transnational History,”
1440-1464; and Levi, “Frail Frontiers,” 40; and Ngai, “The Future of the Discipline: Promises and
Perils of Transnational History,” https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectiveson-
history/december-2012/promises-and-perils-of-transnational-history
69 Dirlik, “Is there History after Eurocentrism? : Globalism, Postcolonialism, and the Disavowal of
History,” 2-8; and Tzouvala, “The Specter of Eurocentrism in International Legal History,” 432.
70 Revel, “Microanalysis and the Construction of the Social,” 10; and Putnam, “To Study the
Fragments/ Whole: Microhistory and the Atlantic World,” 620.
27
1.3 Sources
This dissertation relies heavily on primary sources collected from the Ottoman
Archives (BOA). While I made use of the Sadaret, Bab-ı Ali Evrak Odası, Dahili,
İrade, Meclis-i Vala, and Yıldız catalogues, the arguments of this study are primarily
supported by different folders stored under the Hariciye catalog. It was especially
from the Hukuk Kısmı and İstişare Odası sections of this catalog that I was provided
with various legal reports rich in content, thanks to which I have the chance to see
how Ottoman state officials, diplomatic agents, and the Office of Legal Counsel
addressed the practice of extradition in relation to foreign politics. As it relates to the
extradition issue, the thorny questions of the capitulations, consular jurisdiction,
subjecthood, and the controversies over Ottoman territorial sovereignty are also
addressed in these sources. Therefore, these documents have enabled me to closely
survey the Ottoman judicial transformation, the evolution of state discourse in law,
and the changing face of Ottoman diplomacy.
Since this dissertation examines legal cases with an international component,
foreign archives have also been consulted for particular chapters. For Chapter 4, I
have referred to the National Archives of the United States (NARA). The documents
cataloged under the folders 5505, 5084, 8778/10, and 8778/40 speak of the debates
over the 1830 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation, the naturalization question, and
the Kelly Affair. In the same vein, the section on “the 1848 Hungarian Refugee
Crisis” included in Chapter 6 has been written in light of the reports taken from the
British archives, catalogs 424/5 and 424/6 of the Foreign Office (FO), to shed light
on this international dispute. The folder Mémoires et documents (MD) 45 stored in
the French archives, Archives du ministère des Affaires étrangères et de l’Europe
(AMAE), has also been used for the same episode.
28
This study equally benefited from printed primary sources. To understand the
role of extradition in normative law, I have examined several books on Ottoman
international and criminal law published in the late nineteenth century. As the scope
of the dissertation centered around comparative analysis, the legal sources published
in Europe and the United States have also been analyzed at length. Newspapers
published during the period in question served to enrich my scope of analysis. A
variety of secondary sources pertaining to the Ottoman, European, and U.S. legal
literature have supported the general framework of this dissertation.
1.4 Chapter Outline
This dissertation comprises seven chapters, including the introduction and epilogue.
Chapter 2 covers the evolution of the practice of extradition in its extended historical
context. The first part of the chapter focuses on the European continent to portray the
earlier forms of interstate rendition practiced by various civilizations. It was
considered a diplomatic courtesy of one ruler toward another for centuries. The
evolution of our understanding of asylum rights and the legal status of foreigners in
different periods provide a comparative lens to the nineteenth century legal thought
and regulations regarding crime. This section explains how the mobility of crime
gradually became a political question. Consequently, the extradition practice among
states followed a close line with codification efforts. With the transformation from
the law of nations into international law, extradition policies were guided by the
latter’s principles. The advancement of territorial sovereignty directly affected the
extradition question for which states worked on bilateral treaties to bracket the
jurisdictional disparities among various legal systems.
29
The European context forms a comparative framework for the extradition
practice in the Ottoman Empire. The second part of this chapter reveals that the
Ottoman example could not be studied independently from the European context.
Ottoman and European politics were tightly interwoven in the nineteenth century.
The alarming mobility rate of crime in the world was likewise visible in and across
borders, which pushed the Ottoman state to devise a security mechanism that evolved
with each passing decade. However, consular jurisdiction in the empire presented a
different picture of extradition practices. Unlike European states, the Ottoman
Empire did not sign any bilateral treaties except the 1874 Extradition Treaty with the
U.S., which never became an effective tool to bring criminals to justice. In this light,
Chapter 2 contextualizes this legal concept by touching upon the capitulations,
extraterritoriality, and subjecthood questions that are concomitant to the extradition
issue.
While focusing on extradition, Chapter 2 also sketches out the legal
transformation of the empire in its last century. The increasing engagement with
international law, especially after the 1856 Paris Conference, promoted awareness of
territorial law. On the other hand, the establishment of the Office of Legal Counsel
(Hukuk Müşavirliği İstişare Odası) in 1881 and the educational reform emblematic
of the newly founded schools of law further consolidated the idea of territorial
sovereignty. In the establishment of a legalist state, the Ottoman Empire gradually
projected this evolution on its official discourse. By investigating the reports of the
Office of Legal Counsel and the Ottoman books on law, this chapter examines how
extradition was addressed in normative law and its application.
After the prelude to the extradition subject in Chapter 2, the other chapters
follow a chronological and thematic structure to document the extradition practice in
30
Ottoman foreign politics. The transnational security measures were recounted
through illustrative episodes of Ottoman history. Therefore, Chapter 3 presents one
of the earliest examples of Ottoman diplomatic and judicial collaboration on an
international level with a capitulatory power without an extradition treaty. The
Ottoman Empire and the nascent Italian nation exerted collaborative efforts against a
vast forgery network formed during the Crimean War (1853-56) that had expanded
from Istanbul to Turin and Bologna in its aftermath. The kaime forgers, most of
whom were wartime profiteers with a middle-class profile, availed themselves of the
security vacuum created by the war and current political upheavals resulting from the
Risorgimento (Unification of Italy). Accordingly, this chapter undertakes a microscale
analysis of an episode within a larger historical context.
Forgery was a severe offense considered anarchist activity, and the states
called for joint actions to address it. In this respect, the Ottoman and Italian states
acted in unison to safeguard international security and domestic public order. It is not
to suggest that the hardships induced by the capitulatory system have been overstated
in the existing literature when considering alternative narratives similar to the one in
this chapter. On the contrary, the capitulatory predicaments were always present, and
the consular jurisdiction in the empire frequently challenged Ottoman sovereignty.
However, Chapter 3 testifies that the Ottoman legal studies, if enriched with more
analyses built upon a close reading of historical cases with a legal character, open
new avenues for analysis beyond the well-established debates around the
capitulations.
This chapter further argues that the power of the capitulations gradually
weakened in the face of the ongoing domestic legal reforms. Despite certain
setbacks, the legal codification and institutional transformation gained pace,
31
manifesting itself in the culmination of the juridical competency of the Ottoman state
steadily confided in territorial law. The altering state discourse underscoring
international law and penal codes well-represent this point. In the fight against kaime
forgers, the Ottoman agent Rüstem Bey availed himself of these tools in his
arguments during the court trials in Italy. The diplomatic networks Ottoman officials
established in various parts of Europe, and the informal agencies they communicated
with, resulted in an elaborate information channel extending beyond imperial
borders.
Chapter 4 leaps forward to the 1870s and focuses on a legal battle over
jurisdiction with the United States. It examines the application of the 1874
Extradition Treaty within the broad scope of U.S.-Ottoman relations. This chapter
shows that the official legal texts did not always form a binding force for an ultimate
solution to a diplomatic crisis; instead, they were always prone to the shifting
political agenda. The tension between the text of the law and its application was the
best testament to it. As the only official agreement, the 1874 Extradition Treaty was
drafted along with the 1874 Naturalization Treaty due to the ambiguity surrounding
the legal state of the Armenian population that migrated to the United States in large
numbers during this period. However, the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law was
incompatible with the principles of the naturalization procedures for which reason
the naturalization act was never officially sanctioned.
To better understand these relations, this chapter analyses the Kelly Affair
that occurred in 1877. This legal dispute became the testing ground of the 1874
Extradition Treaty and brought to light the long-standing political obstacles between
the two powers. U.S. foreign policy that was based on the principles of Westphalian
sovereignty soon favored a capitulatory system in the so-called semi-civilized states.
32
Like most European states, the U.S. government advocated for the consular rights of
its nationals with the 1830 Treaty of Commerce and Navigations, while it departed
from its counterparts by claiming complete jurisdiction for the legal suits that
involved Ottoman subjects. The jurisdictional conflict stemmed from the famous
Article 4 of 1830 and was also the departure point of the Kelly Affair which became
the crux of subjecthood and extradition questions. However, the legal diplomacy
adopted by the diplomatic agents of both parties complicated the mediation as both
governments were reluctant to step back in their jurisdictional claims. The tact and
skill in Ottoman diplomacy proved that they were equally successful in not
relinquishing territorial rights and utilizing international law in foreign policy, with
as much skills and effectiveness as the Great Powers. This chapter argues that the
experiences gained during the decades-long Kelly Affair shaped the future of
Ottoman-U.S. diplomacy to a large extent.
Chapter 5 focuses on the Balkan and Russian frontiers after the 1877-78
Russo-Ottoman War. It examines the changing borders after the Treaty of Berlin by
investigating how criminal mobility was controlled across the Ottoman borders. The
shifting borderlines stipulated by treaty regulations resulted in mass mobility across
states, which compelled the Ottoman government to take various measures to
strengthen surveillance and security. This chapter demonstrates that the Ottoman
borders were the interplay of foreign politics, which were occupied with new
geopolitical concerns. The emigration of many people into the empire forced the
government to revise its political agenda when faced with crimes and unrest. In the
case of the Balkan frontiers, the border regulations had an undulant pace. The Balkan
states took pains to follow a diplomatic line that could be conducted on equal terms
to prevent crime and impunity of fugitives. However, the centuries-long suzerainty
33
relations with the Ottoman Empire created a power hierarchy on the Ottoman side
and frequently urged both sides to adopt tit-for-tat policies since the recent memories
of political history did nothing to foster a reciprocal approach to, or confidence in,
joint efforts. Rather than extradition treaties, they opted for provisory agreements due
to the increasing emphasis on territorial jurisdiction.
The surveillance over criminal mobility at the Russian frontiers followed a
different course from the Balkan example, and it also marked a departure from the
pre-war diplomacy previously exhibited between the two empires. In the early
decades, diplomatic relations with Russia relied on the reciprocity principle
established in the 1774 Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. In light of this agreement, the
second part of Chapter 5 starts with an account of the Ottoman policing system and
capitulatory regulations for the exchange of criminals. The aftermath of war in 1878
reoriented the nature of these relations and brought novel bargaining conditions for
the Ottoman Empire. The terms of the 1879 Treaty of Constantinople brought up the
nationality question of Armenian populations. The double citizenship they enjoyed
gave the pretext to both governments to manipulate this political issue on their own
behalf, whereas the recurrent clashes among the Armenian and Kurdish populations
created a security vacuum at the frontier. These developments affected the process of
controlling criminal mobility.
Despite the Russian and Ottoman governments’ negotiations for an
extradition treaty, the 1879 Ottoman judicial reforms made it difficult to conclude an
official agreement. Chapter 5 examines how the newly promulgated Procedural Code
came as a severe blow to the privileges previously guaranteed by the capitulations.
The creation of two new roles in the Ottoman judicial system, the public prosecutor
and the investigating magistrate, restructured court jurisdictions. Accordingly, the
34
presence of European consular officials during the trials and their signature under the
verdict was no longer deemed necessary, whereas preventive incarceration in
Ottoman prisons was introduced for foreign subjects. This whole process was an
achievement in advancing legal formalism. As the protests of the consular authorities
to the new code made it clear, this part argues that the resentment felt by the
European powers, including Russia, hampered the extradition negotiations and
effectively quashed the option for reciprocity. It also investigates the discussions
among the ministries and the Office of Legal Counsel, which testifies to the
empowering emphasis on the rule of law and Ottoman penal codes. On the other
hand, it shows the painful course of legal transformation since the same debates also
witness the hesitancy of state officials to challenge the capitulatory system.
Chapter 6 focuses on political crime and extradition practice in the Ottoman
Empire. Political crime was considered a non-extraditable offense because of the
asylum rights attributed to it in the nineteenth century. Most of the bilateral
extradition treaties excluded political crime. It was treated as an ordinary crime in the
early periods since lèseé majesté (regicide) was subjected to harsh punishments
everywhere, and extradition was applied to this category as part of diplomatic
courtesy. The French Revolution was a momentous event for altering the perceptions
of political crime, which was now characterized by the desire for radical social
transformation. The rise of civil society and the power of public protests were
justified as the remonstrances of populations against injustice and the lack of civic
rights. The codification efforts along with the novel political ideologies further
contributed to the changing views on this topic. However, the states questioned the
plausibility of asylum rights granted to persons who had employed violent and
35
anarchist actions. In this respect, the extradition of political criminals was revisited in
depth.
This chapter argues that the Ottoman treatment of political crime was
closely associated with the political developments that resonated worldwide after the
French Revolution. The nationalist waves, local insurgencies, and anarchist fervor
were equally forceful in Ottoman politics. As this chapter highlights, the Ottoman
state actively participated in the debates over extradition during the 1898 Rome
Conference and the 1904 St. Petersburg Protocol. Notwithstanding the failure to
enact an international extradition treaty, the states favored expulsion and extradition
ex gratia. This chapter shows that security concerns mostly prevailed over the
difference of opinions observed in the international conferences.
In this framework, Chapter 6 initially examines the 1848 Hungarian Refugee
Crisis as the first international diplomatic question the Ottoman state had to face.
This event enables us to track the changing Ottoman perceptions towards asylum
rights, political crime, extradition, and their place in international law. The Hamidian
period, on the other hand, was marked by the strict surveillance policies against
anarchism. This part examines how the Ottoman political adversaries in exile, and
the Armenian and Macedonian Revolutionaries, were closely monitored and how the
Ottoman state resorted to various methods to earn back their loyalty to the Sultan.
They frequently sought help from other states to arrest and expel Ottoman anarchists
and opponents. In addition, it investigates the elaborate arguments Ottoman legal
scholars articulated on the concept of crime and its relation to extradition. Political
crime differed from ordinary crime because it was all about building alliances and
silencing opponents in the shifting political landscape. The changing policies of the
CUP (Committee of Union and Progress) towards the Armenian populations when
36
they came to power best represent this phenomenon. Whereas the CUP and
Armenian revolutionaries collaborated against the Hamidian oppression in their
actions and protest, the social engineering of the CUP regime ultimately led to the
ethnic cleansing of their old companions.
37
CHAPTER 2
EXTRADITION PRACTICE: EUROPE AND THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
I desire them to resolve me by what right any prince or state can put to death
or punish an alien for any crime he commits in their country. It is certain their
laws, by virtue of any sanction they receive from the promulgated will of the
legislature, reach not a stranger… Those who have the supreme power of
making laws in England, France, or Holland are, to an Indian, but like the rest
of the world-men without authority. And therefore, if by the law of Nature
every man hath not a power to punish offences against it, I see not how the
magistrates of any community can punish an alien of another, since they can
have no more power than what every man naturally may have over another.71
John Locke’s complaint, from his An Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and
End of Civil Government, reveals the bitter reasoning of a man who had faced the
threat of deportation for political dissent. Just a few years before the publication of
this volume, the English government had sought his extradition from Holland due to
his alleged participation in the 1683 Rye House Plot hatched against the king.72 The
request was rejected, and Locke continued life in exile, but his words remain
striking. Adopting a liberal stance, he formulated his ideas about fugitives that were a
matter of grave concern for the state, basing them on territorial law and sovereignty.
He frequently expressed the legal penalties required for criminals in that category in
terms of natural law, but question would soon come to be considered as part of
interstate politics.
Treated as a subset of asylum rights, which are as old as human history, the
legal status of fugitive criminals or refugees on foreign soil transformed from being a
simple matter of diplomacy to becoming an issue of global concern starting in the
late seventeenth century. This transformation was directly affected by a new outlook
71 Locke, An Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government, 12.
72 Ashcraft, “The Radical Dimensions of Locke’s Political Thought: A Dialogic Essay on Some
Problems of Interpretation”, pp.753-771.
38
and political changes with respect to domestic security. It was no longer the criminal
fugitive but the crime and the legal persona of its perpetrator that came to shape the
policies in various governmental bodies. From penal codes to international relations,
from the art of diplomacy to the consolidation of power on the global stage, crime
gradually became a decisive political issue. The practice of extradition thus became a
practical solution by which the application of such policies was facilitated and public
order in the international arena was maintained.
Extradition, as a legal concept, is an interstate procedure by which a state
secures the return of a person accused or convicted of a crime from another
jurisdiction which currently possess the right to try the individual. As both a political
tool and a gesture between rulers, the practice has existed – albeit irregularly – since
ancient times.73 While states generally adopted a bilateral approach, extradition
regulations were not yet well-established in the nineteenth century. A person’s
domicile determined their legal status before the law and remained legally binding
for civil and criminal matters. In addition, judicial differences and territorial law
posed difficulties for extradition proceedings, which was, after all, an issue of
territorial sovereignty. 74 However, the practice remained a diplomatic linchpin for
controlling transnational crime, which encouraged many states to support an
international penal code and implement extradition legislation during the nineteenth
century.
Most European states had signed bilateral treaties, but the Ottoman Empire
had no official policy except for the 1874 Extradition Treaty with the United States.
73 Blakesley, “The Practice of Extradition from Antiquity to Modern France and the United States: A
Brief History.”
74 Lewis, On Foreign Jurisdiction and the Extradition of the Criminals, 57. For a general history of
extradition practice in the world: See, Lawrence, Études sur la Juridiction Consulaire en Pays
Chrétiens et en Pays non-Chrétiens et sur l’Extradition.
39
Capitulations and extraterritorial jurisdiction were legally binding in the empire,
sabotaging the prospect of extradition agreements. The operation of consular
jurisdiction in the Ottoman territories provided the backdrop for hampering any
negotiations.
Considering the importance of extradition practices in history and their
distinct application in the Ottoman Empire, this study begins with a general analysis
of the issue. This chapter analyzes the evolution of extradition and its place in the
normative law. It first accesses extradition practices in world history, focusing
mainly on continental Europe. It then explains the political circumstances in which
the Ottoman state addressed the question of extradition in the last two centuries of its
existence, as well as how Ottoman legal scholars interpreted the issue. In so doing,
Ottoman legal system and its evolution is outlined. The reform of legal education
brought about a generation of legal scholars who were emblematic figures of the
Tanzimat administration. The Office of Legal Counsel and Ottoman books on law
comprise distinct sources of information that have not yet been adequately addressed;
they shed fresh light on the question of extradition and its treatment during the legal
transformations that the Ottoman Empire underwent it in the late nineteenth century.
As a legal issue, the concept of extradition is an umbrella term in this
dissertation. Ironically, the dearth of international conventions was accompanied by
an increasing threat of mobile criminals in and beyond the borders of the Ottoman
Empire in the nineteenth century. Considering the unstable political environment,
especially in the Balkans and on the Eastern frontiers, crime as an act and concept
took different forms in different places. The Ottoman archives are overflowing with
remarkable stories of crime, transnational dimension of which reveals an intricate
world of actors and agents beyond the criminals themselves.
40
It was a world of skillful diplomats, of state officials with expertise in law,
and of cunning state politics. However, it was also a world of professional impostors,
fugitive criminals, political refugees, and armed rebels whose transnational mobility
and offenses shaped international security policies. These entailed domestic
legislative efforts as well as stricter preventive and punitive measures on the
international stage. Extradition as a legal practice thus evolved into a protean
political question and a diplomatic tool, necessitating its analysis within the broader
context of Ottoman history. Extradition practice in the Ottoman Empire was beset by
thorny questions, such as capitulations, extraterritoriality, subjecthood, and conflicts
of law. Accordingly, this chapter is a conceptual prologue to those that follow. In this
light, subsequent chapters document different episodes of Ottoman international
security policy regarding transnational crime and extradition practices. Meanwhile,
the study revisits questions of the dubious nature of the Ottoman legal system. Some
of the questions raised by Eliana Augusti are of interest in this regard:
In my opinion, this dualistic representation is the final aspect of an Ottoman
“fantastic” sovereignty that needs to be investigated in relation with the
jurisdiction problem: how was Ottoman sovereignty still held believable in
face of the flagrant violations of its norms and in face of the logical
antinomies of its constitutive principles operated by capitulations and unequal
treaties? How was it possible to reconcile this state of subordination with the
activation of the formal procedures for admission and participation of the
Ottoman Empire to the European Concert of the nineteenth century? And
what was the role of international law?75
2.1 Extradition in History
In international law, extradition was frequently hammered out in bilateral treaties to
contain criminal mobility in the nineteenth century. However, it was usually a
gesture and expression of amity between sovereigns in early centuries and was not
75 Augusti, “From Capitulations to Unequal Treaties: The Matter of an Extraterritorial Jurisdiction in
the Ottoman Empire”, 290. Notwithstanding her critical approach on capitulations, Augusti did not
use any Turkish sources in her work.
41
regularly applied. The practice of extradition always existed as an option, reserved
rights of asylum notwithstanding.76 The earliest known example was a peace treaty
dating to the thirteenth century B.C. After the failed invasion of Egypt by the Hittite
king Hattusili III, he signed a convention with Ramses II, the Pharaoh of Egypt,
guaranteeing the rendition of the fugitives.77 Even though similar examples from
ancient times and even the early modern period are scarce, the few exceptions
indicate that the exchange of fugitives concerned diplomatic relations rather than a
legal formula as we understand extradition today.
The circumstance for this concern was the lack of a judicial standard
concerning for alien status compared to present-day jurisprudence. The Latin word
hostis denoted both an enemy and an alien residing on foreign soil.78 In the Roman
Empire and in Greek city-states, foreigners were always regarded as potential
enemies since states were usually in a permanent state of war. Aristoteles and Plato
reduced the legal status of foreigners that of slaves and even justified the right to
plunder their goods.79 Thus, it is difficult to ascertain how foreigners were actually
treated amid these categories.
Despite the difficulties alien faced in foreign lands, they still had certain
judicial rights. If Roman subjects committed an offense against a foreigner, they
were not spared from punishment. Instead, a special court was convened to
determine whether to deport the subject or adjudicate the case at home.80 If the
76 Etienne de Vazelhes stated that in the case of asylum, the convict could sometimes encounter the
veto against the decision by the Bishop in the medieval ages. Such occasions depended on the severity
of the crimes. Vazelhes, Étude Sur L’Extradition: suive du texte des traites franco-belge de 1874 et
franco-anglais de 1843 et 1876, 10 and 14.
77 That peace treaty was inscribed on clay tablets which could be found now in the Hittite archives
located in Boğazköy. Blakesley, “The Practice of Extradition from Antiquity to Modern France and
the United States: A Brief History,”42.
78 Lewis, On Foreign Jurisdiction and the Extradition of the Criminals, 4.
79 Martens, Précis du droit des gens moderne de l'Europe, 60.
80 Calvo, Le Droit International Théorique et Pratique, 468.
42
criminal targeted foreign embassies in the empire, Roman law obliged the delivery of
the culprit to the offended state.81 On the other hand, privileges of foreign embassies
were limited in Europe until the modern period. Despite their immunity, diplomatic
representatives were never wholly exempt from court penalties in foreign lands.
Suspicions of conspiracy necessitated immediate arrest or even execution by the host
state, particularly on occasions when the expulsion of ambassadors was out of the
question.82
From the Middle Ages onwards, increasing concern for state security was a
profound motive for the practice of extradition. Corruption, violence, and threats to
public safety required immediate measures to be taken against suspects.83 Beyond
good diplomatic relations, fugitives were considered severe threats who were
generally politically motivated. Accused of lèse majesté84 and disturbing public
order, assassins ran in fear for their lives, and unlike the trend of protecting political
fugitives adopted in the nineteenth century, they were usually surrendered back
through conventions between the rulers.85 A few notable instances stand out in
history. Claude Meissonier of Avignon was extradited for being one of the leaders of
the plot against Pope Eugene IV in 1443. Upon the request of the Papal Legate, the
principality of Orange, where Meissonier had taken refuge, consented to surrender
him.86 Three centuries later, in 1798, Irishman Napper Tandy organized an
insurrection with the help of France. Tandy sympathized with the French Revolution,
81 Clarke, A Treatise Upon the Law of Extradition, 18.
82 Vattel, The Law of Nations or Principles of the Law of Nature Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of
Nations and Sovereigns, 478.
83 Cardaillac, De l’Extradition, 5.
84 The term is used for the offenses targeted against a ruler/king or a state.
85 Blakesley, “The Practice of Extradition from Antiquity to Modern France and the United States: A
Brief History,” 48.
86 The first demand was rejected because Meissonier was not a member of the clergy but a layman.
Thus, it was not a crime according to the legal regulations of the principality of Orange. To maintain
the good relations, they consented to surrender him only after a second request. Chabot, “Un Cas
d’Extradition en 1446 entre la Principauté d’Orange et l’État Pontifical d’Avignon,” 104–106.
43
and the British Empire accused him of treason. After years in exile in France and the
United States, the Hamburg Senate eventually extradited him.87
A preoccupation with moral ethics in medieval times and during the
Reformation influenced legal scholarship up until the seventeenth century. As jurist
Alberico Gentili88 pointed out, the law of nations – which was defacto the law of war
in those years – was dominated by the opinions of Catholic ecclesiastics. In Italy,
France, and Spain there was no parliamentary system and no journalism; instead, an
accumulation of religious monographs addressed the many questions that later
formed the essential parts of modern international law.89 These religious texts
reminded states of their moral responsibility to one another. The legal advancement
of early modern societies owes much to this scholarly legacy.
In the seventeenth century, the extradition of criminals and fugitives was, for
the first time, formulated as a legal concept. Amid prevailing concerns for justice and
morality, extradition took its place in the newly emerging corpus of the law of
nations. Termed droit de gens, jus gentium, or jus inter gentes, textbooks on the law
of nations revolved around the concept of morality due to the continuing dominance
of the church over scholarship. This legal shift was also the outcome of the
flourishing Enlightenment, which was preoccupied with bringing peace and order
among the states. States had endured constant warfare and strife both within and
outside of their territories, which is why intellectuals and statesmen were devoted to
the contemplation of political movements and their ethical underpinnings.90 With the
87 Servières, “Un Épisode de l’Expédition d’Irlande, l’Extradition et la Mise en Liberté de Napper
Tandy (1798-1802).”
88 Alberico Gentili (1552-1608) was a prominent Italian lawyer and jurist. With many doctrines he
established on legal thought, he is also considered one the first among many legal scholars who wrote
on the concepts of international law.
89 Rivier, Note sur la littérature du droit de gens avant la publication du Jus Belli ac Pacis de Grotius,
33–34.
90 Grotius and Vattel expressed the earliest and comprehensive ideas on justice, morality, and their
place in the law of nations. They paved the way for other distinguished scholars, such as John Locke,
44
publication of the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius’ celebrated De Jure Belli Ac Pacis Libri
Tres91 (The Rights of War and Peace, in Three Books) in 1625, the concerns for
interstate relations took a more scientific color.
Referred as the father of international law by many scholars, Grotius enjoyed
fame as a professional lawyer who supported the interests of the Dutch East India
Company by defending its overseas expeditions. On this last point, Martine Julia Van
Ittersum argues that the reputation of the legal scholar, whom she calls “Grotius
Delusion,” exceeded the imperialist ventures he was involved in.92 However,
Grotius’ writings painted a vision of an egalitarian international legal order that was
not frequently encountered at the time. Accordingly, sovereignty as a natural right
was accorded to states and autonomous powers in Europe as well as beyond the old
continent. In this respect, his work did not reflect conventional notions about
minimum standards for civilization.93 The breakthrough achievement in his work was
its positioning of natural law in the arena of jurisprudence. Treating the law of nature
and the law of nations as similar concepts, he demonstrated the reasonable causes of
wars.94 Significantly, his emphasis on justice as a determinant of the rules of
interstate relations and the principles of peace and war stands out. As such, the
previous focus on moral obligation gradually gave way to jurisdictional regulations
of a particular shape. With these developments in place, the legal status of the
foreigner gradually changed. In time, they affected the procedures of extradition.
Thomas Hobbes, Samuel von Pufendorf, and Immanuel Kant, who set off the pretext for future
debates on the law of nations. These debates are still highly influential in modern-day international
law studies.
91 Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis Libri Tres.
92 Van Ittersum, “Hugo Grotius: The Making of a Founding Father of International Law,”84.
93 Keene, Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics, 6.
94 Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis Libri Tres, 28.
45
2.1.1 Locus Regit Actum (The Place Governs the Act)
The practice of extradition has always essentially been a matter of sovereignty. Thus,
securing a worldwide judicial network to fight against criminal activities has always
been an “impracticable chimera” to secure.95 The Roman custom of locus regit actum
(the place governs the act, or el-emr-i bi-mekân in Ottoman Turkish) was
jurisdictional standard. Offenses were heard and adjudicated wherever they took
place.96 Most of the time, states did not insist on the return of fugitive criminals.
Except for grave cases that damaged the state itself, authorities preferred to pardon
their offenses. Some of these figures were extolled among the public as sympathetic
heroes who acted on behalf of the poor. Grotius cites examples of such rare cases in
which notorious thieves and pirates enjoyed dignity and respect rather than
punishment.97 If there happened to be an official extradition treaty between two
powers, they were little more than a show of alliance; due to the difficulties of
communicating over long distances, most were never effectively put into practice.
Except for neighboring territories, where proximity made extradition viable, states
favored local justice.98 This mutual understanding, which was a practical solution to
the securing of justice, was a principle of territorial sovereignty up until the
nineteenth century.
France was the first country that sought to make the practice of extradition
official with a treaty. Starting in 1759, its government presented a proposal to various
states, but only in 1794 did England, after decades of reflection, consent to negotiate
95 Lewis, On Foreign Jurisdiction and the Extradition of the Criminals, 57.
96 : Eren, Lahey Konferansı Yahud Taknin-i Hukuk-u Düvel, 32 : “Her emr ve fiil vaki ve hadis olduğu
mahalde cari olan kanun ile takdir olunub ânâ terettüb edecek hükm ol mülk kanununda muharrer ve
mevzu’ olan hükümdür.”
97 Grotius, De Jure Belli Ac Pacis Libri Tres, 463.
98 Bernard, Droit international : Traité théorique et pratique de l'extradition comprenant l'exposition
d'un projet de loi universelle sur l'extradition, 34–36.
46
an international pact.99 Despite its long history, however, the origin of the word
“extradition” is relatively new etymologically. Before 1828, the term does not appear
in any treaties. It first did so in a French decree in 1791 entitled “Decree which
instructs the constitutional and diplomatic committees to present a law on the
reciprocal extradition of defendants of certain crimes between France and the other
powers of Europe.” In earlier decades, the terms “remettere” or “restituer” (to return)
were preferred. Before that, “remittere” was used in place of the Latin “tradere” (to
hand), the latter of which never appeared in official documents.100
By the early nineteenth century, extradition as a practice was far from being
established in Europe; extraditing the criminals usually depended on mutual accord
among two or more states. However, in most cases, this reflected an idea rather than
a reality. This was the result of discrepancies between the executive and judicial
operations among various countries, which created many legal conflicts that were
difficult to overcome. The principle of reciprocity, which was the crucial criterion for
extradition, was trivial in the face of judicial incompatibilities. Only when states first
worked out the jurisdictional issues between them could extradition proceed
smoothly. There were four fundamental steps in the procedure: the states or rulers
should give consent; each party to a treaty should have a competent judiciary; there
should be a reasonable legal justification to initiate an extradition proceeding; and
both parties should achieve some benefit in the end, such as the maintenance of
public order.101
For some crimes, such as treason, forgery of the state seal, and counterfeiting
of public banknotes, protection and asylum were unacceptable as an excuse, as the
99 Potter, “The Expansion of International Jurisdiction,” 549.
100 Vazelhes, Étude Sur L’Extradition: suive du texte des traites franco-belge de 1874 et francoanglais
de 1843 et 1876, 7, and Cardaillac, De l’Extradition, 4.
101 Bernard, Droit international, 26.
47
next chapter highlights. Because of the gravity of such offenses and their
consequences, the state laws where the crime took place would try the defendants.102
There was another motive behind this practice. According to some legal theories, the
place where a person settled was the place to which the person belonged. Therefore,
people’s place of domicile determined their legal status before the law, which was
binding in all judicial and civil matters. Contrary to this understanding, as we will
see, capitulations and the naturalisation issue created problems for the practice of
extradition in the Ottoman case.103
2.1.2 Extradition in Europe
France and England are the states with the longest tradition of extradition. A few
well-known, early examples are the Treaty of 1174 between Henry II and Guillaume
of Scotland and the 1303 Treaty of Paris between France and England. These
agreements ensured that neither side was to protect the enemies of the another.
Another agreement signed between King Charles V of France and the Count of
Savoy in 1376 once again upheld the extradition of felons.104 However, it was not
until the nineteenth century that extradition treaties reached their modern shape.
France signed its first modern extradition treaty in 1843, again with England. In
ensuing years, these two states signed a series of treaties with other powers.105
Nevertheless, the number of official conventions was not reflected by scarce
extradition cases in practice. Reluctance was related to the locus regit
actum principle, as stated above. For example, the 1843 treaty was modified in 1853
102 Calvo, Le Droit International Théorique et Pratique », 427.
103 Polyvios, La Condition Légale de Sociétés Étrangères Dans L’Empire Ottoman, 25.
104 Blakesley, “The Practice of Extradition from Antiquity to Modern France and the United States: A
Brief History,” 48, and Cardaillac, De l’Extradition, 9.
105 For the extradition treaties of France: See, Billot, Traite de L’Extradition. For the extradition
treaties of England: See, Clarke, A Treatise upon the Law of Extradition.
48
and rescinded in 1865. The British government claimed that only accused criminals
could be extradited. They refused to extradite convicts, distorting clauses of the
treaty and subverting the agreement.106
The principles of extradition laid out in French legislation on extradition in
the nineteenth century set forth an extensive agenda vis-a-vis most other countries.
However, the French government, like England, generally preferred its own penal
codes, which were relatively rigid in principle. Articles 5 and 6 of the French Code
d’instruction criminelle enacted in 1808, confirms that any native or foreign subject
charged with a crime that posed a threat to the security of France, even if it was
committed outside French territory, should be punished by French laws on French
territory. This attitude was not unique to France. All European powers considered
mischievous activity against the state to be a severe offense. The Kingdom of
Sardinia-Piedmont, the Netherlands, Austria, Bavaria, and other German states took
the same firm stance of insisting that such people be tried according to their own
laws. Only Belgium pursued a slightly different practice. An offense committed by a
Belgian against a foreigner outside of Belgium could be punished by the latter’s
country provided that no request was made for former’s extradition.107
This legislation established the rules of criminal jurisdiction in European
states. Nevertheless, they became a matter of legal conflict due to variance in judicial
competence. Therefore, legal experts adopted different approaches to the issue of
extradition. In support of criminal law, some thought that states should not consider
extradition as an option. Territorial law was sufficient for the punishment of
criminals. According to others, states should act in diplomatic concert with respect to
certain categories of offenders as matters of political etiquette and social benefit. The
106 “La Turquie,” 23 Feb. 1866.
107 Lewis, On Foreign Jurisdiction and the Extradition of the Criminals, 18.
49
most accepted notion was the one that exalted the supremacy of bilateral treaties to
which states should strictly submit.108 As the divergence of opinions and conflicting
laws show, the extradition was never a smooth process. Due to the failure to establish
international extradition legislation, numerous bilateral treaties emerged in time, and
extradition was treated as a matter of private international law.109 The first exception
to the bilateral model came from the Americas. In 1879, a multilateral extradition
treaty was signed in Lima, Peru, which was successfully entered into force. European
states managed to negotiate a similar treaty among themselves only in 1957.110
The idea of international extradition legislation, on the other hand, emerged
primarily from various views on the nature of criminal offenses. Legal scholars
discussed whether to treat crimes as abuses of justice or as threats to human rights.
These ideas gradually envisaged an international penal code.111 However, the
extradition of fugitives often remained a matter of polemic among the European
states. European diplomats sought compatibility between respective governments’
penal codes even when treaty regulations clearly mandated the extradition of a
criminal.112 The treaties were inefficient as territorial jurisdiction was given more
weight than official agreements.113 Although international law envisioned a world
108 Fiore, Traite de Droit Pénal International et de l’Extradition, 455–458, and Calvo, Le Droit
International Théorique et Pratique, 454–462.
109 Grey, “Extradition: A Draft Convention,” 201.
110 Zanotti, Extradition in Multilateral Treaties and Conventions, 1–45. The Inter-American
extradition treaty was renewed in 1902 at Mexico, in 1911 at Venezuela and in 1928 at Havana.
111 Fiore, Traite Droit Pénal International et de L’Extradition, 44.
112 The treaties Italy signed with France in 1870 explains the sanctions on forgery as follows: “Dans
tous les cas, crimes ou délits, l'extradition ne pourra avoir lieu que lorsque le fait similaire sera
punissable d'après la législation du pays à qui la demande est adressée,” Billot, Traite de
L’Extradition, 515. The Italian-English extradition treaty has a similar clause: “Accomplices before
the fact in any of these crimes shall, moreover, also be delivered up, provided their complicity be
punishable by the laws of both the Contracting Parties”, in “Order in Council, Dated March 24, 1873,
for Carrying into Effect a Treaty Between Her Majesty and the King of Italy for the Mutual Surrender
of Fugitive Criminals.”
113 “‘Political Offense’ in Extradition Treaties”, 459; and Potter, “The Expansion of International
Jurisdiction,” 550.
50
order empowered by a universal legal structure, this was never achieved for
extradition in actual practice.
International extradition legislation first became a serious consideration in the
1860s. In 1866, France proposed a universal arrangement that would supersede
bilateral treaties for the sake of world security. They planned to organize a
conference for this purpose, which was financed by Napoleon III (r. 1852-1870).
Despite emerging enthusiasm, these projects were aborted as everyone conceded that
extradition remained under state authority.114 The International Penal and
Penitentiary Commission of 1872, to which the Ottoman Empire sent a delegate,115
refigured the problem of international crime by directing attention to the criminal
figure as a new mobile threat in the contemporaneous era.116 The committee aimed to
reorganize security mechanisms by addressing migration and identity politics related
to criminal activity. Criminal statics were analyzed, and a regular flow of
communication was envisaged among participant states. Years later, in 1926, the
Italian diplomat Commendatore Pallicia again gathered a commission for extradition
negotiations during the Vienna Conference of the International Law Association.
Ultimately, states dismissed the proposals given the well-founded fear that
governments would use fugitives as shields for differing political interests.117
Instead, European states relied on the power of bilateral treaties.
114 Bernard, Traite Théorique et Pratique de l’Extradition Comprenant l’Exposition d’un Projet de Loi
Universelle sur l’Extradition, II, 44-46.
115 I could not detect the name of the Ottoman delegate who attended the conference. See HR.SFR. 3
191/75.
116 Kuhn, “International Cooperation in the Suppression of Crime,” 542.
117 Grey, “Extradition: A Draft Convention”, 103-104.
51
2.2 Extradition in the Ottoman Empire
The features of extradition practice in the Ottoman context were peculiar, and at a
superficial level seemed to deviate from the established pattern. A closer inspection
of the issue instead reveals that extradition, anywhere, cannot be considered
independently of interstate relations and the political and diplomatic dynamics of
sovereignty. Therefore, rather than seeing cases like the Ottoman Empire as an
aberration from the standard of law, scholars should instead adopt alternative
perspective of analyzing the unique conditions of each state and not underestimate
the fickle arena of state politics.
2.2.1 The Ottoman Legal System and Capitulations
It is constantly said that justice should be rendered everywhere as it is in
Turkey. Can it be that the most ignorant of all peoples have seen clearly the
one thing in the world that it is most important for men to know? …. If you
examine the formalities of justice in relation to the difficulties a citizen
endures to have his goods returned to him or to obtain satisfaction for some
insult, you will doubtless find the formalities too many; if you consider them
in their relation to the liberty and security of citizens, you will often find them
too few.118
In Turkey, when an officer of the government dies, the Sultan takes
possession of his entire fortune, and his children fall at once from the height
of opulence to the depths of poverty. This law, which overturns all-natural
expectations, was perhaps borrowed from some other oriental government, in
which it was less inconsistent and less odious, because the sovereign
entrusted employments only to the eunuch.119
Montesquieu and Bentham’s words reflect a longstanding perception of Europeans
concerning the Eastern cultures. The rule of law, an essential advancement in the
direction of an ideal state, was a paramount criterion for the standard of civilization.
118 Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, 74.
119 Bentham, Theory of Legislation, 151.
52
According to Europeans, the semi-civilized Ottoman Empire lacked the integrity
attributed to the rule of law. The arbitrariness of justice and an incompetent legal
order evinced such European complaints. Nevertheless, this picture did not represent
the reality in its all aspects.120
The prejudiced European viewpoint positioned the Ottoman Empire as a
latecomer and disregarded the achievements of its idiosyncratic system. However, it
is crucial to note that the ideas projected on the Ottoman Empire were not wholly
inventions of European bias. Spatial, cultural, and legal distance from the Muslim
world justified these criticisms. Subsequently, the Ottoman Empire fit perfectly into
the picture of oriental despotism.121 Yet, while acknowledging some degree of
historical truth to the contemporaneous European portrayal, it should be received
with caution. Considering the series of reforms undertaken in the nineteenth century,
Ottoman successes cannot be dismissed.
The legal transformation of the nineteenth century was built up from an
efficient judicial system upon which the Ottoman Empire had relied for centuries.
Two different juridical systems functioned in the empire. The first was the Islamic
Sharia law, the principles of which were applied by the kadı (qadi) courts. Sharia
served as public law for centuries. This legal compendium oversaw the disputes of
120 Pitts argues that the ‘Christian Europe’ was confused to decide where to position the Ottoman
Empire in the interstate legal order. On the one hand, they reasoned that the capitulations served as
excellent data to evaluate the Empire as a legal system. However, the differences in the culture
generated doubts about the function of this legal system: See, Pitts, Boundaries of the International:
Law and Empire, 35.
121 ‘Kadı justice’ is the most common example given for the arbitrary Ottoman court system.
Referring to the discretional qadi courts, the Europeans pointed out the dearth of legislation. However,
Agmon demonstrates how the qadi figure represented a traditional pattern, a legal system precisely
based on arbitration and mediation, which functioned quite effectively: See, Agmon, Family Court:
Legal Culture and Modernity in Late Ottoman Palestine, 171. Gerber, likewise, counters similar
criticisms about the qadi courts. He thinks that qadi justice relied on careful judicial reasoning and
expert witness. Correspondingly, these judges gave their decisions by relying on the jurisprudential
legacy of many years. Gerber, State, Society, and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in Comparative
Perspective,18 and 54.
53
all Ottoman subjects living in the empire, regardless of their religious or sect.122 Qadi
courts had jurisdiction, over conflicts among Ottoman and non-Ottoman subjects,
alike – Muslims and non-Muslims. Criminal cases between the Ottomans and foreign
nationals also fell under the jurisdiction of qadi courts. 123 The second legal arena, the
consular courts, were responsible for disputes among their own nationals or with
other foreigners.124
In the nineteenth century, legal transformations supported by large scale
codification transferred power and the legal workload from qadi courts to newly
established judicial bodies and advisory councils. Undeterred by setbacks along the
way, the empire restructured its judiciary into a modern form.125 The Penal Codes of
1840, 1851, and 1858, the Civil Code of 1877, the new courts and tribunals, the 1876
Constitution,126 and procedural laws do not even scratch the surface of these
122 Anastasopoulos, “Non-Muslims and Ottoman Justice,” and Al-Qattan, “Dhimmis in the Muslim
Court: Legal autonomy and religious discrimination.”
123 Despite that, the capitulations were the constant excuse for European objections. They usually
stated that the punishment and trial of their citizens by the Ottoman courts were against the Ottoman
concessions (ahidname mucebince uygun olmadığı), and they could not confirm to that regulation. For
a verbatim protest written by English, Russian, Austrian and Spanish consuls in 1810, see BOA HAT
488/23965.
124 Heidborn, Manuel de Droit Public et Administratif de l’Empire Ottoman, 202.
125 Stanford Shaw argues that the legal transformation, especially in the field of legislation, became
visible only towards the end of Mahmud II’s reign. It was mainly because, during the reign of Selim
III and Mahmud II, the legislative forces were in the hands of few individuals who relied more on
profit-seeking and power consolidation than state interests. The attempts of Selim III to establish
Meclis-i Meşveret (Advisory Council) to delegate power to various government officials had only
limited success at the time. Shaw, “The Central Legislative Councils in the Nineteenth Century
Ottoman Reform Movement Before 1876,” 52-53.
126 Zafer Toprak argues that the Tanzimat reforms focused more on law-making than parliamentary
legislation as it was the arena that the dearth of commercial and civil codes felt much more in their
relations with Europe. See Toprak, “From Plurality to Unity: Codification and Jurisprudence in the
Late Ottoman Empire,” 32-33. As complementary to Toprak’s arguments, Teyfur Erdoğdu argues in
his work why and how the legislative power of the first parliament was limited. See Erdoğdu, “The
Administrative and Judicial Status of the First Ottoman Parliament according to the 1876
Constitution,” 67-87.
54
reforms.127 In addition to newly-founded educational institutions, qadi schools were
established by 1855.128
Consular courts retained the right to try their subjects, relying on privileges
acquired through the capitulations. The nature of the capitulations and their place in
the Ottoman legal system is worthy of in-depth analysis. The capitulations were an
amalgam of laws and contracts, initially termed ahidnâme (concessions), that
protected foreign citizens residing in the Ottoman Empire and granted them certain
privileges. They were among concessions offered by the Sultan that, along with other
policies like aman (forgiveness and grace),129 symbolized the benevolence of the
ruler.
Initially, the capitulations proved the porousness of the Ottoman judicial
device, and the treaty was applied in times of need as if it was an official legal
ordinance.130 As a sort of jus gentium (international law) as defined in Roman law,
the capitulations safeguarded individuals’ legal status by adjusting the regulations for
foreign residents.131 The legal system of jus gentium governed the legal arrangements
127 For some of the developments in the Ottoman legal field: See, Ekinci, Osmanlı Mahkemeleri:
Tanzimat ve Sonrası; Demirel, Adliye Nezareti; Kuruluşu ve Faaliyetleri (1876-1914); and Bozkurt,
Batı Hukukunun Türkiye’de Benimsenmesi: Osmanlı Devleti’nde Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’ne Resepsiyon
Süreci (1839-1939); Kahraman, “Osmanlı İdari Modernleşmesinde Şura-yı Devlet”; Miras, “Le
Tanzimat et son système législatif,” 26-28; Ahmet Lütfi, Mirat-ı Adalet yahut Tarihçe-yi Adliye-yi
Devlet-i Aliyye.
128 Besides the significant transformations in its educational policies, the qadı school frequently
underwent title change. In 1855, these schools were first founded as muallimhane-yi nüvvab. The title
changed as mekteb-i nüvvab in 1883, mekteb-i kudat in 1909 and medreset-ül kudat in 1914. See,
Akiba, “Muallimhane-yi Nüvvabtan Mekteb-i Kuzata Osmanlı Kadı Okulunun Yarım Yüzyıllık
Serüveni.”
129 Gilles Veinstein explains the term as having double meaning of grace and forgiveness which
adapted to different conditions. Veinstein, “Les Fondements Juridiques De La Diplomatie Ottoman En
Europe,” 516.
130 In his article, Eldem underlines the capitulations’ legal character by pointing out the pitfalls of
misreading it: “One should not be too hasty in equating the granting of capitulations with a protocolonial
process of commercial expansion or, from an Ottoman perspective, of gradual subservience.
The undeniable fact that the capitulations did eventually develop into instruments of dominations is in
itself the cause for an a-posteriori reading of their true intent and context,” See: Eldem,
“Capitulations and Western Trade,” 292–293.
131 Eldem, “Foreigners at the Threshold of Felicity: The Reception of Foreigners in Ottoman
Istanbul,” 117; Pitts, Boundaries of the International: Law and Empire, 36.
55
between the Romans and the rest of the population not bestowed with citizenship.132
The capitulations were not confined to protective economic immunities for foreign
merchants; these treaties prepared the groundwork for a separate legal framework.
The evidence of this is discernable in specific articles of the capitulation treaties
which state that foreign subjects must not be molested and secured their right to trial
by their consular court. The consulates thus obtained the right to hear criminal cases
among their nationals or other foreigners, though crimes involving foreign and
Ottoman subjects were under the jurisdiction of the Ottoman judicial system. 133
Most European states abided by this arrangement, though the Ottoman state
frequently faced European protests against the latter regulation in the nineteenth
century.134
Consequently, the capitulations assumed an extraterritorial character in time.
They functioned at the expense of the empire’s territorial sovereignty and assumed
the reputation of being unilateral agreements that symbolized European
encroachment on Ottoman jurisprudence. By the seventeenth century, the popular
law of nations began to supersede the conventional conduct of Ottoman diplomacy in
international relations.135 In earlier periods, the Ottoman siyar tradition, which was
132 On the other hand, the Romans regulated the interstate legal relations with other states through the
practice jus fetiale (fetial law). The fetial law set the principles for negotiation and diplomacy,
especially regarding the ambassadors’ rights and the procedures applied during the war campaigns:
See: Pitts, Boundaries of the International, 18.
133 Article 5 of the treaty with Germany in 1761, Articles 5 and 6 of the treaty with Austria in 1718,
Article 10 of the treaty with Britain in 1579, Article 4 of the treaty with Spain in 1782, Article 4 of the
treaty with the US in 1830, and Article 65 of the treaty with France in 1740 underscores the legal
status of the foreign subjects and their jurisdictional rights/conditions. Aristarchi Bey (Grégoire),
Legislation Ottomane ou Recueil des Lois, Reglements, Ordonnonces, Traites, Capitulations et Autre
Documents Officiels. For the Ottoman version of these treaties : See, “Devlet-i Aliyye ile Düvel-i
Mütehabbe Beynlerinde Teyemmünen Münakid Olan Muahedat-ı Atika ve Cedideden Memurîn-i
Saltanat-ı Seniyeye Müracaatı Lazım Gelen Fukarat-ı Ahdiyeyi Mutazammın Risaledir”.
134 For the legal status of the foreigner in the Ottoman Empire, See: Halil Cemaleddin and Asadur,
Ecânibin Memâlik-i Osmaniye’de Haiz Oldukları Imtiyâz-ı Adliye; and Arminjon, Étrangers et
Protèges dans l’Empire Ottoman.
135 Many Europeans associated that attitude to insist on the conventional way of diplomacy with
Ottoman arrogance. Sir James Porter expressed similar ideas as follows: “The Turks has no idea of the
law of nations, they consider themselves as the only nation on earth, and regulate their own conduct
56
closely associated with Christian traditions, had relied on the Quran to regulate
negotiations of war and peace with other states.136 Alexander de Groot argues that it
was around this time that relations that had previously been maintained on equal
footing between the worlds began to change.137 A recent study by Mustafa Serdar
Palabıyık shows that the Ottoman Empire adopted the official rhetoric of the
European law of nations in diplomatic treaties starting in the seventeenth century.138
However, the shifting power balance in favor of Europe crystallized the prejudices of
European superiority. Terms such as en ziyade müsaadeye mahzar memleket (most
favored nation), imtiyazat (concessions), and haric ez memleket (extraterritoriality),
which were already in use, appeared more frequently in nineteenth-century
diplomatic correspondences, distinguishing it from the official rhetoric of early
centuries which often used words like dostluk (amity), muhabbat (affinity), and
musavat (equality).139 The consular protests against the Ottoman state were gradually
replaced by the former’s ultimatums in the nineteenth century.140
European states frequently faced a dilemma when trying to define the
capitulatory regime. Were they the basis of centuries-long relations that determined
reciprocal rules of law and diplomacy, or were they regulations whose “peculiar
features revealed an anomalous and inferior form of interstate law?”141 In one
towards others on positive compact, spontaneous concessions, or usage or customs.” Porter, Turkey,
Its History and Progress, 284.
136 Palabıyık, “The Emergence of the Idea of ‘International Law’ in the Ottoman Empire before the
Treaty of Paris,” 237.
137 De Groot, “The Historical Development of the Capitulatory Regime in the Ottoman Middle East
from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries,” 577.
138 Palabıyık, “The Emergence of the Idea of ‘International Law’ in the Ottoman Empire before the
Treaty of Paris,” 236-238.
139 Veinstein, “Les Fondements Juridiques De La Diplomatie Ottoman En Europe,” 520.
140 Avania (meant bullying by the Persian word avan) is another illustrative example reflecting the
other side of capitulations in the early centuries. Pointing to various injustices done by Ottoman
officials against the European merchants, avania indicates how capitulations were not yet as a
powerful bilateral privilege as we observe in the nineteenth century. See Eldem, “Istanbul: from
Imperial to Peripheralized Capital,” 160 and Van den Boogert, The Capitulations and the Ottoman
Legal System: Qadis, Consuls, and Beraths in the 18th Century, 122-123.
141 Pitts, Boundaries of International Law, 35.
57
dispatch to its consulate in Istanbul, the British Foreign Office clearly expressed its
reservations even though it was equally resolved to make use of the privileges
granted to it:
This state of things in Turkey is an exception to the system universally
observed among Christian nations. But the Ottoman Emperors having waived
in favor of Christian Powers’ rights inherent in territorial sovereignty, such
Christian Powers, in taking advantage of this concession are bound to provide
as far as possible against any injurious effects resulting from it to the
territorial Sovereign.142
As the statement suggests, the motive behind the consular system appeared to be less
about territorial sovereignty than about the strong dichotomy Europeans put forward
when appraising the Christian and Muslim worlds. The ideas of the French politician
Auguste Champetier de Ribes (1882-1947) strikingly resembles the arguments of the
Foreign Office:
It is fair to recognize that it is exorbitant in law to ask a Turkish subject to
renounce at home the benefit of his own jurisdiction because it is a trial with a
foreigner, and it must also be admitted that the text of no capitulation
authorizes in formal and explicit terms such a derogation from the rules of
territorial justice. But, in fact, it may seem harsh and far too perilous for the
interests of nationals, in the still persistent state of hostility that exists
between the Muslim civilization and our Christian civilization to submit to
the Muslim Courts the judgment of such a conflict.143
Ultimately, a more powerful consensus on the capitulations emerged from the legal
course.144 Thus, these treaties were an exception to the rule and territoriality of law,
under which every state had the right to apply its legislation to everyone living
within its territories. Capitulations functioned to the detriment of imperial
142 Lewis, On Foreign Jurisdiction and the Extradition of the Criminals,16.
143 De Ribes, “Les Capitulations ou La Reforme dans Les Échelles du Levant,” 2.
144 Customary usage or practice was usually defined with teamül or teamül-ü kadim or sometimes
uhud-u kadime in Ottoman Turkish. However, it should be noted that teamül has a broader spectrum
of meaning. A catalog browsing of the Ottoman archives demonstrates that the term is also frequently
applied to ceremonies/protocols and all sorts of official relations of the society with the state.
58
sovereignty.145 This exceptional system characterized the diplomatic stance that
Europeans adopted towards the Ottoman Empire. Even though capitulatory system
was abolished by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, its cumbersome weight lasted even
into the Republican period of modern Turkey.146
2.2.3 The Question of Extradition and Capitulations
The capitulations and the question of extradition were closely linked in diametrical
opposition. The treaty system had enabled a policy of extraterritoriality by which the
Europeans operated their consular jurisdiction in the Ottoman Empire. Every
European state believed that they had to secure the rights of their nationals in the
Ottoman Empire by exempting them from local justice. Their justification was a
belief that the Ottoman Empire had been blind to the territoriality of law, and this
excuse hampered force against the practice of extradition.147 The principal object of
initiating an extradition practice – that is, the fugitive – acquired a distinct meaning
in the Ottoman context.
Extradition was possible if there was a fugitive, and the principal purpose of
surrendering them was to punish the criminal where the crime was committed.148 The
criminal’s current whereabouts were an essential prerequisite factor in an extradition
request. If there was no escape, there was no need for extradition. In the Ottoman
145 Polyvios, La Condition Légale de Sociétés Étrangères Dans L’Empire Ottoman, 44 ; and See:
Gatteschi, Manuale di Diritto Pubblico e Privato Ottomano.
146 MacArthur-Seal, “Resurrecting Legal Extraterritoriality in Occupied Istanbul, 1918-1929.” In his
article, MacArthur-Seal outlines a chronological but not linear timeline of the joint effort shown by
the Ottoman and European sides from the early nineteenth century until the first decades of the
twentieth century. It demonstrates how each party sought to preserve their superior position in the face
of the animosities the capitulatory regime generated. Also See: Özsu, “’Receiving’ the Swiss Civil
Code: Translating Authority in Early Republican Turkey,” 76. Özsu argues that the Turkish
nationalists always felt an urge to fill the vacuum the capitulations left. The Turkish Civil Code, in
this respect, was formulated to fill this vacuum of legal recognition by the European audience.
147 For a comparative lens; see Jones, Extraterritoriality in Japan and the Diplomatic Relations
Resulting in Its Abolition, 1853–1899.
148 Lewis, On Foreign Jurisdiction and the Extradition of Criminals, 42.
59
case, a criminal on the run was just “a word of art and need not to involve the idea of
flight.”149 Indeed, consular jurisdiction had eliminated the primary motive behind the
practice of extradition. The criminals who escaped to the Ottoman Empire from
Europe were tried and sentenced by their own consuls.
What happened when, hypothetically, a suspect or convict escaped from the
Ottoman Empire to France, for example? If the crime was committed in a province,
the request for extradition would come from the district (liva) of that province. Once
the authorities determined the fugitive’s whereabouts abroad, the local public
prosecutor (müddei-i umumi) would submit an official request to the public
prosecutor of the Court of Appeal (istinaf müddei-i umumisi). The public prosecutor
would then attach the official report from the district administration to a court order
(mahkeme ilâmı) and the arrest warrant (tevkif müzekkeresi) of the investigating
judge and send them to the Ministry of Justice. Only after these legal procedures
were completed would the Ottoman representatives abroad turn to diplomacy.150
If a foreigner took refuge within the Ottoman Empire, the procedure would
proceed in the same way. A foreign consul’s request would first be sent to the
Ottoman Foreign Ministry which would later forward it to the Court of Justice along
with the relevant documents. Then, following close examination, all the
correspondence would be submitted to the public prosecutor of the Court of Appeal.
This prosecutor would conduct the necessary field research and ascertain the
whereabouts of criminal. He would then arrange for the documents to be returned to
149 “Fugitive Criminals in International Extradition,” 176.
150 BOA DH. HMŞ 18/109:“Tebaa-ı osmaniyeden birinin bir cürm ile meznûnen Fransaya firârı
halinde tevkifi esbabına tevessül olunmak üzere doğrudan doğruya Paris sefaret-i seniyyesine
telgrafla işâr-ı keyfiyet olunmağla beraber bunda tevkif-i mezkuresi ısdâr olunduğunda da ilavesi
posta ile tevkif-i mezkuresinin ve lüzum-ı muhâkemeye dair müstezak kararnamesinin musaddık
Fransızca tercümeleriyle birlikte sefaret-i müşarünileyhâya irsâli, Hariciye Nezaretinde işarı üzerine
tamamen tebliğ olunur,” See also Servet, Hukûk-u Ceza, 90; and Ahmet Şuayb, Hukûk-u Umumiye-yi
Düvel, 26.
60
the Court of Justice and to the Directorate of Penal Affairs (Umur-ı Cezaiyye
Müdüriyeti). These two authorities would defer to the Foreign Ministry and the
Ministry of Internal Affairs, which would grant permission for extradition.151
If the crime was strictly civil or commercial and required foreign witnesses
to be heard, the magistrate could send the official request, called “letters rogatory,”
to a judge or authority located in the jurisdiction where these people resided. These
letters could be delivered via diplomatic means in the name of judicial cooperation or
as part of a convention.152 However, such procedures were not usually applied to the
consular system, wherein consuls had to rely on Ottoman authorities to act on an
arrest warrant – a situation that ran contrary to the nature of the treaty system.153
The Ottoman Empire had no official extradition (iade-i mücrimin) agreements
except for a single treaty signed with the United States in 1874. Moreover,
documentation of how fugitive criminals were treated in the Ottoman Empire before
the nineteenth century is scarce. Hrand Asadur and Halil Cemaleddin point to a 1701
treaty between Venice and the Ottoman Empire as a first example of its kind. In one
part of the treaty concerning runaway criminals, they used the word vireler/vereler
(they should surrender) is used rather than iade (extradition).154 Küçükkaynarca
Treaty, with Russia in 1774, is another early example. It stated that if the subjects of
either party, whether members of the Islamic and Christian community, committed a
crime and took refuge in the other land, they would be deported without delay upon
151 Ahmet Şuayb, Hukuk-ı Umumiye-yi Düvel, 28.
152 This was the solution resorted by the Parisian court in 1865, when Ottoman subjects Kirkor
Alyanak and his brother committed theft in their jewelry store in Pera and from the Ottoman Bank,
after which they escaped to Paris. Such crimes of financial character are another huge topic that
deserves their own analysis. See, BOA HR.H. 135/15.
153 Rausus, La Regime des Capitulations dans l’Empire Ottoman, Vol. I., 382-383.
154 Cemaleddin and Asadur, Ecanibin Memalik-i Osmaniye’de Haiz Oldukları İmtiyaz-ı Adliye, 29:
“Kaleler ve adalara varûb temekkün itse kabûl olunmaya, varan adamlara ta’allül etmeyüb ayniyle
vireler, şöyle ki adamı öldürüb … rızk-ı serika eyleseler ayniyle vireler. Benim cânibimden dahi ol
vechle itdirülüb ol tarafdan adam öldürülüb … rızk getürürse ayniyle vireler.”
61
request.155 These peace treaties substantially differed in form and content from the
bilateral treaties of the nineteenth century.156 The capitulation treaties, on the other
hand, did not address the extradition of criminals as part of their judicial concessions.
The only terms used regarding crime and criminals were tedib etme (to punish),
tevkif etme (to arrest), and habs etme (to imprison).157
The 1874 extradition treaty with the United States, the only official one, was
not altogether successful. It entered into force a year later, and the treaty and its
principles were secondary in the face of repeated diplomatic crises, as Chapter 4
illustrates. Washington soon adopted an ad hoc diplomacy to supervise the legal
conditions of its subjects and protégés, like the other capitulatory powers. In return,
Ottoman authorities were compelled to redesign their own diplomacy in tune with
the American policy.
In the early twentieth century, three treaties were signed: with Switzerland in
1917 and with Germany and Austria in 1918. However, these were dissimilar from
the United States example. In the epoch of World War I, these conventions were the
outcome of a wartime alliance and political friendship, coming at a time after the
capitulations were abolished by the Young Turks. They differed in form and content.
Compared to the 1874 treaty, which comprised eight articles, the latter three
155 Article 2 of the Treaty of Küçükkaynarca; “Kezâlik tarafeyn reâyâsından olub gerek ahali-yi İslâm
ve gerek Hristiyan zümresinden bir kimesne bir dürlü taksirât idüb her ne mülâhaza ile bir devletten
ol bir devlete ilticâ iderlerse bu misüllüler talep olundukça bilâ te’hir red olunalar,” Sırrı, Hukuk-ı
Hususiye-yi Düvel, 158; Ahmet Şuayb, Hukuk-u Umumiye-yi Düvel, 25.
156 In most other peace treaties with Europeans, the exchange of war prisoners was also frequently
addressed. However, it has a different context than the surrender of criminals this dissertation aims to
analyze. The most significant regulation in these treaties was the emphasis put on religion. If the war
prisoners converted to Islam or Christianity, the states had no obligation to surrender the prisoners.
Küçük Kaynarca Treaty (1774) is one of the best examples of that regulation. However, most of the
peace treaties had similar statements. Sometimes, a convention was unnecessary; diplomatic means
were also of service. For instance, in 1802, the French consul demanded 24 French prisoners of war
stuck in Yanya as long as they were not converted to Islam. See, BOA C.HR. 151/7530, 27 Sep. 1802.
157 “Devlet-i Aliyye ile Düvel-i Mütehabbe Beynlerinde Teyemmünen Münakid Olan Muahedat-ı
Atika ve Cedideden Memurîn-i Saltanat-ı Seniyeye Müracaatı Lazım Gelen Fukarat-ı Ahdiyeyi
Mutazammın Risaledir”.
62
introduced a comprehensive regulation on extradition along with criminal
jurisdiction and consular protection.158
In the absence of extradition treaties, consuls relied on capitulations to secure
justice with respect to criminals taking refuge in the Ottoman Empire. In most cases,
this was at the expense of Ottoman territorial sovereignty, as the latter had ceded its
right to conduct trials to the consuls. In other cases, however, Europeans had to
frequently risk the impunity of their citizens in the Ottoman Empire. Pelissie du
Rausus recounts the case of a French criminal fugitive in Alexandria, whom was
arrested by the consul there but was later surrendered to Ottoman authorities
reluctantly. France insisted on trying him in Marseille and thus demanded his
extradition ex gratia. To initiate extradition proceedings, an Ottoman court first had
to hear the accusations. The Ottoman state was aware of the constraints imposed by
capitulations, but also knew how to make use of the treaty system to serve to its
interests. The decision of the Ottoman court in 1858 reasoned that the right to
conduct a trial could only be granted to the consular courts by the capitulations. The
Ottoman Empire could neither try a person for a crime committed in a foreign
country nor extradite them, as there was no extradition treaty. Thus, they acquitted
the criminal of all charges to the protests of France.159
The importance of extradition treaties came to the fore in such situations. The
lack of reciprocal regulations confounded cases when Ottoman fugitives were in a
similar predicament. To solve this problem, the government in Istanbul initially
engaged in a series of abortive attempts at diplomacy in the name of justice. The
158 The treaty drafts prepared with Switzerland and Austria were remodeled after the German project.
For the treaty with Switzerland, See: BOA HR.SYS. 1881/18. For the treaty with Austria, See: BOA
HR.SYS. 2282/4. For the treaty with Germany, See: BOA HR.HMŞ.İŞO. 155/10. For the treaty text in
Ottoman Turkish, see: Appendix A.
159 Rausus, Le Regime des Capitulations dans l’Empire Ottoman, Vol.I., 385-386.
63
earliest was an extradition proposal made to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1865.
However, despite a renewed request two years later by the Ottoman legal counsel
Parnis Efendi, the parties could not reach an agreement.160 Kostaki Musurus Pasha
(1851–1885), the ambassador to England, likewise offered an extradition treaty to
Lord Granville, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in 1872 – again to Lord
Derby a few years later. Notwithstanding the positive attitude of the Foreign Office,
neither request progressed.161 At around the same time, Alexander Karatheodori
Pasha (1833-1906), the ambassador to Rome, presented a similar proposal to the
Italian diplomat Isacco Artom (1829-1900).162 Karatheodori hoped that his project
would constitute a set of legal relationships to replace the lopsided capitulatory
regime and diminish the exaggerated importance attributed to the treaty system.163
Though Artom expressed desire for a solution, negotiations did not proceed. Nor did
subsequent negotiations with Italy in 1881 and 1901.164
While extradition negotiations with most European states did not bring about
the hoped-for results, the transnational crime and the mobility of criminal actors
along the frontiers compelled the Ottoman Empire and the neighboring powers to
develop long-term policies to respond to everyday threats and the vacuum of security
at the borders. Even though no official bilateral treaty emerged in any medium from
these communications, the politics adopted by the various parties resulted in
regulations and other legal devices to maintain the borders and control population
movement. Chapter 5 analyzes how the question of the frontiers of the Ottoman
160 BOA HR.H. 212/5.
161 BOA HR.SYS. 587/25, BOA HR.ID. 139/24 and HR. SFR. 3 225/72. I assume that there could be
other negotiations, on an unofficial basis, as the British police officer and politician Howard Vincent
(1849-1908) sent a copy of the book on the collection of extradition treaties to the Sublime Porte in
1883. See, BOA HR. SFR. 3. 290/37.
162 Artom was also the secretary of Camillo Benso (1810-1861), the famous Count Cavour, who was
among the leading figures behind the Italian unification.
163 BOA HR.ID. 139/24.
164 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 164/19 and BOA HR.ID. 2100/40.
64
Empire created the particular defense mechanisms along the Balkan and the Russian
borders, independent of states’ sovereignties.
The lack of official regulations usually compelled the Ottoman state to
collaborate on judicial issues, a circumstance that became obligatory in the face of
severe crimes and threats, as Chapter 3 illustrates. The card of reciprocity played a
significant role in negotiations,165 even though locus regit actum remained the
decisive principle. These diplomatic dialogues are representative as they reveal the
Ottoman legal mindset. The corpus of dispatches produced by the Office of Legal
Counsel, in particular, provides valuable insight into the evolution of this mindset
and the utilization of international law as state discourse.
In the nineteenth century, Ottoman diplomacy was no longer confined to
treaty-making and court ceremony. Following the Crimean War in 1856, the empire
began to play an active role in the international legal order. Its participation in the
Paris Peace Conference and the ensuing Islahât Fermanı (Reform Edict) redefined
the position of the Ottoman state on the global stage. Long-term, asymmetrical
relationships with Europe substantially changed. The empire’s well-trained
bureaucrats and diplomats actively engaged in debates on international law through
which awareness of territorial sovereignty gradually increased.166 A striking example
is in the words of Ali Pasha, who, during the Paris Peace Conference, indignantly
165 When Britain demanded the extradition of Ottoman Themistocles Constantin, who cheated many
commercial companies in England and for whom four arrest warrants came out, they requested to
adopt the principles of equity. Rüstem Pasha stated their doubts about whether the English
government would regard the rules of extradition and reciprocity. So, they did not consent to
surrender Themistocles Constantin. See: BOA HR.H. 494/2 and HR.SFR. 3 59/2.
166 Since the late 18th century, the Ottoman Empire already used the phrases of hukuk-u nas, hukuk-u
ümem and hukuk-u milel as equivalents of hukuk-u düvel in their diplomatic correspondences, as
Palabıyık shows. Besides, the work of Vattel, the Law of Nations was translated in 1837. Thus, the
year 1856 was not a milestone for the emergence of international law in the Ottoman Empire.
However, I argue here that the year 1856 signifies the regular utilization of international law in the
Ottoman foreign affairs. Also see Palabıyık, “The Emergence of the Idea of ‘International Law’ in the
Ottoman Empire before the Treaty of Paris,” and 239-240.
65
reclaimed the empire’s territorial rights vis-à-vis the evil of an extraterritoriality that
“constituted a multiplicity of governments within the government, and consequently,
an insuperable obstacle to all improvements.”167
This awareness created an official rhetoric echoed by Ottoman officials. The
correspondence related to questions of extradition are among the best examples by
which to understand the state’s discursive transformation related to foreign affairs
and sovereignty. For example, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire demanded the
return of Thomas Mircovich, an Austrian subject accused of murder in the Ottoman
Empire, Foreign Minister Safvet Pasha lashed back with an argument of territorial
jurisdiction. His official letter of 1875 stated his protest as follows:
You are very kind to remind us that the Sublime Porte agreed in various
circumstances and on an exceptional basis to deliver to authorities Austro-
Hungarians convicted by Ottoman courts and save them the trouble of
completing their sentences (by returning them to) Austro-Hungarian territory.
However, in the name of international public law and treaties, the Sublime
Porte has never ceased to demand the execution of justice in Ottoman
territory for crimes and offenses committed in the empire. This regulation
includes Austro-Hungarian subjects, as well. The Ottoman government surely
appreciates the basis of public order, which requires that punishment be
carried out in the place that the crime was committed, regardless of the rules
of international law.168
The legal agendas of Ottoman officials also drew on the works of famous legal
intellectuals. For instance, during an extradition negotiation with Austria, Parnis
Efendi quoted Grotius and Beccaria. He underscored that Grotius did champion the
idea that the nations stand on equal footing. In this way, Parnis Efendi desired to
frame a treaty on the basis of equality. He added the notion of punishment by the
famous jurist Beccaria who stated that "the persuasion of finding no point on the
167 Slys, Exporting Legality: The Rise and Fall of Extraterritorial Jurisdiction in the Ottoman Empire
and China, 51; also quoted by Cobbing, “A Victorian Embarrassment: Consular Jurisdiction and the
Evils of Extraterritoriality”, 275.
168 BOA HR.H. 212/5. (My translation)
66
earth where the crime can go unpunished would be an effective means of preventing
it."169 Therefore, the progress of international law in the Ottoman Empire was as
much the result of political developments as of increasing legal knowledge and
education. The emergence of legal advisors and the establishment of the Office of
Legal Counsel played a significant part in the process.
Figure 1. Paris Peace Conference (1856)170
2.4 Hukuk Müşavirliği İstişare Odası (The Ottoman Office of Legal Counsel)
By introducing international law, the Ottoman Empire built upon the Tanzimat
reforms. Initially, legal advisors of European origin were hired to advise various state
departments. French citizens Français Émile Tarin, Louis Amiable, and Benjamin
169 BOA HR.H 212/5.
170 BOA FTG.F. 269.
67
Eduard Cor, the Maltese William Parnis, and the German Gerscher brothers served
the Porte for many years. They provided counsel to the Ottoman state in an
assortment of political, legal, and economic affairs.171 Starting in 1875, each ministry
installed an office of legal advisors, and the magnitude and institutionalization of the
profession continued into the twentieth century.172
The establishment of the Hukuk Müşavirliği İstişare Odası (Ottoman Office
of Legal Counsel) in 1883 ushered in a new era of scholarly and political discussion
of law. The staff of the department provided counsel in various state affairs and acted
as the attorney on behalf of state interests. On such occasions, the office resorted to
the formidable legal corpus accumulated over the years.173 Şarl Kişer (Carl Gerscher)
and Noradunghian Efendi (Gabriel Noradunghian) replaced the late Parnis Efendi as
the new legal advisors to the Foreign Ministry. They later became the first directors
of the Office of Legal Counsel. Born in 1850 in Münster, Germany, Gerscher
completed his legal education in Cologne, Munich, and Bonn. Fluent in German,
French, and Latin, he commenced his career in the German government where he
served from 1874-1877. By the time Gerscher was delegated to the Ottoman Foreign
Ministry, he was working in the Strasburg Court of Justice as a legal advisor just as
his father, who had held the same post in the Cologne Court of Justice.174 His
brother, Alfred Gerscher, a legal advisor to the Ottoman Ministry of Police, was the
original candidate for the position in the Ottoman Foreign Ministry. Because of the
heavy workload and the fact that Alfred was in charge of ordinary affairs (umur-u
171 Kuneralp and Öktem, ed., Chambre des conseillers légistes de la Sublime Porte: Rapports, avis et
consultations sur la condition juridique des ressortissants étrangers, le statut des communautés non
musulmanes et les relations internationales de l’Empire Ottoman, p.10.
172 Nafia Nezareti (The Ministry of Public Works) and Maliye Nezareti (the Ministry of Finance) were
the first state departments that hired legal advisors.
173 Genell, “Autonomous Provinces and the Problem of ‘Semi-Sovereignty’ in European International
Law,” 534.
174 BOA HR. SAİDd. 4/12 and 2/1020.
68
adiye), it was key to employ someone else with qualifications pertinent to the
Foreign Ministry. The candidate needed to tackle a wide range of tasks required by
assignment. Gerscher served until Germany nominated him to be a member of the
Court of Appeal in Alexandria in 1894.175
In addition to Gerscher, Gabriel Noradunghian was appointed to assist in
administering the office in 1883.176 Noradunghian was an Ottoman-Armenian
official and scholar with a distinct educational background in law, political science,
and diplomacy. After attending various schools in Istanbul and Paris, Noradunghian
entered the Ottoman Foreign Ministry in 1871. Until 1883, the year he joined the
Office of Legal Counsel, Noradunghian had gained extensive legal and diplomatic
experience in Ottoman missions abroad and in various state departments at home. He
excelled in law and remained in the post of legal counsel until 1908,177 preparing a
celebrated four-volume legal corpus, Recueil d'Actes Internationaux et l'Empire
Ottoman, at the same time.178
An official letter addressed to the Sadrazamlık (Grand Vizierate) and the
Meclis-i Vâlâ (Council of Ministers) by Carl Gerscher in September 1889 hints that
the Office of Legal Counsel was already being set up when he took office.
Complaining about the lack of expertise in linguistics and legal norms – despite a
surplus of the assistants – Gerscher asked to redesign and institute well-defined
175 In a report dated 1881, the missions of Parnis Efendi and Alfred Gerscher as legal advisors were
clearly stated. Accordingly, Parnis Efendi would give advice political problems related to foreign
affairs, as Alfred Gerscher would adress ordinary affairs. See: BOA Y.PRK.DH. 1/44, BOA
Y.A.HUS. 293/28 and BOA HR.TH. 144/53.
176 BOA I.HR. 289/18150 and BOA HR.ID. 1828/52.
177 BOA DH. SAIDd., 81/473. For a detailed monograph on the life of Noradunghian, See: Kévorkian,
“Gabriel Noradunghian: Extraits des Mémoires recueillis par Aram Andonian,”1–37 and Karakoç,
“Osmanlı Hariciyesinde Bir Ermeni Nazır: Gabriel Noradunkyan Efendi,” 157–177.
178 According to Will Hanley, the most significant shortcoming of this work was the failure to
incorporate Islamic law and the siyar tradition. He argues that Noradunghian did not need to rely on
these fields, as the Ottoman Empire usually addressed foreign audience. Hanley, “International
Lawyers without Public International Law: The Case of Late Ottoman Egypt,” 101.
69
employment standards. Eight copy clerks responsible for translating and editing texts
from French to Turkish and Turkish to French were needed. Some clerks were
transferred to other state departments, and new candidates were required to hold a
law degree. For competent officials, Gerscher demanded salary increases in
proportion to each person’s abilities. After examining the requests in detail, the
Council of Ministers approved all of them in March 1890.179
Within a decade, the office was staffed with the ideal candidates that
Gerscher and Noradunghian had envisioned. As Table 3 illustrates, the number of
staff increased twofold, and most were graduates of well-known schools that offered
modern curricula. Among these schools, the Mekteb-i Mülkiye-yi Şahane (School of
Civil Service), the Mekteb-i Sultani (Imperial School/ present day Galatasaray High
School), and Darülfünûn (the equivalent to a present-day university) stood out as
pioneers of educational reform in the empire. Except for those who received their
educations at schools abroad, all high-profile Tanzimat statesmen graduated from
one of these three institutions.
The School of Civil Service was founded in 1859 to prepare the clerks for
service in the bureaucracy. For two years, students were trained in various fields such
as history, geography, economics, statistics, and law. During the rule of Abdülhamid
II, the school became a respected five-year college, the first three years of which
were devoted to a secondary school curriculum. Special courses were taught in the
last two years.180 The Imperial School, established in 1868, was another renowned
institution. Its curriculum was modeled on the French system, but the school also
provided a classical Ottoman education and taught language courses.181 On the other
179 BOA Y.A.RES. 50/42, BOA I.DH. 1164/91031, and BOA MV. 51/49.
180 Somel, The Modernization of public Education in the Ottoman Empire 1839-1908: Islamization,
Autocracy and Discipline, 52. Also See, Babaoğlu, “Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e Mekteb-i Mülkiye.”
181 Somel, The Modernization of public Education in the Ottoman Empire 1839-1908, 52-53.
70
hand, the Darülfünûn, founded at the turn of the twentieth century, provided for
graduates of the two aforementioned schools to further their studies in particular
professions.182
The progress achieved by these institutions gradually allowed recruitment
regulations to be transformed. Previously, selection from the pool of candidates
reflected their social standing and family tree, as Table 3 illustrates. However,
towards the end the century, the pool itself was filled with potential officials that had
been filtered through a meritocracy. Doğan Gürpınar argues that this gradual shift
from a cultural system that favored patronage and acquaintance was natural in light
of the new, reliable educational system and exponential increase in the numbers of
students attending those schools.183 I further argue that the favoritism in question was
not always nepotism; it also reflected the significant economic and social means to
acquire an education. The significance of these public schools came into focus once
the level of education spread to the different segments of society and the competency
of graduates employed in state departments stabilized.
The Office of Legal Counsel was one among these departments. Its mission
was delegated among its two hukuk müşaviri (legal advisors), legal assistants, and
office clerks. Aimee Genell argues that the office was founded to take advantage of
international law after the Ottoman defeat in the Balkans and the British conquest of
Egypt in 1882. Its mission was to pioneer “a legalistic approach” to the Ottoman
state’s diplomatic relations, comparable to other European states that had assembled
teams of legal advisors by that time.184
182 Since 1865, there were efforts to establish that educational system. Somel, The Modernization of
public Education in the Ottoman Empire 1839-1908, 38.
183 Gürpınar, Ottoman Imperial Diplomacy: A Political, Social and Cultural History, 89.
184 Genell, “The Well-Defended Domains: Eurocentric International Law and the Making of the
Ottoman Office of Legal Counsel,” 255–256.
71
It is true that the Office of Legal Counsel responded to crises following
successive military defeats and served sweeping goals for the Ottoman state’s legal
structure. Similar offices in Europe were established in the same decades following
distinct policies in each state.185 The Office of Legal Counsel likewise formulated a
legal strategy unique to the Ottoman state rather than modeled on a European pattern.
Even though international law is usually considered equivalent to public law,
Ottoman legal advisors more frequently addressed questions of private international
law such as nationality, capitulations, and extradition. The particular conditions of
the Ottoman case compelled them to accumulate their own legal corpus on
international law in order to generate their own arguments. This was primarily a
compilation of the decisions made by executive forces in various legal cases.186
For this reason, the occupation and tasks of the office were not limited to
select political matters but soon covered diverse legal subjects and state affairs. The
office answered directly to the Grand Vizierate and the Foreign Ministry. The office
staff assisted the legal advisors on bureaucratic and legal issues. Muavin (assistants)
supported legal advisors by analyzing the legal frameworks of various issues,
whereas hülefâ (clerks) dealt mainly with official paperwork. The legal advisors
offered counsel with respect to the formulation of treaties and conventions, to acts of
185 In England, the first full-time legal advisor to the Foreign Office was Edward Davidson, who was
appointed in 1886. Even though France had legal advisors giving counseling to the state since 1722,
this office never became a regular post. Only in 1890, with the appointment of Lois Renaud, legal
counseling assumed an official character. In the United States, the system of legal counseling followed
a specific pattern. Since the 1780s, legal officials had provided counseling under different titles. Only
in 1931, the Office of Legal Adviser was established under the State Department. See Zidar and Gauci
(eds.), The Role of Legal Advisers in International Law, 14, 179, 291-292.
186 Egypt is a good case for comparison. The legal officials with a good background of European
education, and mostly the ones working in the mixed courts, neither rely on Islamic law nor applied
international law effectively. Similarly, they resolved the conflicts on case basis. Hanley,
“International Lawyers without Public International Law: The Case of Late Ottoman Egypt,” 103, 111
and 113-114. Similar to the arguments of Hanley, Francesca Petricca also underscores the absence of
Islamic law in the Egyptian mixed courts and shows how the legal officials relied on their own
judgment determined by each case. Petricca, “Filling the Void: Shari’a in Mixed Courts in Egypt:
Jurisprudence (1876-1949),” 725.
72
arbitration, and to the interpretation of legal terms. The scope of public and private
international law, the state of war, and legal matters regarding judicial, civil, and
fiscal affairs as well as public works were within the scope of their work. The legal
advisors debated the amendment of the legal corpus and regulations before
introducing them to other state authorities. On thorny issues such as the capitulations,
consular jurisdiction, and the question of subjecthood, they had a crucial role in
determining the rhetoric and content of negotiations between the state departments
and with the representatives of foreign powers. Extradition was another crucial
matter on which the office was expected to offer expertise.187
In the following decades, the standards for employment in the office steadily
advanced. For candidates applying for the chief clerk position in 1912, qualifications
included having a law degree and experience in a different state department. The
candidates also needed to hold a hüsn-ü ahlâk şehadetnâmesi (certificate of
manners). If they met these criteria, candidate could apply to a committee consisting
of the legal advisors and the umur-u siyasiye müdürü (Director of Political Affairs).
The evaluation of the committee and the results of the Ottoman Turkish and French
composition exams determined the recruitment and selection process. In the end, the
official decision would be announced in the Takvim-i Vekayi and other official
newspapers.188
During World War I, dissolving the Office of Legal Counsel was discussed,
and a legal memorandum to this end was prepared in 1915.189 However, as Table 4
shows, this plan was not realized, and the department continued with a skeleton crew
of officials until the end of the empire.
187 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 109/10, BOA DH.KMS. 65/49, and Salname-yi Nezaret-i Hariciye, 1302.
188 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 101/34.
189 BOA MV. 241/134.
73
Table 1. The Office of Legal Counsel – Staff List in 1883190
Esami (Names) Tarih-i Memuriyet
(Date of Appointment)
Maaş (Salary
in piastre)
Rütbe (Rank and
Medals)
Bâb-ı Alî Hukuk Müşaviri
(Legal advisor of the
Sublime Porte)
Geşer Efendi (Şarl) 6 Nisan 1299
(18 April 1883)
9027 Altın ve Gümüş
İmtiyâz Madalyası
(Medal of
distinction in gold
and silver)
Legal advisor of the
Sublime Porte
Garabed Efendi
(Noradunkian)
6 Nisan 1299
(18 April 1883)
6000 Evveli
Serhâlife
(Chief Clerk)
Mustafa Şekib Bey 20 Kanun-u Evvel
1301 (1 January 1886)
3500 Evvel-i Sani
Mümeyyiz
(Examining Clerk)
Ali Daniş Bey 9 Mart 1307
(21 March 1891)
1500 Mütehayyiz
Rusya Muhaberesi
Madalyasu
(Medal of Russian
War)
Muavin (Assistant) Ali Seyid Bey 1 Mart 1299
(13 March 1883)
2500 Mütehayyiz
Assistant İsmail Hayati Bey 19 Şubat 1299
(2 March 1884)
2500 Evvel-i Sani
Assistant Abro Hırand Bey 29 Ağustos 1300
(10 September 1884)
2000 Mütehayyiz
Assistant Koçiyan Ohannes Bey 14 Mayıs 1302
(26 May 1886)
1200 Evvel-i Sani
Assistant Mehmed Sezai Bey 25 Teşrin-i Evvel 1302
(6 November 1886)
600 Saniye
Assistant Eşref Cafer Bey 14 Ağustos 1303
(26 August 1887)
_ Evvel-i Sani
Assistant İzgoridi Nikolaki Efendi 3 Teşrin-i Evvel 1303
(15 October 1887)
2000 Evvel-i Sani
Assistant Cevanyan Nişan Efendi 24 Teşrin-i Evvel 1303
(5 November 1887)
1200 Mütehayyiz
Assistant Ahmed Muhtar Bey 5 Kanun-u Evvel 1303
(17 December 1887)
_ Salise
Assistant Mısriyan Edvar Bey 9 Teşrin-i Evvel 1304
(21 November 1888)
1000 Saniye
Assistant Mehmed Sadık Bey 24 Kanun-u Sani 1306
(5 February 1891)
1500 Mütehayyiz
Assistant Mehmed Tevfik Bey 11 Ağustos 1305
(23 August 1889)
_ Salise
Assistant Mehmed Nuri Bey 5 Ağustos 1305
(17 August 1889)
_ Salise
Assistant Hamid Bey 24 Kanun-u Sani 1305
(5 February 1890)
1500 Mütehayyiz
Hülefâ (Clerk) Keresteciyan Boğos
Efendi
30 Teşrin-i Sani 1300
(12 December 1884)
450 Salise
Clerk Şadan Bey 14 Teşrin-i Sani 1305
(26 November 1889)
1500 Saniye
190 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 166/4.
74
Clerk Adnan Bey 25 Teşrin-i Sani 1305
(7 December 1889)
_ Saniye
Clerk Rober Efendi 5 Teşrin-i Evvel 1305
(17 October 1889)
_ Saniye
Clerk Abdullah Vahdi Bey 4 Nisan 1307
(16 April 1891)
Clerk Fuad Bey 1 Teşrin-i Sani 1307
(13 November 1891)
_ Saniye
Table 2. Salary increase proposed for the Office of Legal Counsel in 1889191
Esami (Names) Maaş (Salary in piastre)
Saadetlü İsmail Bey 3000
Saadetlü Nikolaki Efendi 3000
Gayretlü Nişan Efendi 2000
Gayretlü Ohannes Bey 2000
Gayretlü Hrand Bey 2000
Gayretlü Baki Bey 2000
Refetlü Tevfik Bey 1000
Refetlü Bogos Efendi 1000
Table 3. The Office of Legal Counsel – Staff List in 1901192
Position Esami (Names) Pederlerinin Esamisi (Names
of the Fathers)
Maaş
(Salary)
Mektebleri (Schools)
Serhâlife
(Chief Clerk)
Mustafa Şekib
Bey
Sadr-ı Esbâk (former Grand
Vizier) Arifi Paşa
3100 Saltanat-ı Mekteb-i Şahane
(Imperial School of Civil Service)
First Examining
Clerk
(Mümeyyiz-i Evvel)
Hrand Abro
Bey
Şura-yı Devlet azasından
(Council of State member)
Abro Efendi
2660 Hukûk-u Darülfünûn
(School of Law / Istanbul
University)
Second Examining
Clerk
(Mümeyyiz-i Sani)
Abdürrahim
Şadan Bey
Mabeyn-i Hümayûn Müşir-i
esbâkı (former Marshal in
the private secretariat of the
Imperial Palace) Ferid Paşa
2425 Mahrec-i Eklâm ve Hukûk-u
Darülfünûn
(Outlet for the Bureaus and the
School of Law)
Assistant Eşref Cafer Bey Mehmedzade Ali Bey 30000 Valide Mektebi ve Mekteb-i Sultanî
(School of Education and the
Imperial School / Galatasaray High
School)
Assistant Mehmed Cemal
Bey
Sadaret-i Uzma Müsteşarı
(Counselor of the Grand
Vizierate) İsmail Hayab
Efendi
2520 Mahrec-i Eklâm
Assistant Aziz Harun Bey Teşrifât-ı Divân-i Hümayûn
(Chamberlain of the Imperial
Council) Kamil Bey ,
4000 Mekteb-i Sultanî
191 BOA Y.A.RES. 50/42.
192 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 188/49 and BOA Y.PRK. HR. 30/35.
75
Assistant İstavraki
Grigoryakidi
Efendi
Griyako Efendi 2699 Heybeliada Rum Mektebi ve
Muallimin-i Mahsusi
(Heybeliada Greek School and
School of Teachers)
Assistant Celal Münif
Bey
Maarif Nazırı sabık (former
Minister of Education) Münif
Paşa Hazretleri
2000 Mekteb-i Sultanî
Assistant İbrahim Edhem
Bey
Mektubi-yi Hariciye
Serhâlifesi (Chief Clerk in
the Secretariat of the Foreign
Ministry) Mustafa Bey
1850 Mekteb-i Mülkiye-yi Şahane
(School of Civil Service)
Assistant Hamid Bey Müşîr (Marshall) Cemil Paşa 1550 Mekteb-i Sultanî
Assistant Nişan Efendi Cevan Ağa 2180 Üsküdar Ermeni Mahalle Mektebi
(Armenian School of Üsküdar)
Assistant Mehmed
Ahmed Bey
Muhacirîn Komisyon-u Alisi
Birinci Azası (Member of the
Committee of Immigration)
Rıza Paşa Hazretleri
1500 Muallimin-i Mahsusi
Assistant Ali Seyid Bey Seyid Ali Bey 2250 Mekteb-i Sultanî
Assistant Şerif Kazım
Bey
Kazım Paşa 1300 Mekteb-i Sultanî ve Paris Hukuk
Darülfünûnu
(Imperial School and Paris School
of Law)
Assistant Mazlum Hamid
Bey
Dahiliye Nazırı (Minister of
Interior) Mehmed Paşa
1000 Mekteb-i Sultanî
Assistant Esad Bey Kürdistan Valisi (Governor
of Kurdistan) Mustafazade
Esad Muhlis Paşazade Yusuf
Bey
2000 Mekteb-i Sultanî
Assistant Mehmed Sadık
Bey
Meclis-i Muhasebe-yi Maliye
azasından (Member of the
Council of Fiscal
Accounting) Ahmed Samed
Paşa
Bila
maaş
Üsküdar Rüstiye Mektebi
(Üsküdar Junior High School)
Assistant Mehmed Ali
Bey
Mahkeme-yi Temyiz
azasından (Member of the
Court of Appeal) İsmail
Hakkı Bey
2350 Mekteb-i Sultanî
Assistant Ferid Bey Gelibolu Mutasarrıfı
(Governor of Gelibolu)
Fahrettin Bey
1850 Mekteb-i Sultanî
Assistant Yusuf İzzet Bey Taşlıca Mutasarrıfı ve
Kumandanı (Governor and
Commander of Taşlıca)
Süleyman Paşa Hazretleri
1500 Mekteb-i Sultanî ve Paris Hukuk
Darülfünûnu
Assistant Sezai Bey Meclis-i Ali Dahiliye
Memuru (Officer of the
Interior Affairs at the High
Council) Sami Paşa
540 Muallimin-i Mahsusi
Assistant Edvar Bey Mısırlı Bogos Efendi
900 Muallimin-i Mahsusi
Assistant Bogos Efendi Kevork Efendi
190 Muallimin-i Mahsusi
Assistant İsmail Suad Bey İcra Encümen-i Reisi (Head
of the Execution Council)
Ahmed Şevket Bey
1900 Mekteb-i Sultanî
76
Assistant İsak Yuşa
Efendi
Bogosyan Efendi 450 Mekteb-i Sultanî ve Mekteb-i
Hukûki
Assistant Mehmed Bey Evkaf Nazırı (Minister of
Pious Foundations) Subhi
Paşa
1500 Mekteb-i Sultanî
Assistant Hasan Hilmi
Bey
Leskovikli Ali Bey 150 Mekteb-i Hukûk
(School of Law)
Assistant Aram Adel
Efendi
_______________ 1000 _____________
Assistant Mehmed Tevfik
Bey
Valide Katibi (Scribe of the
Queen Mother) Hüseyin
Efendi
750 Mekteb-i Sultanî
Assistant Abdullah Lami
Bey
Aydın Valisi (Governor of
Aydın) Kamil Paşa
1800 Mekteb-i Sultanî
Assistant Şevket Cenani
Bey
Sadr-ı esbâk (former Grand
Vizier) Kadri Paşa
1800 Mekteb-i Sultanî
Assistant İbrahim İhsan
Bey
Birinci Daire-yi Belediye
Memuru (Officer at the First
District of Municipality)
Fevzi Bey
760 Mekteb-i Mülkiyey-i Şahane
Assistant Mehmed Suad
Bey
Konya Defterdarı (Konya
Head of Treasury) Muhtar
Bey
325 Mekteb-i Sultanî
Assistant Hrand Bey Ekmekçi Başı (Chief Baker)
Agop Efendi
320 Mekteb-i Sultanî ve Muallimin-i
Mahsusi
Assistant Celal Aladdin
Faik Bey
Evkâf Mahlulât Müdürü
(Pious Foundation’s Director
of Crops) Faik Bey
2500 Mekteb-i Sultani
Assistant Vehbi Bey Mahkeme-yi Temyiz Baş
Müddei-i Umumisi (Chief
Public Prosecutor of the
Court of Appeal) Lebib
Efendi
2500 Mekteb-i Sultanî
Assistant Mahzar Bey Hıfzı Paşazade Emin Kamil
Bey
1500 Muallimin-i Mahsusi
Assistant Murad Bey Şiraz (?) Hanedanından
(from Şiraz Dynasty) Seyid
Bey
1500 Mekteb-i Sultani
Assistant Mehmed Celal
Bey
Mirlivâ (Brigadier) Şefik
Paşa
2000 Serkilâri Hazret-i Şehriyari
Konağında (Chief butler at the
Imperial Palace of the Sultan)
Assistant İstefenaki
Karatodori Bey
Şurâ-yı Devlet Mülkiye
Dairesi azasından (Member
of the Civil Department of
the Council of State)
Aleksandre Karatodori Paşa
Bila
maaş
Brüksel Hukuk Darülfünûnu
(Brussel School of Law)
Assistant Muhtar Bey Şurâ-yı Devlet Mülkiye
Dairesi azasından (Member
of the Civil Department of
the Council of State) Haşim
Bey Efendi
Bila
maaş
Muallimin-i Mahsusi
Assistant Ahmed Bey Sadaret Mektubî Kalemi
Memuru (Officer at
Corresponding Secretary of
the Grand Vizierate) Müfüt
Bey
150 Muallimin-i Mahsusi
77
Assistant Vahid Bey İzmir Ceza Reis-i Amiri
(Head of Izmir Penal Court)
Fikri Efendi
50 Mekteb-i Sultanî
Assistant Abdülkadir
Mahir Bey
Zabtiye Müsteşarı
(Counselor of Zaptieh) Rıfat
Bey
Bila
maaş
Mekteb-i Idadiye.
(High School)
Assistant Aziz Efendi Ticaretten (Merchant) David
Efendi
Bila
maaş
Mekteb-i Sultanî
Assistant Emin Bey Mülgâ-yı Emlâk Komisyon
Reisi (Head of the Comission
for the Abolition of Property)
Hayri Efendi
2000 Mahrec-i Eklâm
Table 4. The Office of Legal Counsel – Staff List in 1920193
Position Esami-i Memurin (Names of the Officers) Maaş (Salary)
Baş Muavin (Head Assistant) Badi Efendi 2500
Muavin (Assistant) Bogos Efendi 2500
Assistant Tevhid Bey 2250
Assistant Kenan Bey 2250
Assistant Zühdü Bey 2000
Assistant Şükrü Bey 2000
Assistant Server Bey 2000
Katib (Scribe) Tevfik Bey 1200
Scribe Ahmed Şakir Bey 1200
The importance of the Office of Legal Counsel is that it is a valuable primary source
to trace the evolution of the practice of extradition in the empire. As subsequent
chapters of this dissertation explore, the arguments of the legal advisors comprise
firsthand evidence with respect to the extradition question. For problems caused by
the mobility of criminals, they were the first recourse for legal advice and arguments.
The issue could not be conceived independently of Ottoman jurisdiction and the
capitulations. In this respect, the Office of the Legal Counsel approached an illdefined
legal question by addressing critical problems of Ottoman legal system and
other issues directly related to the extradition. Thus, the work of the legal advisors
193 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO 108/55.
78
depicts a legalistic state in the making, one that relied on international law to
promote novel legal rhetoric that redefined Ottoman sovereignty.
Figure 2. Gabriel Noradunghian Efendi194
2.4.1 İade-i Mücrimin (Extradition) in the Ottoman Books of Law
The transformation of the Ottoman legal system progressed in leaps and bounds in
the early decades of the twentieth century. Institutional reforms and legal
194 Servet-i Fünûn, 313.
79
codification complemented to the growing engagement with international law.
International law was first introduced to Ottoman school curricula in 1859. The
program for the School of Civil Services (Mekteb-i Mülkiye Nizamnamesi) included
courses on international law (hukuk-u milel) and the treaties of the Ottoman Empire
(muahedat-ı devlet-i aliyye). Emin Efendi of the Translation Office was the first to
teach in these fields. By 1837, the Translation Office had translated many notable
books on international law, and after 1877 it became an introductory course in all
legal curricula.195 As with the Office of Legal Counsel, developments in the field of
international law reveal how the Ottoman state was tracking and adopting
contemporaneous legal developments. England and France had no courses on
international law in the first decades of the nineteenth century. In 1889, French
universities officially started to teach and assess students in international law. On the
other hand, the field had gradually become an area of professional study in Germany,
which had previously relied on diplomacy and public law.196
The newly founded schools – the School of Civil Service, the Imperial School
and the Mekteb-i Hukûk (Law Faculty) at Darülfünûn – offered professional courses
on law in the subsequent decades. These schools, especially Darülfünûn, introduced
a provisional curriculum since the content of each course was determined by a given
legal scholar, and later published as a university textbook. In 1908, the qadı schools
followed this trend by introducing a one-credit course on international law. The
195 Emin Efendi was a converted official originally from Bohemia. He taught German, French, and
English in the Translation Office, and he was among the founders of Law School (Mekteb-i Hukuk) in
1879. Erozan, “Türkiye’de Uluslararası İlişkiler Disiplinin Uzak Tarihi: Hukuk-u Düvel (1859-
1945),” 50-51 and 62-63, and Palabıyık, “International Law for survival: teaching international law in
the late Ottoman Empire (1859-1922), 279, and Ispahani, “Building Sovereignty in the Late Ottoman
World: Imperial Subjects, Consular Networks and Documentation of Individual Identities,” 39-51.
196 Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960,
29-31.
80
following year, it was revamped as a three-credit course.197 Consequently, the
process of legal accumulation became a driving force behind the empire’s
standardized legal education.
The Office of Legal Counsel was the definitive authority for legal matters in
practice. Ottoman legal books, on the other hand, provided practical guidance in
normative law. They shed light on how extradition as a legal concept was evaluated
in the international theory of law and particularly in the Ottoman legal context. Since
professionalization of law was still underway, most legal scholars were also state
officials who held various official posts during their careers. They fine-tuned the rich
curricula of the newly founded schools with their experience in state affairs. Legal
scholars such as Ibrahim Hakkı Pasha, who reached the rank of Grand Vizier, and
Hasan Fehmi Pasha, who served as various ministers, were emblematic statesmen of
the Tanzimat. On account of their backgrounds, such figures were adept at applying
the theory of law to everyday state politics during their long and varied careers.
In 1884, Hasan Fehmi Pasha wrote the first book of international law, a
precursor to numerous works to come. After years of Hamidian autocracy, the
Ottoman Empire enjoyed a boom in publications after the CUP revolution in 1908.
Books on international law were numerous. These publications followed a similar
pattern to earlier works; they relied on translations of European books, added
excerpts on Ottoman diplomacy, and included the normative textbooks of the
Darülfünûn Faculty of Law.198 The works of İbrahim Hakkı Pasha, notably Tarih-i
Hukûk-u Beyn’eddüvel (The History of International Law), and Ahmed Selahâddin,
197 Jun Akiba argues that more importance was laid on international law courses than the courses on
criminal and land codes. Akiba, “Muallimhane-i Nüvvabtan Mekteb-i Kuzata Osmanlı Kadı
Okulunun Yarım Yüzyıllık Serüveni,” 21.
198 Genell, “Autonomous Provinces and the Problem of ‘Semi-Sovereignty’ in European International
Law,” 544, also see Aral, “The Ottoman ‘School’ of International Law as Featured in Textbooks,” 70-
97.
81
notably Hukûk-u Beyn’ed-düvelin Mukaddemât-ı Nazariye ve Safahât-ı Tekamüliyesi
(Historical Theory and Evolutionary Phases of International Law), are examples that
included a comprehensive purview of international law.199 The order of the content
presented in these books was random. In most such works, extradition was addressed
as part of universal international law since the authors relied primarily on translated
European sources. The few that treated the issue in the Ottoman context analyzed it
along with other legal matters of primary importance. For this reason, the question of
extradition was addressed in a different section in each book.
Ottoman books on international law (hukûk-u düvel - hukûk-u umumiye-yi
düvel) usually addressed the question of extradition independently in the main text or
briefly discussed the issue in the introduction. Some omitted this legal issue
altogether. On the other hand, books on private international law (hukûk-ı hususiye-yi
düvel) addressed the question of extradition vis-a-vis the legal status of the foreigners
(hukûk-u ecânib), the capitulations, or the issue of subjecthood (tabiyyet). Since
extradition was usually considered to fall under private international law, this legal
concept was discussed extensively in such books with respect to Ottoman
sovereignty.
It is crucial to understand how these legal scholars treated international law in
the Ottoman context. All the authors agreed on one point: they all promoted the idea
of Ottoman territorial sovereignty and apposed the fact of foreign jurisdiction.
Hüsrevyan Hamayak voiced those criticisms in the following manner:
As you know, sovereignty is the distinctive quality of a state. As for that, the
law is nothing but the manifestation of sovereignty. Likewise, as you know,
there should be only one sovereignty in place; sovereignty cannot be divided.
In that case, no foreign legislation should compete with the law proclaimed in
a country within the latter state’s territory … Each individual who resides in
199 İbrahim Hakkı, Tarih-i Hukûk-u Beyn’ed-düvel. For a more-in-depth analysis of the books written
by İbrahim Hakkı: See, Fujinami, “The First Ottoman History of International Law,” 245–270; and
Ahmed Selahâddin, Hukûk-ı Beyn’ed-düvel.
82
that territory must be subject to the legislation of that country in all
circumstances. That state, independently and exclusively, has to implement
local legislation, disregarding any foreign jurisprudence.200
Legal scholars of the time analyzed territorial sovereignty apropos international law
and its subfields. Books on criminal law addressed similar concerns to those on
international law books, offering lengthy discussions on extradition. For example,
Servet,201 who wrote on Ottoman criminal law, divided public law into the subfields
of international law of internal affairs (hukuk-u umumiye-yi dahiliye) and
international law of foreign affairs (hukuk-u umumiye-yi hariciye). He considered
international law to be a part of public law constituted under foreign affairs. Servet
argued that international law was devoid of judicial authority and should not have a
legal character, given that the enforcement of penal codes already defined a state’s
judicial competence.202 Another scholar of criminal law, Kirkor Zohrab (Zöhrap),203
shared the ideas of Servet. He similarly argued that personal law (kavanin-i şahsiye)
and public law (kavanin-i umumiye) cannot not be treated as independent. Bypassing
200 Hamayak, Hukûk-u Hususiye-i Düvel,.8: “Malûmunuz olduğu vechle hâkimiyet devletin sıfat-ı
mümeyyizesidir. Kânûn ise hâkimiyetin tezâhüründen başka bir şey değildir. Kezâlik malûmunuzdur
ki bir memleketde ancak bir hâkimiyet-i cari olabilür, hâkimiyet te’addüd edemez. Şu hâlde bir
memleketde ilân olunan kânûna o memleket hûdudu dahilinde ecnebi bir kânûn hiçbir vakit rekâbet
edemez … Bir devletin hûduduna dâhil olan her ferd o andan itibâren her hûsusda müstekilen o
devletin kavâninine tâbi’ olmak icâb eder! O devlet muhâkeme-yi kavânin-i ecnebiyeyi aslâ nazar-ı
itibâra almayarak müstâkilen ve münhaseren kavânin-i mahalliyeyi tatbîk etmek mecburiyetinde
bulunur.”
201 Servet Efendi (?) was a graduate of Darülfünûn Law Faculty. During his career, he was appointed
to various judicial posts. He served as a public prosecutor at Tripoli Court of First Instance and
Istanbul Court of Appeal. He was the Chief Justice of Salonica Trade Court and Lemnos Court of
Appeal. Served also worked as the director of the School of Teacher. See: BOA İ.AZN. 29/11, TFR.
I.ŞKT. 128/12720, MF. İBT. 266/98 and 266/110, BEO 4300/322450, 1696/127182, and 1087/81467.
202 Servet, Hukuk-ı Ceza: Malumat-ı Umumiye ve Kısm-ı Cürm, 4-5: “Hukûk-u beynelmilel tekemmül
etmiş bir hukûk değildir. Vâsıta-ı tenfiziyesi yokdur. Mahkemeden, usûl-u muhâkemeden mahrûmdur.
Hukûk-u cezâ, hukûk-u umumiyenin bu kısmına dâhil olamaz.”
203 Kirkor Zohrab (1861-1915) was a prominent Armenian lawyer and politician who graduated from
the Engineering Institute of the Imperial School and continued his education in the same department
of Ponts et Chaussée in Paris. After his return, Zohrab participated to the Law Faculty. Elected to the
Ottoman Parliament (Meclis-i Mebusân) as the deputy of Istanbul, he was arrested and exiled by the
CUP to different cities during the 1915 Armenian deportation. He was killed by the brigand Circassian
Ahmet and his accomplices in Urfa in the same year. For a monographic study on his life, See:
Koptaş, “Armenian Political Thinking in the Second Constitutional Period: The Case of Krikor
Zohrab”
83
international law, he linked criminal law directly to the territorial law (kavanin-i
mekaniye) of a state.204
On the other hand, Nusret Bey clearly distinguished between law of territorial
power (kavanin-i mülkiye) and law of non-territorial power (kavanin-i gayri mülkiye)
which he considered equal to extraterritoriality (haric-ez-memleket). He assumed that
extraterritoriality was directly related to the personal status of the subjects and
marked it as legally binding in every condition. For instance, this was the situation
for marriage in which the subjects had to comply with the state regulations applied to
them. Nusret Bey underscored the difficulty of conceiving the territoriality of law as
a fixed legal concept. He argued instead that even for strictly territorial penal codes,
there were exceptions to the rule. The Ottoman Empire had not enacted any official
legislation on extradition, nor did early penal codes explain the practice. Nusret Bey
therefore referred to the related clauses of the 1879 Usul-u Muhakemât-ı Cezaiyye
Kanunu (Code of Criminal Procedure) to prove his point.
Articles 5, 6, and, 7 of the 1879 Code explained the legal condition of
criminals who posed a threat to imperial security. For example, forgery of official
state seals, coins, and bank bonds were such severe offenses. It was vital to prevent
widespread counterfeiting. Article 5 of the code stated that any Ottoman, who
committed these crimes would be punished in accordance with Ottoman law
regardless of whether a foreign investigation was also being conducted. The article
echoes the ordinances of various European legislation. Article 6 insisted that foreign
nationals in the Ottoman Empire were exempt from this treatment. Lastly, Article 7
illustrates the resolute Ottoman stance against impunity. It stated that any Ottoman
who murdered another Ottoman in a foreign land and managed to return to the
204 Zohrab, Hukuk-u Ceza, 86.
84
empire without legal sanctions would be tried by Ottoman courts and punished
accordingly.205
Likewise, Zohrab accepted the exceptionality of the situation despite his
criticism of extraterritorial rights and belief that they should not be granted to anyone
except ambassadors. Even if a crime occurred on consular property, felonies fell
under Ottoman law and jurisdiction, in line with the principles of international law.
Extradition was to be applied to cases that threatened public order.206
The most precise, comprehensive framework of extradition was outlined in
the unauthorized 1910 Penal Code.207 Article 3 of the project emphasized the
territoriality of law by ordering local punishment of anyone who committed a crime
in the Ottoman Empire.208 No distinction was made with regards to nationality or
religion. Article 9 directly addressed the question of extradition and regulated its
proceedings. Two circumstances were a basis for denying extradition. The first was
the absolute refusal to extradite Ottoman subjects to a foreign power, and the second
205 Madde 5: “Tebaa-yı Devlet-i Aliyye’den her kim olur ise olsun memâlik-i Osmaniye hâricinde
emniyet-i Devlet-i Aliyye’yi ihlâl eylemek ve devlete mahsûs resmi mühürleri ve meskûkât-ı râyiceyi ve
eshâm-ı umumiye ve tahvilât ve sergi ve her nevi senadât-ı hazineyi ve tedâvülü kânûnen mücâz olan
banka tahvilâtını taklîd etmek cinâyetiyle müttehem olub da memâlik-i ecnebiyede muhâkemesi icrâ
olunmadığı hâlde memâlik-i Osmaniye’de kânûn-u devlete tatbiken muhâkeme ve mücâzâtı icrâ
olunur.” Madde 6: “Madde-i sâbıkada beyân olunan ahkâm-ı cinâyât-ı mezkûreyi ikâ’ veya iştirâk ile
müttehem olub memâlik-i Osmaniye’de tevkif olunan ve yâhûd celp ve istirdâd olunabilecek olan
tebaa-yı ecnebiyeye dahi şâmildir.” Madde7: “Tebaa-yı Devlet-i Aliyye’den biri memâlik-i Osmaniye
hâricinde tebaa-yı Devlet-i Aliyye’den diğeri aleyhinde bir cinâyete mütecâsir olduğu hâlde memâlik-i
Osmaniye’ye avdet eder ve mürtekip olduğu cinâyetten dolayı memâlik-i ecnebiyede mücâzât-ı
kânûniyesini görmediği tahakkuk eyler ise hakkında muâmele-i kânûniye icrâ olunur.”See: “Meclis-i
Mebusanın Ictimaında Kanuniyeti Teklif Olunmak Üzere Usul-ı Muhâkemât-ı Cezaiye Kanunu
Muvakkatıdır”, Düstur (Tertib 1), Cilt 4; and Nusret Bey, Hukuk-u Hususiye-yi Düvel, 21.
206 Zohrab, Hukuk-u Ceza, 95: “Kâvanin-i cezâiyenin memâlikin her noktasında ikâ’ edilen cerâime
tatbîk olunması kâidesinin netâyicinden biri de şudur ki sefârethâneler ve konsoloshânelerde vâki’
olan cerâim dahi kâvanin-i cezâiye-yi mahalliyeye tâbî olur…Sefârethâneler yalnız sefirin şahsı
itibâriyle taaruzdan masûndur. Fakat sefârethânenin binâsı haric-ez-memleket (extraterritorial) ad
edilemez.”
207 For the debates on the project, which took place in the Ottoman Parliament: See, “Kanun-u
Ceza’nın Bazı Mevad-ı Makamına Kaim Kanun Lâyihası”
https://www5.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanaklar/TUTANAK/MECMEB/mmbd01ic03c0
05/mmbd01ic03c005ink079.pdf
208 Servet, Hukuk-ı Ceza, 5: Madde 3: Memâlik-i Osmaniye’de bir cürm ikâ’ eden şahıs Osmanlı
kanununa tevfiken ceza görür.”
85
was protection granted to political criminals, i.e. asylum. These principles were
anyway inscribed in most extradition treaties. In the absence of a treaty agreement,
the extradition of foreigners depended on an imperial decree (irade). If extradition
was a possibility, the procedure would start with an order from the Ministry of
Justice to the local investigating judge of the place from which the criminal
escaped.209
Most Ottoman legal scholars believed that extradition fell under local
authority. However, they equally believed in the binding force of bilateral treaties as
a means of negotiation that also safeguarded sovereignty rights. This is plausible
considering the jurisdiction each state would otherwise claim. Even though they
supported the need for an official contract, these authors acknowledged that
surrendering a felon as ex gratia (muamele-i cemile) was an option.210 As upcoming
209 Servet, Hukuk-ı Ceza, 84: Madde 9: “Bir cürmden dolayı bir osmanlının memâlik-i ecnebiye iadesi
talebi devletçe kabûl olunamaz. Cerâim-i siyasiyeden veya ânâ mürtebit olan bulunan cerâimden
dolayı bir ecnebinin iâdesi talebi devletçe kabûl edilmez. Erbâb-ı cerâimden bir ecnebinin iâdesini
kabûl ve tasvip etmek hükûmet-i mülkiyeye aid olub hükümet-i adliyenin muvâfakatını istihsâle hâcet
yoktur. Şu kadar ki, iâdesi taleb veya tasvib edilen bir ecnebi hakkında bulunduğu mahal müstantiki
tarafından tevkif-i mezkûresi ısdâr edilmek üzere adliye nezâreti tarafından emr verilebilinir”.
210 According to Kemalpaşazade Said and Cebrail Gregor, the extradition treaties: “Bir devletin kendi
memleketi haricinde irtikâb-ı cürm etmiş bir mücrimi kendi mülkünde tutub da o mücrimi taleb eden
ve anı muhâkeme ve düçâr-ı ceza etmeye kaideten hakkı olan bir devlete iade etmesidir. İade-i
mücrimin muahedeleri taleb-i iade ve icra-yı iade nasıl şerait-i tahtında cereyan edeceğini gösterir,
bu hususa dair suret-i umumiyede ittihâz ve kabul olunmuş kavaid-i umumiye yokdur. Mücrimlerin
iadesini taleb etmeye taleb eden devletin esasen hakkı olduğu gibi iadeyi icra eden devlet için dahi
esasen bir gûna vazife yokdur. Bu cihetle husus-u mezkûra dair mevcud olan mukâvelâtı istiklal ve
saltanatları cihetiyle akd etdikleri muahedattan münbeis kavaidden ibarettir. İade-i mücrimin
hakkında kaide-i umur-ı cezaiyeleri müsavi kavain tahtinda bulunan devletler beyninde hüsn-ü tanzim
olunabilir. Zira aksi halde birinin kavanin-i dahiliyesi diğerinin kavaninine tabii olmuş olur.”
Kemalpaşazade Said and Cebrail Gregor, Hukuk-ı Düvel, 75. In a similar way, Hasan Sırrı thought
that, “her devlet, ecânibin, hatta mensub olduğu devletler tarafından taleb olunsalar bile, mülkü
dahilinde ikamet etmelerine müsaade etmek hakkına malikdir. Binâenaleyh, memleketine iltica eden
erbab-ı ceraimin devlet metbualarına teslim ve iadesi ancak muaheda-ı mahsusa ile vazife şeklini
alır…. İşte bu kavaid-i esasiyeye müstenid bulunan iade-i mücrimin keyfiyeti hakkında devletimizin
yalnız Rusya devleti ve şimal-i Amerika hükümeti müthedesiyle muahedat-ı mahsusisi vardır; düvel-i
saireye erbabı ceraimi iade eylediği halde sırf bir muamele-yi cemile ibraz eylemiş olur.” Hasan
Sırrı, Hukuk-ı Hususiye-yi Düvel, 157. According to Servet: “hükümetler muahedat haricinde de iadei
mücrimin talebini kabul etmekde haiz salâhiyetdedirler. Yalnız, mukaveledeki tahdidasa riayete
mecburdurlar.” Nevertheless, even the strict adherence to these treaty regulations could disappear in
certain situations, which he expresses in the following way: “Memâlik-i Osmaniye’de cürmü irtikab
eden kimseleri, bittefrik tabiyyet ve milliyet iade etmemelidir. Saniyen, Memâlik-i Osmaniye’de
cezalandırılabilecek olan bir cürmü memâlik-i ecnebiyede irtikâb idüb de Memâlik-i Osmaniye’ye
iltica eden kimse iade olunmaz. Salisen, Memâlik-i Osmaniye’nin emniyet-i dahiliye ve itibar-ı
86
chapters demonstrate, the power of diplomacy was a fundamental motive for the ex
gratia extradition of fugitives.
With respect to political criminals, Ottoman legal scholars could not reach a
consensus. Considering the issue’s controversial nature, European states likewise
faced difficulties distinguishing political crimes from those with an anarchic nature.
In the same vein, Kirkor Zohrab underscored the need to clearly differentiate
between political and ordinary crimes and treat them accordingly. This was decisive
when extradition was an option.211 On the other hand, Servet reasoned that what
mattered was not the intent, whether political or not, but the nature and consequences
of the crime committed.212 According to Nusret Bey, even purely political cases
could not be an excuse to deny extradition – that is, extradition should always be an
option if deportation should be best way to resolve the problem.213
Table 5. A list of Major Ottoman International Law Books
Book Title Author Content Printing Date,
Publisher, and
Print Page
Private International
Law (Husus-u Hukûk-u
Düvel)
Hamayak
Hüsrevyan214
* Subjecthood (Tabiyyet)
-Benefits of Law (Lütf-i Kanun)
-Naturalization (Telsik)
-Annexation (İlhâk-ı Arazi )
*Law on Foreigners (Hukuk-u Ecânib)
-Capitulations (Kapitulasyonlar)
Extradition (İade-i Mücrimin)
1329
Edeb Matbaası
238 pages
No index
maliyesini ihlal eden cerâimi memalik-i ecnebiyede ikâ ederek, Memâlik-i Osmaniye’ye gelen
mücrimleri iade etmemelidir.” Servet, Hukuk-ı Ceza, 86 and 89.
211 Zohrab, Hukuk-i Ceza, 70.
212 Servet, Hukuk-u Ceza, 34: For the debates on the assassination attempt against the Sultan
Abdülhamid II: See, Alloul, Eldem and Smaele, To Kill a Sultan: A Transnational History of the
Attempt on Abdulhamid II (1905). The extradition of political crimes will be analyzed in Chapter 6.
213 Nusret Bey, Hukuk-u Hususiye-yi Düvel, 68.
214 Hamayak Hüsrevyan, or Hımayak Hosravyan, was born in 1873 in Bayburt. After completing
secondary education in an Armenian school in that city, he attended Mekteb-i Mülkiye (The School of
the Civil Service). After graduating from the School of Law at Darülfünûn (today’s Istanbul
University) in 1900, Hüsrevyan first worked as a lawyer and later started teaching as in both
institutions. He was a loyal supporter of Armenian nationalism. See: Çankaya, Yeni Mülkiye Tarihi ve
Mülkiyeliler III, 543–544.
87
Private International
Law I (Hukûk-u
Hususiye-yi Düvel I)
Nusret Bey
(Metya)215
*Subjecthood (Tabiyyet)
*Naturalization (Telsik)
* Immigration (Hicret )
* Law on Foreigners (Ecânibin Hukûku)
-Personal Liberty (Hürriyet-i Şahsiye)
Extradition (İade-i Mücrimin)
-Freedom of Religion (Serbest-i Mezâhib)
-Freedom of Press (Serbest-i Matbuat)
-Industrial Property (Mülkiyet-i Sınâiye)
-Legal Person (Eşhâs-ı Maneviye)
-Copyrights (Hakk-ı Telif)
*Law on Foreigners in Our Country
(Memleketimizde Ecânibin Hukuku)
-Capitulations (Kapitülasyonlar)
-Treaties (Muahâdeler)
-Consulates (Konsolosluklar)
-Right of Expropriation (İstimlâk Hakkı)
-Subjecthood (Tabiyyet)
1329
Osmanlı Şirketi
Matbaası
198 pages
No index
Private International
Law II (Hukuk-u
Hususiye-yi Düvel II)
Nusret Bey (Metya) *Capitulations (Kapitülasyonlar)
-Common Law (Hukûk-u Umumiye)
-Inviolability of Establishment
(Masuniyet-i Mesken)
-Personal Liberty (Hürriyet-i Şahsiye)
(Extradition) İade-i mücrimin
-Freedom of Travel (Serbest-i Seyahât)
-Freedom of Trade (Serbest-i Ticaret)
-Freedom of Sect and Religion
-(Serbest-i Mezâhib and Edyân)
-Right of Petitioning (Arzuhâl Virmek
Hakkı)
-Freedom of Education
(Serbest-i Talim ve Taallüm)
-Freedom of Press (Serbest-i Matbuat)
-Conflict of Laws (İhtilâf-ı Kavanin)
1328
Cihan Matbaası
334 pages
No index
Private International
Law (Hukuk-u
Hususiye-yi Düvel)
Hasan Sırrı
(Örikağasızâde)216
*Introduction (Medhâl)
*Subjecthood (Tabiyyet)
-Naturalization (Telsik)
1327
Mahmud Bey
Matbaası
400 pages
Index attached
215 Nusret Bey (Metya) was born in 1877. After graduating from the School of the Civil Service, he
started working in Tercüme Odası (the Translation Office) as a clerk. He was excelled in the French
and Greek languages. During his long career, Nusret Bey taught courses on private international law
in the School of the Civil Service while he held posts in different state departments. He was delegated
to the commission for the abrogation of the capitulations in 1914. During the Republican Period, he
was elected as the Chief Justice. See: BOA MF.MKT. 1102/48, BOA DH. SAİDd. 100/481, BOA HR.
HMŞ.İŞO. 101/24, BOA HR. SAİD. 11/30.
216 Hasan Sırrı (1861-1939) was the son of governor Ahmed Nafiz Pasha and the father of writer
Nahid Sırrı Örik. After graduating from the School of the Civil Service in 1882, he joined the Foreign
Ministry. Hasan Sırrı worked as a translator in the office of the private secretary at Yıldız Palace. Also
served as the keeper of custom registers (rüsûmat emini), Hasan Sırrı was appointed to the Ministry of
Education, and he also taught courses on geography at the School of Teachers and law at the Faculty
of Law. See: BOA DH. SaiDd. 47/401; and Çankaya, Yeni Mülkiye Tarihi ve Mülkiyeliler III, 129–
130.
88
*Foreigners (Ecnebiler)
*Conflicts of Law (İhtilâf-ı Kavanin)
*Competence and Observance of Trial
(Salâhiyet ve Usûl-ü Muhâkeme)
Private International
Law (Hukûk-u
Hususiye-yi Düvel)
Ahmed Nesimi
(Sayman)217
*Subjecthood (Tabiyyet)
*Execution of Judgement (İcra-yı
Muhâkeme)
*Boundary Treaties (Hudud
Mukâveleleri)
*Law on Foreigners (Ecnebilerin
Hukuku)
*Personal and Propert Laws of Foreigners
(Kavanin-i Şahsiye ve Mülkiye-yi
Ecnebi)
*Extradition (İade-yi Mücrimin)
1324
Manuscript
34 pages
No index
International Law
(Hukûk-u Umumiye-yi
Düvel)
Ahmed Şuayb218 *Extradition (İade-i Mücrimin)
*Territorial Waters (Karasuları)
*Interstate Relations
(Devletlerin Münasebât-ı Salahiyeleri)
-Ambassadors(Süfera)
-Consuls (Şehbenderler)
-Treaty Rights (Hakk-ı Muâhede)
* Law on War (Hukûk-u Harb)
-Prisoners of War (Esir-i Harb)
-Booty (Ganâim)
-War Fugitive (Harb Kaçağı)
-Peace Treaties (Muâhedât-ı Sulhiye)
1328
Matbaa-yı
İkbâl
584 pages
No index
International Law
(Hukuk-u Umumiye-yi
Düvel)
Hamayak
Hüsrevyan
*Law of Nations (Hukûk-u Düvel)
-Custom and Traditions (Örf ve Âdat) -
Treaties (Muâhedenâmeler)
*Public International Law
(Hukûk-u Umumiye-yi Düvel)
-Sovereignty (Hakimiyet)
-Annexation (İlhâk)
1326
Mekteb-i
Mülkiye
384 pages
No index
217 Ahmed Nesimi (Sayman) (1876-1958) was an Ottoman statesman, originally from Crete, who
served as the Minister of Trade (1914–1917) and Foreign Affairs (1917–1918). A graduate of Law
Faculty at Darülfünûn, he resumed his education in Paris. See: BOA DH. SAİDd. 193/343; and
Kuneralp, Son Dönem Osmanlı Erkân ve Ricâli (1839–1922): Prosopografik Rehber, 59.
218 Ahmed Şuayb (1876–1910) was a graduate of the Law Faculty, who taught at the Ottoman rüştiye
(junior high school) and Law Faculty on international and administrative law. He also served as the
Director of Education in Istanbul and as the Public Prosecutor of the Court of Accounts (Divân-ı
Muhasebât Müddei-i Umumisi). See: BOA MF. İBT. 20/94, BOA MF.MKT. 1036/73, and BOA BEO
3654/274004.
89
-Fundemantal Laws of the States
(Hukuk-u Asliye-yi Düvel)
-Diplomatic Agents
(Devletleri Hâricen Temsil Eden Zevât)
-Fiction of Extraterritoriality
(Hâriciyet Ez-Memleket Fariziyesi)
-Interior Waters (Dahl-i Deniz)
*The Exam Example (İmtihan Programı)
International Law
(Hukuk-u Düvel)
Ali Edib219 *Personality of States (Şahsiyet-i
Düveliye)
-Identity (Hüviyet)
-Sovereignty (Hakimiyet)
-Right of Equality (Hakk-ı Müsâvât)
-Treaties (Muâhedenâmeler).
-Right and Privileges of the Legations
(Süferânın Mahzar Olduğu Hak ve
İmtiyâzât)
*Subjecthood (Tabiyyet)
-Functions and Competence of the Courts
(Mehâkimin Vezâif ve Salâhiyeti)
-Claiming Back and Extradition
(İstirdâd ve İade-i Mücrimin)
1307
Mekteb-i
Mülkiye
1124 pages
No index
International Law
(Hukuk-u Düvel)
Said
(Kemalpaşazade)220,
Cebrail Grigor221
*Identity of States (Devletlerin Hüviyeti)
*Law of Nations (Hukûk-u Düvel)
-Treaties (Muâhedât)
-Capitulations (Kapitülasyonlar)
-Consulates (Konsoloslar)
-Judiciary Affairs (Umur-u Adliye)
-Extradition Treaties (İade-i Mücrimin
Muâhedeleri)
-Diplomacy (Diplomasi)
-State of War (Hal-i Harb)
1299
Matbaa-yı
Ebü’l-Ziya
156 pages
Index Attached
Summary on
International Law
Hasan Fehmi
(Pasha)223
*Law of Peace (Hukûk-u Sulh) 1300
Matbaa-yı
Osmaniye
219 Ali Edib (1870-1897) was a graduate of the Imperial School and the School of the Civil Service.
He earned his living as a high school teacher by giving courses on history, geography, and literature.
Besides his book on the law of nations, Ali Edib wrote poems with the pseudonym “Nâlâni.” See:
Çankaya, Yeni Mülkiye Tarihi ve Mülkiyeliler III, 507.
220 Kemâlpaşazade Said (Mehmed Said Bey) (1848-1921) was the son of Ahmet Kemâl Pasha, the
ambassador of Berlin. He served in the Foreign Ministry and at the Council of State (Şura-yı Devlet).
He was later appointed as the president of the Court of First Instance at the Council of State. After a
period of exile in Yemen, he retired from the Reform Legislation Section of the Council of State
(Şura-yı Devlet Tanzimât Dairesi). Mehmed Said Bey taught at the Law Faculty and the Imperial
School. See: BOA BEO 3461/259502, BOA Y.EE. 83/17, Beyhan, “Said Bey, Lastik (1848–1921),”
549–551, and Fujinami, “Law for Tanzimat: Islam and Sovereignty in Kemalpaşazade Sait’s Legal
Thought.”
221 Cebrail Gregor (Grigor) (?) was an attorney who was elected as the council member of
municipality (Şehremâneti Meclis Azası). See: İ.DH. 931/73744, and BEO 1653/123961.
223 Hasan Fehmi (Pasha) (1836-1910) was a prominent Ottoman statesman who served as Minister of
Public Works and Minister of Justice. He also held diplomatic missions in Rome and London. After
90
(Telhis-i Hukuk-u
Düvel)222
*Extraterritoriality (Haric-ez memleket)
*Extradition (İade-i Mücrimin)
*Piracy (Deniz Hırsızlığı)
*Slave Trade (Esrâ-yı Zenciye Ticareti)
*Treaties (Ale’l-umum Muâhedât)
* Reasons of Waging War (Esbâb-ı Harb)
500 pages
Index Attached
International Law
(Detailed)
Mufassal Hukuk-u
Düvel
Ali Şahbaz224 *Law of Nations (Hukuk-u Düvel)
*Public International Law
(Hukuk-u Umumiye-yi Düvel)
-Personality of States (Şahsiyet-i
Düveliye) -Right of Sovereignty
(Hakk-ı Hakimiyet) -Right of
Equality (Hakk-ı Müsâvaât) -
Right of Treaty (Hakk-ı Muahedât)
-Diplomatic Relations
(Münâsebât-ı Diplomatika)
*Responsibility of the States
(Mesuliyet-i Düvel)
*Interstate Relations
(Münâsebât-ı Hususiye-yi Düvel)
-Capitulations (Kapitülasyonlar)
-Consular Right of Judgement
(Konsolosların Hakk-ı Kazası)
-Claiming Back and Extradition
(İstirdâd ve İade-i Mücrimin)
1324
Bağdadlıyan
Matbaası
616 pages
Index Attached
International Law II
(Detailed)
Ali Şahbaz *Law on War (Hukuk-u Harb)
– Reciprocity (Mukâbele-yi Bi’l-misl)
1325
Dersaadet
graduating from the Imperial School and the School of the Civil Service, Hasan Fehmi first joined the
Translation Bureau and then the Foreign Correspondence Office. In his early career, he worked in the
Ministry of Pious Foundations, served as district governor, the head of the Court of Accounts (Divân-ı
Muhasebât Reisi), and taught at the Faculty of Law, which he established with few others. See: BOA
Y.MTV. 236/151, BOA DH. SAİDd. 4/176. In 1897, he presided the negotiations with Greece for a
treaty agreement addressing extradition, consulate regulations and subjecthood issue, See: BOA BEO
1060/79447.
222 Even though Hasan Fehmi wrote this work for the Faculty of Law by renouncing any copyrights,
the Hamidian government soon denounced the book and called off its use in the schools. Because, on
the one hand, they thought that some parts regarding the consular right of jurisdiction and
extraterritoriality needed clarification. On the other hand, they believed that the arguments of Hasan
Fehmi in the section “Sovereignty and the Liberty of States” implied the idea that the stormy and
longtime insurrections in the empire would harm the local trade and justify foreign interventions
(İhtilâlât-ı dahiliyenin müddet-i medide devam ve istidâsının, ticâret-i mahaliyenin haleldâr olması ve
düvel-I ecnebiyenin müdahalelerinin bilâhare tasdik-i istiklâllerine kadar gidebileceği medtûr
olduğundan…). See: BOA MF. MKT. 188/43, BOA Y.EE. 37/54, BOA İ.HUS. 30/38, BOA
MF.MKT. 232/46, BOA BEO 493/36957.
224 Ali Şahbaz Efendi (1838–1898) was an Ottoman Armenian legal scholar, who first went to an
Armenian Faculty of Theology in Venice. After completing his law education at the School of the
Civil Service and Sorbonne Faculty of Law, Ali Şahbaz later taught at the Faculty of Law on
international law and trade law. During his career, he also worked as a translator at French Consulate
and he became a member of the Ottoman Supreme Court. See: BOA DH. SAİDd. 112/179, and
Çankaya, Yeni Mülkiye Tarihi ve Mülkiyeliler II, 945.
91
Mufassal Hukuk-u
Düvel II
-Embargo (Ambargo)
-Right of War (Hakk-ı Harb)
-Armistice (Mütareke)
-Right of Expulsion (Hakk-ı Tebid)
Matbaa-yı
Ziraiye
562 pages
No index
Historical Theory and
Evolutionary Phases of
International Law
(Hukuk-u Beyn’eddüvelin
Mukaddemât-ı
Nazariyesi ve Safahât-ı
Tekâmüliyesi))
Ahmed
Selahaddin225
*International Law (Hukûk-u Düvel)
-Private and Public International Laws
(Hukûk-u Hususiye-yi ve Umumiye-yi
Düvel) -Comity of Nations (Mücâmele-yi
Düveliyye)
*History of Law of Nations
(Hukûk-u Düvelin Tarih-i Tekemmülü)
*Private International Law
(Hukûk-u Hususiye-yi Düvel)
*Subjecthood (Tabiyyet)
*Privileges of Foreigners in the Ottoman
Empire
(Memâlik-i Osmaniye’de İmtiyâzât-ı
Ecnebiye)
1331
Kanâat
Matbaası
672 pages
No index
History of
International Law
(Tarih-i Hukûk-u
Beyn’ed-düvel)
İbrahim Hakkı
(Pasha)226
*Historical Periods
*Political Regulations (Kavâid-i
Siyasiye)
*Authors and Works (Müellifin ve Asâr)
*International Treaties
1303
Karabet ve
Kasbar
Matbaası
240 pages
Index Attached
2.5 Conclusion
Embassies are not to be a place of refuge for any person having committed a
felony as ascribed in the provisions of international law. Accordingly, if a
225 The father of Haldun Taner, Ahmed Selahaddin (1878–1920) graduated from the School of the
Civil Service. Working at different institutions, such as Regie Company, Agricultural Bank (Ziraat
Bankası), and Ottoman Public Debt Administration (Düyûn-u Umumiye), he taught at the Faculty of
Law. Ahmed Selahaddin was elected as Istanbul parliament member in 1919. DH. SAİDd. 113/51;
Çankaya, Yeni Mülkiye Tarihi ve Mülkiyeliler III, 837–838, and Meray, Lozan’ın Bir Öncüsü: Prof.
Ahmet Selahattin Bey 1878-1920.
226 The son of Mehmed Remzi Efendi, the Head of the Municipality Council, İbrahim Hakkı (Pasha)
(1863–1918) was the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire (1910–1913). After graduating from the
School of the Civil Service, he worked as a translator at the Imperial Palace Secretariat (Mabeyn-i
Hümayûn Mütercimi). Later, Ibrahim Hakkı served in different ministries of the Sublime Porte and
foreign missions. Also working at the Office of Legal Counsel for a while, Ibrahim Hakkı taught at
the Law Faculty and wrote many books on law. See: BOA DH. SAİDd. 183/100, and also Fujinami,
“The First Ottoman History of International Law,” 245–270; and Findley, Ottoman Civil Officialdom:
A Social History.
92
fugitive criminal takes refuge in a consulate, their extradition and surrender
was obligatory. But if the authorities abstain from doing so, the offenders
cannot be taken by force. Instead, an official appeal to the government and
political mediation will follow… As most European states extradite ordinary
criminals to the Ottoman Empire in accordance with international law, there
are no difficulties so long as the criminals were tried for the offenses for
which they were surrendered. If there are political criminals or soldiers, there
is no offense with which to accuse and sentence. In such situations, there will
be obstacles with respect to their extradition.227
The words in an 1898 report by İbrahim Hakkı Bey, the legal advisor of the Office of
Legal Counsel and the future Grand Vizier (1910-1911), briefly describes how
extradition should ideally be practiced in the Ottoman Empire. However, the legal
concept conforms neither to the ideals of the Ottoman Empire nor to anywhere in the
world. Guaranteed in bilateral treaties, the extradition of criminals and fugitives was
always accomplished through diplomatic means and affected by the political order of
the day. Above all, the issue was a matter of territorial sovereignty determined by the
judicial and executive forces. In this chapter, I have laid down a concise outline of
the importance of extradition practice in a historical context.
Crime is a universal part of history, and preventive and punitive measures
have continually evolved in time and place. The asylum of fugitives and the legal
status of foreign outlaws add a diplomatic dimension to designated state policies.
With a focus on Europe, this chapter demonstrated how the surrender of criminals
had relied on diplomatic courtesy in the earlier centuries and gradually changed
227 BOA Y.EE. 10/9: “Hukuk-ı düvel kavaid-i umumiyesi ahkâmınca sefarethaneler hiçbir nevi erbâbı
cerâim ve cinayâta melce olamaz. Binaenaleyh hakkında heyet-i adliyece icrâyı takibat olunan bir
mücrim bir sefarethâneye iltica ederse sefir tarafından iade ve teslimi icâb ederek ancak tesliminden
imtina’ olunursa cebren alınamayub hükümete müracâat ve işi siyaseten halle mübaderet icab eyler….
Avrupa devletlerinin kısm-ı azamı hukuk-ı düvel kavaid-i umumiyesine tevfiken mücrimin-i adiye-yi
osmaniyeyi iade eylediklerinden bu gibilerin istirdâdlarında müşkülât çekilmeyip yalnız avdetlerinde
kendilerinin hangi cürümden dolayı iadeleri taleb olunmuş ise ondan dolayı mahkûmiyetleriyle iktifâ
olunması lazımdır. Saniyen firarilerin cerâim-i siyasiye ashâbından ve salisen askerden olmaları ve
kendileriyle hukuk-ı adiyye ceraiminden birinin isnadı ve o suretle ithamları dahil-i imkân bulmaması
halleridir. Bu suretde bunların istirdâdları kesb-i müşkülât ider.”
93
shape concomitant with political developments and evolving legal perceptions. As
the notion of the law of nations came to be advanced in the seventeenth century,
interstate relations were reoriented around the new idea of state sovereignty. The
Roman custom of locus regit actum (the place governs the act), which Europe had
adopted to secure justice and prevent impunity, gradually became a cardinal principle
for territorial sovereignty. Thus, the diplomatic courtesy of earlier centuries gave
way to bilateral conventions that addressed the criminal mobility and the practice of
extradition. Only in the nineteenth century, did these treaties assume the standard
form and content of extradition treaties proper. However, conflicting law and judicial
variances exemplified the impossibility of depending on treaties.
Extradition treaties of the nineteenth century were an official response to
increasing sweeping of transnational crimes on the global stage, addressing it under
the auspices of international law. Extradition was also an aspect of domestic security,
and states formulated resolutions against it in their penal codes. Both executive and
judicial state authorities regulated the operational procedures. As the subject of
extradition touched on questions of territorial jurisdiction and nationality, the
subfield of private international law dealt with this issue. This situation notably
applied to the Ottoman case since extradition was never treated independently of the
issue of subjecthood and jurisdictional impediments posed by the capitulations. The
existence of the consular system eliminated the need for extradition treaties because
the notion of a fugitive criminal had little meaning in the Ottoman Empire. Consuls
already had the right to try their nationals in situ. On the other hand, there were no
reciprocal regulations to prevent the impunity of Ottoman criminals who sought
refuge in a foreign state. Accordingly, this chapter briefly outlines the capitulatory
94
system and its place in the Ottoman judicial structure. In so doing, it has also pointed
out the legal reforms introduced in the nineteenth century.
The only official treaty of the Ottoman Empire was an 1874 agreement with
the United States, which was never effectively applied. The regulations of previous
centuries and their distinctive stipulations were reiterated in peace treaties signed
after wars. Given the absence of treaties, the Ottoman state faced a serious challenge
in responding to the contemporaneous increase in transnational crime. Security along
the frontiers, in particular, required other means of maintaining order. This chapter
provides a preliminary introduction to these efforts, which are analyzed in depth in
the following chapters.
Finally, this chapter presents Ottoman engagement with international law
with an account of educational reform in the legal profession. The Office of Legal
Counsel was a leading institution to which this engagement took place. As
emblematic Tanzimat statesmen in the Ottoman bureaucracy, the legal advisors of
this office had expertise in both law and assorted state affairs. The legal opinions
they put forward formed the primary stance of the empire on extradition. This
chapter also presents how normative law addressed the practice of extradition with a
comprehensive analysis of Ottoman legal books in which legal scholars treated the
issue in the context of territorial sovereignty and the capitulation system.
95
CHAPTER 3
SEEKING JUSTICE ABROAD: OTTOMAN INTERSTATE COLLABORATION
AGAINST KAİME FORGERS
Changing the scale of a map is a matter not simply of depicting a constant
reality in a larger or smaller format but of changing content of the
representation (that is, the choice of what is representable). Note, incidentally,
that in this sense the "micro" dimension enjoys no particular privilege. It is the
principle of variation that is important, not the choice of any particular scale.228
In February 1858, Italian authorities reported that some individuals were producing
counterfeit kaime (Ottoman paper money) in Turin. Count de Salmour229 of the
Italian Ministry of the Interior notified Ottoman envoy Rüstem Bey about the
circumstance. A printer using the alias Mircovich ordered a vast amount of good
quality paper from Charles Lena, the director of the Avando Brothers paper factory
in Sassari, a small town in Sardinia. The size of the order and circulating rumors
raised the suspicions of the authorities. Although the director denied all the
accusations of the Questura (the Italian police), he later admitted to delivering the
materials to the district of Madonna del Pilone near Turin. The paper was sent to an
apartment in the same building where Mircovich (whose real name was Dimitri
Calvocoressi) lived. Even though he was nowhere to be found, his accomplices
Alexandre Venanzi, Louis Varallo Pandolfini, and Ambrosio Bondesio were
arrested. The gardener of the apartment building, Jean Berrino, confirmed police
suspicions by providing a leather case containing 4181 bills of 20 Ottoman piasters
228 Revel, “Microanalysis and the Construction of the Social,” 495.
229 Rugiero Gabaleone di Salmour (1806-1878). French politician and state official, having double
citizenship from France and the Sardinia-Piedmont. Count Salmour was a senator and member for
years in the Chamber of Deputies of Sardinia-Piedmont Kingdom. See, Gentile, “SALMOUR,
Ruggiero Gabaleone conte di” https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/ruggiero-gabaleone-conte-disalmour_%
28Dizionario-Biografico%29/
96
(kuruş) each as well as the accomplices' bank accounts. He had found the bag
covered with snow in a vineyard not far from the house.230 A yearlong investigation
uncovered an extensive criminal network that not only linked Turin to Istanbul but
other corners of Europe and the Ottoman Empire, as well.
This chapter adopts a legal approach to the subject but over a larger time
frame. On the micro-scale, it is the story of a Greek merchant and forger, Dimitri
Calvocoressi (alia Mircovitch), and an Italian lawyer Ambrosia Bondesio who
brought this vivid historical episode in the late 1850s into being. The criminal
network they initiated was the effect of sweeping changes on the world scene. A
decade of war and the unification of Italy were underway, an atmosphere from which
frauds of all sorts profited. In this respect, this episode suggests an alternate reading
of the Crimean War (1853-1856) and Risorgimento period (1848-1871) beyond their
nature as military conflicts.231 On a macro-scale, the data enable a comprehensive
analysis of a case study that yields a much broader historical picture.232
The Ottoman Empire was undertaking far-reaching measures to develop the
state’s judicial power and capacity, which is the precise point from which this
chapter intends to move forward. In the absence of extradition treaties, the case of
the kaime forgers became the first serious efforts by the Ottomans in the international
arena to seek justice ex gratia. In the face of war, the judicial collaboration with Italy
230 BOA HR.H169/2, 15 February 1858.
231 Great number of books on the memories of war participants were published during the war time
and afterwards. For some of them: See, Bazancourt, Cinq Mois au Camp Devant Sevastapol; Conway
and Bayley, Soldier-Surgeon: The Crimean War Letters of Dr.Douglas A.Reid, 1855-1856; Calani,
Scene Della Vita Militare in Crimea; Clifford, Letters and Sketches from the Crimea; Evelyn, A Diary
of Crimea; Reid, Memories of Crimean War, January 1855 to June 1856; Robinson, Diary of the
Crimean War; Heath, Letters From the Black Sea During the Crimean War, 1854-1855; Hornby,
Constantinople During the Crimean War; Slade, Turkey and the Crimean War: A Narrative of
Historical Events, (London; Smith-Elder, 1867.
232 Recently, Past&Present published a special issue on micro and global history writing. For some of
the preliminary remarks and analysis: See, Ghobrial, “Introduction: Seeing the World like a
Microhistorian;” Vries, “Playing with Scales: the Global and the Micro, the Macro and the Nano,” and
Levi, “Frail Frontiers?”.
97
and the legal challenges encountered are crucial for understanding how interstate
security devices worked for the Ottoman state in times of crisis. This chapter
recounts an early example of how Ottoman international relations were not limited to
political and economic alliances but evolved through diverse diplomatic dialogues
and legal mediations. In particular, recent penal codes played a decisive role as a
basis for legitimate judicial collaboration. Artful diplomatic agents became the
advocates of a novel legal rhetoric to achieve this.
Most studies in the existing academic literature focus on the Hamidian era in
contrasts to a dearth of studies on Ottoman struggles with transnational crime in
earlier decades. The earlier periods are crucial to understand the seeds of an Ottoman
security organization expanding beyond the domestic setting.233 How did the Empire
deal with crimes that transcended state borders? How did judicial and security
policies align with existing reforms at home? How did parties settle conflicts
between their laws? What was the role of penal codes? How were fugitive criminals
put on trial? Few studies focus on the kaime forgery and its global impacts.234 The
233 The studies of Ilkay Yılmaz meticulously address the Hamidian security policies and passport
regulations. See Yılmaz, Serseri, Anarşist ve Fesadın Peşinde; “Propoganda by Deed and Hotel
Registration Regulations in the Late Ottoman Empire”; “Governing the Armenian Question Through
Passports in the Late Ottoman Empire (1876-1908)”. For other works on late Ottoman policing: See,
Levy-Aksu, “A Capital Challenge: Managing Violence and Disorders in Late Ottoman Istanbul”;
Deal, Crimes of Honor, Drunken Brawls and Murder – Violence in Istanbul Under Abdulhamid II;
Özbek, “Policing the Countryside: Gendarmes of the Late-Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire
(1876-1908)”; Gutman, “Travel Documents, Mobility Control, and the Ottoman State in the Age of
Global Migration, 1880-1915”; To Kill a Sultan, ed. Alloul, Eldem and Smaele,; and the special issue
of The late Ottoman port-cities and their inhabitants: subjectivity, urbanity, and conflicting orders.
234 Among these works, the recently published book by Marc Aymes unravels a forgery incident in
1844. The book is centered around a criminal forgery network organized by a Greek captain from
Corfu and a French lithographer from Grenoble: See, Aymes, Les Faux-Monnayeurs d’Istanbul. For
the other examples: See, Kılıç, “XI. Yüzyılın ikinci yarısında Osmanlı Devleti’nde Kalpazanlık
Faaliyetleri,” and Taşkın, “1844 Tashih-i Sikke Sonrasında Para Düzeni ve Kalpazanlık”; Baytimur,
“Osmanlı Devleti’nde Kalpazanlık Faaliyetleri ve Uygulanan Cezalar (1789-1808)”. Also see Cörüt,
“Social Rationality of Lower-Class Criminal Practices in the Nineteenth Century Istanbul,” Gürsoy,
“Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Sikke Kalpazanlığı (1808-1861),” Karakaya, “Osmanlı Ceza Hukukunda
Parada Sahtecilik Suçu,” and Öztel, “Osmanlı Devleti’nde Madeni ve Kağıt Para Kalpazanlığında
Yabancıların ve Yabancı Ülkelerin Rolü (1818-1923)”; “Osmanlı Devleti’nde Kalpazanlık ve Sahte
Para (1818-1914): Kalpazanlığın ve Tedavül eden Kalp Paraların Sosyo Ekonomik Etkileri”;
“Ingiltere’de Osmanlı Meskukatı Konulu bir Kalpazanlık Olayı: Anthony Cavocaressi ve Thomas
Moss Davası”. Especially, the studies of Öztel use numerous archival documents that are broad in
98
crimes of transnational character required close collaboration as each state held
jurisdictional competency for crimes took place in their territories. The legal scholar
Servet Bey underlined that point, stating that each state should punish the convicts
under charge after their penal codes.235 Thus, this chapter contributes to the few
existing works by addressing how a significant crime became an international
question on the global stage.
scope on forgery and touch upon certain judicial points relevant to the capitulations and immunities of
foreign subjects. However, his main arguments could not go beyond falling into the trap of portraying
a weak Ottoman state that had to cope with foreign pressure. Öztel argues that widespread activities of
forgery in the Ottoman lands were the result of immunities foreigners cherished without the fear of
being punished and the inability of Ottomans to confront them. On the contrary, the archival materials
I analyzed demonstrate a more complicated picture that could not be easily explained by power
imbalance.
235 Servet, Hukuk-ı Ceza: Malumat-ı Umumiye ve Kısm-ı Cürm, 63-64: “Cerâim-i mütemadiyede cürm
bir anda nihayet bulmayarak mütemadi edebileceğinden bir memleket-i ecnebiyede başlar ve
Memâlik-i Osmaniyede devam edebilir. Şu hâlde bir cürm mütemadi ancak Memâlik-i Osmaniyede
ikâ olunan silsile-i ifâl ile memleketimizde ikâ edilmiş ad olunabilir, …Ifâlden bir kısmı Memâlik-i
ecnebiyede diğer bir kısmı Memâlik-i Osmaniyede ikâ edilmiş ise muhakeme-i Osmaniye ancak ifal-i
ahireye itibar eder,”
99
Figure 3. Portrait of the transnational thief Paolo Maltese (alias Nicolas
Demetrius), who committed crimes both in Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman
Empire in 1878. He was first imprisoned in Austria-Hungary, then extradited
to the Ottoman Empire after a yearlong sentence.236
236 BOA HR.H. 382/11. His nationality was not stated in the document.
100
3.1 Forgery and Extradition
Forgery was a grave offense that directly threatened a state’s interests and crippled
economic confidence. But the growing threat of international forgery attracted
worldwide attention only in the early twentieth century. Since then, states have
sought common solutions at the international level. But even before that time,
forgery had never been considered to be an ordinary crime but rather an anarchic
activity. Grotius defined them as such and supported legal sanctions against such
anarchic activities that put public order at risk.237 As an early example, Henning
Friedrich Bargum, a Danish merchant, was accused of the embezzlement of 174,000
fake florins in 1791. After seeking refuge in France, Bargum was arrested in
Huningue, and his extradition became a hot topic between the French and Viennese
governments. Fearing Bargum’s harsh punishment, France protected him and
proposed an international measure for such a crime that “touches the interests of all
nations and their public fortune that rests on the security of national papers.”238 As
such, crimes of this nature during the Age of Revolution became part of an endless
debate; the political motives attributed to their actions frequently situated the forgers
as anarchic heroes who resisted state authorities.239 Extradition served as a powerful
international tool employed against forgers in the next century and every extradition
treaty incorporated regulations with respect to forgery.
For the first time, on 5 June 1926, France suggested a worldwide meeting
because the French National Bank was coping with an increase in forgery cases in
branches abroad. In April 1929 the delegates of many states came together in
237 Keene, “Introduction”, Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World
Politics), 2.
238 Reuss, “L’Affaire des Faussaires de Vienne Arrêtes a Huningue et l’Assemblée Nationale (1790-
1792) d’Après Quelques Documents Inédits,” 300.
239 This term refers to the late 18th - mid 19th centuries. The historian Eric Hobsbawm contributed to
its popularization as a term when he published his book that has the same title.
101
Geneva. The meeting, which was inaugurated by the president of the National Bank
of Czechoslovakia, was initially unable to agree on an extradition treaty due to
difference in jurisdiction. Ultimately, an agreement was endorsed as part of the
League of Nations Treaty Series, and it was officially put in force in March 1931.
Forgery was declared a crime under the prerogative of the extradition regulation. The
agreement remains valid today.240
The Ottoman Empire had no agreement to apply with respect to the
fraudulent activities of the kaime forgers in Italy. Italian kingdoms had extradition
agreements among themselves. After Risorgimento, Italy, as a nation, likewise
signed treaties with other states, which the Ottoman Foreign Ministry closely
monitored. 241 In 1864, Fuad Pasha extensively reviewed these treaties which Rüstem
Bey was collecting.242 However, despite a few attempts, an official extradition treaty
with Italy was never signed. The first official extradition treaty with Italy was only
secured by the Republic of Turkey in 1926.243
The absence of treaties with the European states was related to the inequality
of their relationship; the fetters of the capitulations devaluated the legal system of the
Ottoman state as discussed previously. That capitulations were the foremost issue
standing in the way of Ottoman legal autonomy is considered inconvertible, as this
was the long-established practice. Nevertheless, this idea should be treated with
240 Dupriez, “La Répression Internationale du Faux-Monnayage” and Compte Rendus de la
Conférence Internationale pour l’Adoption d’une Convention Pour la Répression du Faux
Monnayage : Genève, du 9 au 20 avril 1929 ; and “International Convention for the Suppression of
Counterfeiting Currency and Protocol. Signed at Geneva, April 20, 1929”; “Rapport Faux
Monnayage”, Troisième Conférence International d’Unification du Droit Pénal.
241 For the list of Italian extradition treaties: See, Fiore, Traite Droit Pénal International et de
L’Extradition, Vol. I, 302-304.
242 BOA HR.TH 3/16. The Ottoman Foreign Ministry received the copy of the treaties between Italy-
Britain and Italy-USA: See, BOA HR.TO 512/31 and HR.TO 512/23.
243 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO 164/19; BOA HR. İD 2100/40; and BOA HR. İM 193/89. See, “Trattato di
Estradizione del 19 Giugno 1926 tra l’Italia e la Turchia”. It was signed by Benito Mussolini, the
Prime Minister of Italy (1922-1943) and Suad Bey (Davaz), the Turkish ambassador to Italy (1923-
1932).
102
caution. Customary application aside, the jurisdictional privileges of foreign subjects
guaranteed by the capitulations were limited in the treaties.
The passages concerning judicial rights in the treaties signed with the
Kingdoms of the Two Sicilies in 1740, with Sardinia in 1825, and with the Duchy of
Tuscany in 1833 makes this last point explicit.244 The content of these passages in
each of these treaties are facsimiles of all other capitulation treaties. No plenary
authority was given to the consuls except in civil and criminal cases between their
nationals and other foreign consuls.245 No right to adjudicate or hand down sentences
in criminal cases involving Ottoman subjects was granted to the consuls, and
commercial cases were likewise to be resolved in mixed courts.246 In such legal
cases, the trial and judgment were the mandates of the Ottoman legal system. The
only distinctive procedure was the right of dragomans or consular representatives to
244 These treaties later became the model of the 1861 Treaty of Navigation and Commerce with Italy.
Report of Edward A. van Dyck, Consulate Clerk of the United States at Cairo, upon the Capitulations
of the Ottoman Empire since the Year 1150, part I, 19.
245 For instance, the Italian consul demanded in 1867 the application of Italian laws in the mixed
courts of the legal conflicts that included the Ottoman subjects. The Ottoman Foreign Minister, Fuad
Pasha, refused the request pushing the consulate to convince the Italian government to step back.
BOA HR.H. 511/52.
246 Sardinya Devleti ile Münâkıd olan Muâhede; Madde 4: “Sardunya tebaâsı beyninde zuhûr iden
da’vâ ve münazaât elçi veyahut konsoloslar marifetiyle rü’yet olunub eğer Devleti Aliyye tebaâ ve
reayâsıyla Sardunya reayâsı beyninde niza’ ve da’vâ vâkıa olur ise tercümanı hazır olduğu hükkâm ve
zabitân vesair taraflarından bilmûceb dahl ve taarruz olunmayub töhmetleri vukûnda sair müsteminân
haklarında muamele olunduğu vechle elçileri ve konsoloslarının inzimâm ve marifetiyle iktizâ eden
te’dîbleri icrâ oluna”; Sicilyateyn Devleti ile Münâkıd olan Muâhede, Madde 4: “Konsolos ve
tercümânları ile da’vâ-yı zuhûr ider ise dörtbin akçeden ziyade da’vâ olunduğu hâlde da’vâları sâire
mahâlde istimâ’ ve fasl olunmayub Asitâne-i Saâdete havâle oluna ve kezalik Devlet-i Aliyye
reayâsıyla kral-ı müşarünileyh tüccâr vesâir reayâları ve himâyesi altında olunanlar bey’ü serâ ve
ticâret huşularıyla vesâir bahane ile da’vâ ve kâzaya vardıklarında tercümânlarından biri
bulunmadıkça da’vâları istimâ’ve fasl olunmaya ve borçları ve kefâletleri ma’mûl be senedât ve defter
olmadıkça da’vâ olunan deyn içün hilâf şeri’-yi şerîf müdâhale olunmaya ve tüccarı beyninde da’vâ
zuhur eyledikde bu makule olan da’vâları konsolos ve tercümânları vesâtetleriyle şurût ve kaideleri
üzere görülmesi câiz ola ve bu muâmele hîn-i iktizâda onların memleketlerinde bulunan devlet-i
aliyyenin tüccâr ve reayâsı haklarında dahi böylece mer’î tutula”, Madde 5: “Devlet-i Aliyye’nin
hükkâm ve zabitânı kral-ı müşarünileyhe tâbi’ olanlardan her kim olur ise olsun bir ferdini bilâ-vech
ta’sdi ve tahkir ve habs itmeyeler ve reayâlarından bir kimesne ahz olunduk da vekili ve konsolosu
tarafından taleb olunur ise teslim olunub töhmetlerine göre te’dîb oluna”. See, “Devlet-i Aliyye ile
Düvel-i Mütehabbe Beynlerinde Teyemmünen Münâkid Olan Muahedât-ı Atika ve Cedideden
Memurîn-i Saltanat-ı Seniyeye Müracaâtı Lazım Gelen Fukarât-ı Ahdiyeyi Mutazammın Risaledir”.
103
attend and officially confirm sentences. After that, consuls had the right to detain
their own citizens in consular prisons.247
In practice, Ottoman and Italian authorities occasionally delivered criminals
ex gratia.248 Nationality and whereabouts of the crime were the key determinants of
this policy. Even if the parties were reluctant to hand over their own citizens, they
often strayed from this principle depending on the nature of the crime and where it
was committed. If the crime did not directly harm the interests of the Ottoman state,
fugitives were usually delivered to consular authorities within the empire. In the
alternative scenario, Italians would deliver them via sea from Italy.249
Nevertheless, customary practice frequently prevailed over the rule of law
and obscured the implications of the written texts: namely, capitulations implied
unequal treatment before the law. For example, the proposed penal legislation,
prepared by the Italian legal expert Pasquale Fiore (1837-1914),250 which would have
regulated criminal sentences abroad, is consistent with the double reality of the
capitulations. Articles 31 and 32 stated that Italian consuls in Turkey and other states
of similar standing had the absolute right to “arrest, judge, and punish” Italians in
247 While Germany, Holland, Russia, Austria and US renounced the right to imprison their subjects in
the Ottoman prisons; England, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Sweden and Persia allowed this option
under certain conditions: Brown, Foreigners in Turkey: Their Juridical Status.
248 This practice is representative for other European states, as well.
249 Giacomo Giorgio, an Italian that escaped to Izmir after committing theft and murder was delivered
to the Italian authorities in 1865: BOA HR.H. 170/5. In 1875, two bohemian comedians who attacked
the Ottoman consular members in Brindisi were placed to an Austrian by the Italian authorities to be
sent to an Ottoman port: BOA HR.H. 311/63. Even though Abdullah Suleiman was an Ottoman
subject, he was arrested by the Italian authorities because of his offense on an Italian ship and his
escape thereafter in 1872. The extradition was not possible as the offense was outside of the empire
and as he was responsible for the escape of an Italian who murdered the member of the Italian consul
in Izmir: BOA HR.H. 170/11. The fraud Osman, alias Joseph Raskovic, escaped to Italy for an
embezzlement incident in Belgium in 1866. Because of his dubious identity as an Ottoman and the
place of crime, the Ottoman government guaranteed not to interfere in the process of his extradition to
Belgium: BOA HR.H. 164/20. In 1874, the Ottoman Vice Consul of Civita Vecchia was arrested and
imprisoned in Italy for defraud and fake documentation. Despite he was under consular protection, his
identity and the severity of crime blocked the Ottoman protests. BOA HR.H. 164/48.
250 The well-known Italian jurist and expert in international law.
104
those territories. 251 There was no need for extradition since a simple arrest warrant
was sufficient for consuls to initiate proceedings. For this reason, they “neglect(ed)
all discussions of the reasons that motivated such an exceptional choice,” by which
Fiori referred to the capitulatory regime.252
Clearly, the import of the capitulations increased twofold in the interpretation
of its advocates. The capitulations were used to argue against extradition, but this
treaty system of agreements was not the issue. The dearth of a comprehensive
Ottoman civil, criminal, and procedural legislation empowered this use of
capitulations to justify European claims of supremacy over the weak Ottoman
judicial apparatus. In the meantime, European states had long protected their judicial
sovereignty via their penal codes. The nature of legal relations with Europe changed
saliently after the accelerated efforts of the Ottoman Empire to codify their legal
practices. These developments contributed to a broad policy change regarding legal
conflicts with foreign parties. The Tanzimat envisioned a government body bolstered
by taxation and conscription and ultimately legitimated by state law and ideology.
Herein, legal reforms played equally a significant role in establishing the relations
between the state and society.253
The policies employed in this early Ottoman legal venture in the international
arena were examples for future attempts to deal with transnational crimes. Later
efforts herein owed as much to accumulated legal knowledge as the experiment and
technical knowhow as to diplomacy. It is striking how penal codes assumed both a
251 It is a question to ponder on why Italy had extradition treaties with Siam and China in the
nineteenth century, while it was reluctant to have one with Japan and the Ottoman Empire. These were
the four powers that were usually treated within the same category of semi-civilized states. Among
many other factors, I think this situation mainly signals the imponderable nature of relations among
the states. For a good comparison with the historical developments in Japan and China: See;
Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital, 178-186.
252 Fiore, Traite Droit Pénal International et de L’Extradition, Vol. I, 25.
253 Kırlı, “Tanzimat: Düzen ve Kaos”, 80.
105
territorial and personal character in interstate legal mediations.254 Despite chaos
created by the kaime forgers, the atmosphere did not push Turin, Istanbul, and
Bologna into a political tug of war or a diplomatic crisis. On the contrary, the states
closely collaborated and developed confidence in one another’s police forces,
diplomatic agents, and legal apparatuses.
3.2 The Crimean War through Rogues and Impostors: The Kaime Forgers255
A few days ago, at a late hour, a merchant saw a packet on the ground while
visiting a friend near the Ağa Cami. Opening it, he found 70,000 piastres of
false caimes of 250 piastres each. Then, two individuals passing by claimed a
share of the discovery, and he had to give half of the money to them. The
merchant then admitted that they were fake and sent the money to the Grand
Vizier. We are in search of those who forced him to share half of the
amount.256
Such encounters in the streets of Istanbul have the taste of a fiction, but forgery was a
common phenomenon in the 1850s and 1860s Istanbul. The official Ottoman
newspaper Journal de Constantinople Écho de l’Orient reported similar cases from
various corners of the city.257 Beyond the specific reasons of given forgers, the
254 Billot explains this double character in the following words: “La loi pénale présente un double
caractère; elle est à la fois territoriale et personnelle : territoriale, en ce sens qu'elle oblige tous ceux
qui habitent le territoire, les étrangers comme les citoyens; personnelle, parce qu'elle oblige les
citoyens, même en pays étranger, et que, s'ils commettent une infraction en pays étranger, elle permet
de leur en demander compte, lorsqu'ils reviennent dans leur patrie. Cette doctrine, il est vrai, n'est pas
encore universellement admise. D'après certains jurisconsultes (l), la loi pénale serait essentiellement
territoriale ; le droit de punir n’appartiendrait qu'au pays sur le territoire duquel l'infraction a été
commise. Plusieurs législations suivent encore ce système. Toutefois, ces divergences n'infirment en
rien la théorie qui va être établie. Il y avait lieu seulement de les noter, pour prévenir que, dans la pratique,
elle n'est pas applicable en toutes circonstances.” Billot, Traite de L’Extradition, 228-229.
255 For this title, I am inspired by the chapter “Impostors and Incorrigible Rogues” of the following
book: See, Cole, Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification.
256 Journal de Constantinople Echo de L’Orient, 13 March 1858: “Il y a quelque jours, un négociant
se rendant vers le tard chez un de ses amis demeurant du côté d’Ağa Cami, aperçut par terre un
paquet. L’ayant pris et ouvert il y trouva pour 70.000 piastres de faux caimes de 250 piastres. Au
même moment, deux individus qui passaient par là, réclamèrent leur part de la trouvaille, et la moitié
des caimes leur fut donnée : le négociant reconnaisse ensuite qu’ils étaient faux, les envoya chez le
grand-vesir. On est à la recherche de ceux qui l’ont force de partager avec eux. »
257 For some other examples: See, Journal de Constantinople Echo de L’Orient, 17 Fevrier 1858, 12
June 1858, 6 November 1859, 30 October 1860. Forgery in the Ottoman lands was not only restricted
to that period. In earlier decades, there were numerous cases of an international character, as a series
of archival documents demonstrate. One outstanding example was the forgery network dating back to
the 1840s. A group of forgers, led by Mihail Patyoni, an English of Greek origin, produced fake
106
circumstances that eventually paved the way for the Crimean war fully explain the
alarming rise in forgery.258 The period was decisive for the histories of both the
Ottoman Empire and world as the shifting balance of power left its mark on postwar
international settlements.
After the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), most European powers were
determined to avoid the same suffering in the future. Thus, the ensuing 1815
Congress of Vienna envisaged a world order undergirded by international law to
secure public order and political stability.259 Emblematic of such diplomatic
relations, the Concert of Europe was too fragile in the face of upcoming revolutions.
The police networks of the Restoration Period, which were established throughout
Europe under the initiative of Metternich were likewise ineffective in preventing
increasing agitation.260
After decades of turmoil, the Crimean War initiated a new phase in
diplomatic relations by reorienting global politics.261 The Treaty of Paris (1856) and
kaimes and put them in circulation in the Ottoman empire. After employing diplomatic negotiations
with English officials, the Ottoman state arrested many of them: See, BOA HR.SFR.3 4/28, 4/14;
BOA MVL 846/49, 224/3; BOA HR. MKT 41/55.
258 There were many forgery incidents reported in Istanbul. In January 1859, the Ottoman consul in
Siros wrote on three Italian forgers active in Istanbul. With a network covering Istanbul, Marseilles,
Messina, Corfu, and Naples, Guiseppe Civicoff, Giuseppe Lopetz and Nicolo Feranti were arrested
and later acquitted by the Greek authorities due to lack of evidence. BOA HR.H. 169/4, BOA MVL.
830/105, BOA HR.MKT. 281/15. In October 1858, a printer was arrested in New York for forging
Ottoman kaime. It turned out that an Armenian woman from Istanbul, Sevasti, encouraged fake
fabrications. Sevasti was similarly acquitted of all the allegations due to lack of evidence. BOA HR.H.
114/2, BOA C.DRB. 42/2070. In February 1861, Marcellino Minasi and Frederic Bianco were
arrested in Messina, who were convicted by both the Ottoman and Italian tribunals. The delay in
delivering the documents to the Italian authorities resulted in the release of the two suspects. BOA
HR.H. 170/2.
259 Jarrett, The Congress of Vienna and Its Legacy: War and Great Power Diplomacy after Napoleon,
353.
260 By 1815, all German states had their Sicherheits-Kommission (security commissions). Metternich
led the establishment of police stations in Venice and Milan, whereas the Papal States had their
Carabinieri Pontifici (pontifical police force) responsible for all the security measures. Besides,
Metternich also coordinated other bureaus for the secret societies active in Italy. France outstood as
the power with a police force less equipped for contemporary needs among these states. See, de Haan
and van Zanten, “Constructing an International Conspiracy Revolutionary Concertation and Police
Networks in the European Restoration,” 185.
261 See, Alexander, Europe’s Uncertain Path, 1814-1914: State Formation and Civil Society; Mitzen,
Power in Concert: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Global Governance.
107
the subsequent congress were pivotal in legitimating the postwar claims of each
participant state. Austria lost its garrison in the Balkans, and Russian dominance of
the Black Sea was curtailed by making it a neutral and open for free navigation. The
defeat was a call for urgent reform against the autocratic regime in Russia.262 On the
victorious side, Britain was proud to undertake the task of restoring the European
balance of power. Despite heavy war losses and public dissent at home, the British
Empire secured its long-term economic investments.263 Likewise, France retained a
powerful position in European politics until 1870, when it would be defeated by the
Prussians at war.264 The Italian peninsula was in the midst of civil war amid Sardinia-
Piedmont’s participation in the Crimean expedition. But by 1871, Italy would appear
on the world stage as a united nation. 265
262 See, Ardelenau, “Russian-British Rivalry Regarding Danube Navigation and the Origins of the
Crimean War (1846-1853),” 165-186; and Radzinsky, Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar; Russia’s
Great Reforms, 1855-1881; John Laver, The Modernization of Russia, 1856-1985.
263 See, Markovits, The Crimean War in the British Imagination.
264 Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital: 1848-1875, 97.
265 Thanks to the alliance established with France and England, the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont
sent a troop of 15.000 soldiers to the battlefronts in the last years of the war. However, the Ottoman
government requested a separate agreement for allegiance to ensure the support of this kingdom all
the way. See, BOA I.HR. 5799/5. Also see, Grassi, “Sardinya Krallığı’nın Kırım Savaşı’na
Katılması,” 80-86. Also see, Tirelli, “the Unification of Italy as Seen Through the Ottoman
Diplomatic Correspondences (1848-1870).”
108
Figure 4. The Map of Italian Unification (Risorgimento)266
Prima facie, the aftermath of war brought recognition and a new position for the
Ottomans in European politics. The participation in the congress and the concomitant
reform agenda ostensibly reversed the empire’s semi-sovereign status. International
law was more frequently employed as a political apparatus in diplomatic relations.
The new order of world politics became a common topic, as discussed in the press
and in various publications on the international arena. For example, in November
1861, The Times published a review of Travers Twiss’ recent book267 in which the
newspaper echoed the changing spectrum of international relations:
It can hardly be expected that there should be many substantial novelty
in a practical treaty on the Law of Nations; there is, however, some new
matter in the work, and various improvements in the treatment of the old
subject. Thus, the international status of the Ottoman empire and of the
Argentine State in South America are subjects not heretofore discussed in
any cognate treatise. The distinction of independence from sovereignty, the
266 Lee, “The Kingdom of Sardinia,” https://age-of-the-sage.org/history/italy_unification_map_pr.html
267 Twiss, The Law of Nations Considered as Independent Political Communities.
109
true characteristic of national life is more clearly defined, and the
classification of certain States as conventionally independent, in lieu of their
former classification as semi-sovereign States, is new.268
However, the Ottoman Empire would still face many challenges in its domestic
affairs. Above all, the current state of affairs created a fragile economic situation that
fueled speculation and necessitated fiscal regulation. Two large-scale foreign loans
offered by Dent, Palmers & Co. and Rothschilds of London were poised to bring
about economic recovery after the expenditures of wartime. It was the first time that
the Ottoman government seriously considered accepting foreign financial aid.269
The state reintroduced paper money (kaime) into circulation as a short-term
solution. The efficiency of this system was first tested in 1839. Previously, the
government had taken a similar economic precaution when it was in a pinch by
devaluing metallic currency. While the Monetary Standard of 1844 (Tashih-i Ayar)
brought about a temporary solution to growing inflation, the outcome of the war,
followed by the issuance of paper money, led to another wave of economic problems.
Easy access to foreign coins in Ottoman markets and the inability to ensure a healthy,
credible monetary system created an atmosphere ripe for fraud.270 Forgers flooded
the Ottoman market with fake coins. 271 These forgers roamed free and crossed states
268 “International Law”, The Times, 22.
269 Eldem, “Ottoman financial integration with Europe: foreign loans, the Ottoman Bank and the
Ottoman public debt”, 434; Martykánová, “Public Debt After a Defeat: Negotiating the French image
of the Ottoman Empire as debtor in the aftermath of Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78”, 58.
270 Amid the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln (1861-65) and his Secretary of Treasury Salmon
P. Chase (1861-64) devised a similar policy and introduced paper money to the financial markets.
Chase brought the “Legal Tender Act” to the attention of Congress, and they decided producing
papers known as greenbacks in value of 150 million dollars. As a solution to the war expenses, both
the people and shareholders used the greenbacks. That new state policy likewise provided a heaven for
frauds. Keneally, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 135-136.
271 Subsequent damage exacerbated the already severe problems of the Ottoman fiscal system, a
situation which has already mainly been analyzed through an economic perspective.
Edhem Eldem thinks that the Ottoman monetary system followed an erratic course throughout the
nineteenth century, particularly from the reign of Mahmud II to the outbreak of WWI. Despite the
periodical monetary reforms carried out, the experiments on metallic, paper money and banknotes did
not drastically change the existing situation. They instead reflected at a continuous fiscal instability.
Eldem, “Chaos and Half Measures: The Ottoman Monetary ‘System’ of the Nineteenth Century”,
110
borders by using different identities. In a time of crisis that had ended with global
economic and social changes, states inadvertently lost track of border control in the
face of more pressing problems. The crisis of mobility created its own trouble, as
exemplified by forgers who freely traversed state boundaries in pursuit of material
wealth.272
Thus, the Crimean War was not just about military conflict. The frontlines
were also the locus of encounter and complicity for profiteers. 273 A bill of indictment
on forgery, issued by the Bolognese Court of Appeal on 4 April 1861, directly
referred to this point.
The Crimean expedition, which was one of those events that hastened the
glorious resurrection of Italy, was at the same time the cause that many
individuals went to the East, not to defend the endangered civilization there,
not to acquire glory on the battlefields, but to seek sudden profits and to
repair the hardships of fortune.274
251-252; and 275.Also see, Akyıldız, Para Pul Oldu: Osmanlı’da Kağıt Para, Maliye ve Toplum;
Pamuk, Osmanlı Imparatorluğu’nda Paranın Tarihi; Mine, Osmanlı Imparatorluğu’nda Kağıt Para
(Kaime). It is to be underlined here that this period is one part of a larger historical timeline which is
coined by many historians as ‘the age of capital’. A detailed evaluation of the period in all its aspects
can be found in the famous book of Eric Hobsbawm, the title of which also carries the name of the
epoch. See, Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital: 1848-1875. On the other hand, many Ottoman historians
also evaluated the period with its relation the Ottoman economy. It is thus important to place and
analyze the economic upheavals the empire within a broader scope of economic developments in the
world. For the world economy, the age is considered as growth period in production and accumulation
of wealth. As for the Ottoman case, the historians, except with few differences of opinions, agree upon
the idea that the economic flourishment was not even close to the level experienced by other states in
the world, and Crimean War had a decisive role in that situation. Consequently, economic instability
came along with other social and political factors in the Ottoman case. For different arguments, see
Quataert, Ottoman Manufacturing in the Age of the Industrial Revolution,164, Kasaba, The Ottoman
Empire and the World Economy, 88, and Geyikdağı, Osmanlı Devleti’nde Yabancı Sermaye, 92, and
Özbek, “Policing the Countryside: Gendarmes of the Late-Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire
(1876-1908)”, 785.
272 Katherine Unterman explains the “crisis of mobility” within a larger historical context. Her work
on embezzlement in the US and the criminal mobility it bore on an international scale provides a good
comparison for the forgery case in this chapter. The boodler problem was likewise usually treated
under the extradition law: See, Unterman, “Boodle over the Border: Embezzlement and the Crisis of
International Mobility, 1880-1890”.
273 The Crimean War was the first war that availed the new technology on photography. The
journalists regularly reported and documented the progress at war zones by large-scale use of
photography. This new publicity could have positively served the forgers in their purpose, as they
could easily keep track of the latest developments. See, Bektaş, “The Crimean War as a Technological
Enterprise”; Hannavy, The Camera Goes to War: Photographs from the Crimean War; James,
Crimea, 1854-56: The War with Russia from Contemporary Photographs; Gernsheim, Roger Fenton,
Photographer of the Crimean War.
274 BOA HR.H. 169/5; Rüstem Bey to Ali Pasha, 25 April 1861.
111
These words perfectly apply to the case in Turin. The forgery at Madone del Pilone
was organized by professional swindlers who shared wartime interests. Most were of
Italian origin, mainly from Turin and Bologna. A steady population movement from
Italy to Crimea and Russia had been underway since the seventeenth century, and as
trade relations developed and commercial interests in the region consolidated in the
nineteenth century, the numbers significantly increased.275 Consequently, a fraud
network came to life in Turin, Bologna, and Istanbul during the war. The Beyoğlu
quarter, in particular, became a scene of organized crime rivaled only by movie
scripts.276
At the time, Istanbul was facing increasing crime related to demographic
changes. The Crimean War ushered in urban transformation in the region. On one
hand, the pace of city was hectic given the increasing number of foreign
communities, especially in Pera and Galata. On the other, the city was a waystation
for European soldiers awaiting their transport to the battlefronts. French, British, and
Sardinian soldiers in the streets of Beyoğlu were a familiar sight. The flow of these
populations prompted the state to generate new security policies to maintain order in
the city.277
275 Gomez, “Migrazione Italiani in Nuova Russia e Crimea: Tracce, Fonti, Contesti in la Crimea tra
Russia, Italia e Impero Ottomano,” 134.
276 BOA HR.H.169/5. Also See, Eldem, “Istanbul as a Cosmopolitan City: Myths and Realities,” 220,
Rosenthal, The Politics of Dependency: Urban Reform in Istanbul, 11, Badem, “Kırım Savaşı’nn
Osmanlı Toplumsal Yaşamına Etkileri”, 64, and Bekir Günay, “The Crimean War and Its Effects on
Ottoman Social Life,” 119. As a matter of fact, the exponential increase in the number of foreign
nationals and the security problems thus increased was apparent since the 1840s. Charles White
described this phenomenon as follows: “The subjects of foreign nations now amount to a numerous
and formidable body-formidable from their iniquity. Pera and Galata are overrun with outcast Italians,
reprobate Ionians and Maltese, dissolute Hellenic subjects, vaga- bond Sclavonians and Wallachians,
Germans of many nations, but mostly of similar worthless character, and, lastly, with Perote and
Galata Greeks, the most profligate and abandoned race of people on the habitable globe. Scarcely a
day or night occurs without some atrocious crime being committed.” See White, Three years in
Constantinople or Domestic Manners of the Turks in 1844, 153-154.
277 Hakan Kırımlı, “Emigrations from the Crimea to the Ottoman Empire during the Crimean War”,
Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.44, No.5 (Sep., 2008), p.761.
112
When it was discovered, the scene of the crime shelter at Madone del Pilone
was no more than a lithography studio. Items were sprawled all over the place: paper
in different qualities, a wooden press with two screws, a small press with a grass iron
screw used for stamp production, and another press mounted on a bench for iron
imprints. The forgers probably destroyed the counterfeit money as police found
pieces of paper that had recently been burned in the hearth. Sardinian officials
initially deferred to Ottoman agents for the official kaime samples for comparison
with the counterfeit ones.
Rüstem Bey, the Ottoman diplomatic agent in Turin, sent several kaime
papers tied with a ribbon that carried the seal of the Imperial Treasury. These ribbons
bore an official inscription indicating that the paper money sealed within was
authentic and produced by the Ottoman state. 278 In return, he requested that the fakes
be bundled and delivered with a similar official note. 279 The authentication process
was cumbersome not to mention unreliable. The Ottoman Empire was not yet
prepared for such threats and relied on such methods rather than forensics.
However, it would not be long before Seropyan’s invention was adopted. A
similar forgery incident in New York in late 1858 prompted the Ottoman government
to apply the invention patented by Christopher Dikran Seropyan (Ter-Serobyan) in
1856. Seropyan was an Armenian chemist from Istanbul. After being invited to the
United States to settle in New York and develop anti-counterfeiting measures,
Seropyan designed the colors that the US bills still carry today.280 Horsford Smith,
278 BOA HR.H 169/2.
279 BOA HR.H. 169/2. The same procedure was followed for the judicial trial that took place in
Bologna. BOA HR.MKT. 329/1.
280 As Tigran Manukyan states, Seropyan received 6.000 $ for this project. After completing his
training and mission in the project, he returned to Istanbul and continued his life as a pharmacist.
Manukyan, “Christopher Ter-Serobyan, US Dollar,” https://www.mersoft.am/en/famousarmenians/
christopher-ter-serobyan.html
113
the Ottoman Deputy Consul in New York, recommended Seropyan’s invention to
"perfectly secure their bills and kaimes from the forgers."281 As Journal de
Constantinople revealed, the Ottoman government would soon experiment with
Seropyan’s invention.282 In late 1858, 20-piastre Ottoman kaimes utilizing this design
began being produced.283
The US government likewise began employing it in the face of frequent
forgery since the American War of Independence (1775-1783). 284 According to a
statement by the US Senate,
this invention consists in printing banknotes on colored paper, with an ink
which is equally or more fugitive than the tint of the paper, so that in
destroying the tint of the paper, the letters thereon shall be equally destroyed;
and, as the color of the banknote cannot be produced by the photographic
process, it follows that the banknotes which are printed with such fugitive ink
cannot be counterfeited. 285
281 BOA HR.H 114/2.
282 Journal de Constantinople écho de l’Orient, 3 Mars 1858 : “Nous avons donnes, dans un précèdent
numéro, un aperçu de la découverte chimique de M. le docteur Seropian, découverte qui intéresse le S.
Porte, car elle a pour effet de prévenir la contrefaçon du papier monnaie. Nous apprenons que la
valeur de ce procède a été, sur l’ordre du grand vesir, pleinement vérifiée. Les bank-notes américaines
que le docteur Seropian avait préparées ont été rendues par la monnaie impériale sans qu’elle ait pu
altérer le moins du monde leur couleur, tandis qu’une bank-note ottomane de 4.000 livres, remise à
l’inventeur, a été retournée par lui ayant la couleur du papier entièrement effacée. Dans un pays
comme la Turquie ou les faussaires sont si nombreux, cette découverte est d’une grande importance. »
283 Journal de Constantinople écho de l’Orient, 18 Septembre 1858.
284 BOA HR.H 114/2, BOA C.DRB 42/2070 ; Journal de Constantinople, Echo d’Orient, 10 Nov.
1858 ; Hatfield, “Faking It: British Counterfeiting During the American Revolution.”
https://allthingsliberty.com/2015/10/faking-it-british-counterfeiting-during-the-american-revolution/
285 Senate: Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the Year 1857, Vol. II, p.404, and Mihm, A
Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the Unites States, 301.
114
Figure 5. A Canadian dollar from 1856 using Seropyan’s technique. The
patent was acknowledged on the money itself, as the red annotation
highlights.286
3.2.1 Diplomatic Networking: A Novel Foreign Policy
The ensuing police investigation in Turin unearthed a team of forgers: artists and
professionals in the business of lithography.287 Dimitri Calvocoressi, a Greek
merchant from Istanbul, guided the organization. Calvocoressi set up shop in Pera
with a lawyer from Galata, Marcello Brescianni; first in 1857 in Pera, then the team
hid themselves in Turin. It turned out, however, that it was a project of old
acquaintances dating back a decade to 1848.288 Since then, Calvocoressi and his
friend Ambrosio Bondesio, another Sardinian lawyer who had settled in Pera, had
extended a complex web of forgery into various regions. Alexandre Venanzi, Louis
Varallo Pandolfini, and Ambrosio Bondesio were arrested in Turin, and Dimitri
286 This sample was produced by the Greenville County Bank in 1856 and it is no more in official use.
The Canadian Numismatic Company Auction.
https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=3649&lot=1560
287 They were Dimitri Calvocoressi, Marcello Brescianni, Philippe Peppo Spadafora, Alexandre
Venanzi and his wife Antoinette Biancardi, Philippe Peppo Spadafora, and Ambrosio Bondesio.
288 BOA HR. H. 169/2, Fuad Pasha to Rüstem Bey, 29 March 1858. I could not figure out whether
their acquaintance had any direct link to the 1848 Revolutionary events.
115
Calvocoressi and Marcello Brescianni would be detained in Istanbul soon
afterward.289
Even though Bondesio was among the suspects arrested in Turin, he was
released due to insufficient evidence. Count Cavour, the Sardinian prime minister,290
opposed the arbitrary extension of his detention291 despite his amity towards the
Ottoman government.292 However, the Bondesio house was the hub where his many
companions and their several frauds came together. His interrogation provided the
clues exposing the Bolognese forging teams.293 Wartime commerce in liquor, animal
skins, and wine expanded from Crimea to Istanbul and Bologna. Those engaged in
this trade had long sought to expand their investments in illegal directions.294 During
the war, the Ottoman state issued ordu kaime (paper money for the military) to
sustain the basic needs of the troops for staples such as meat and bread.295 Issued in
10 - and 20- piastre denominations, this paper money was perfect for
counterfeiting.296
289 At the time, Brescianni was also charged with embezzlement in Russia, where he travelled under
the alias Edouard Bélisaire. BOA HR.H. 285/5 and BOA HR.MKT. 241/21.
290 For the history of Italian Penal Code: See, Mittermaier, “Il progetto di revisione del Codice 1859
pel regno d’Italia, presentato al Senato in Torino nel 9 gennaio 1862,” 49-52.
291 Provisory detention was a judicial precaution taken to prevent the accused from escaping until a
bill of indictment was issued. The extradition process also applied a similar regulation, in which the
reclaiming party held the right to request such a measure be taken. See, Fiore, Traité de Droit Pénal
International et de l’Extradition, II, 472.
292 Bondesio’s friends also made great efforts for his release by carrying the lawsuit to the pages of
press. They accused the judicial authorities of keeping him in prison for five months without a trial.
As there was no rogatory commission to prove his complicity, the Sardinian Tribunal released
Bondesio on 29 November 1858. His release was the cause of much stress for the Ottoman state.
Rüstem Bey described him as a dangerous criminal with talent and energy, whose calumnies, just like
the support of press, could turn into public truth. This, in turn could damage the dignity of Ottoman
Empire. BOA, HR.H. 169/3,169/5, BOA HR.MKT. 252/15, 282/95.
293 BOA HR.H. 169/3, BOA HR.MKT. 272/32 and HR.MKT. 254/59.
294 BOA, HR.H.169/5; “Procès-Verbal de la Cour d'instruction criminelle au Ministère Imperial de la
Police.”
295 Sir Adolphus Slade, Turkey and the Crimean War: A Narrative of Historical Events, (London;
Smith-Elder, 1867), p. 375.
296 The Ottoman state was aware of the upcoming forgery threat. An official decree warned that
precautions should be taken against such attempts. BOA, A.) MKT.UM. 156/47.
116
News of the forgery rapidly filled the headlines. 297 The Ottoman public easily
kept track of the latest news on these forgers and their intricate network in the
newspapers. Interest increased twofold as the criminals did not fit stereotypes. They
were described as true gentlemen who had manners, dressed tastefully, frequented
theaters, had the means to live in good houses, and possessed sizeable savings.298
Indeed, the ongoing legal process and police operation remained confidential because
it was difficult to capture figures with such a middle-class portfolio.299 The Ottoman
Foreign Ministry expressly warned Rüstem Bey to be discreet during the secret
investigations launched in Turin and Bologna.300
When his accomplice in Turin was captured, Calvocoressi was already under
provisional arrest in Birmingham for another alleged fraud. He had been caught with
copper Ottoman coins. Under the questioning of the Birmingham Police, he asserted
that he was working on behalf of the Ottoman government, but the Sublime Porte
refuted his claims that he had received official permission to produce money. Since
there was no clause in the British Penal Code allowing the use of Ottoman currency
in the British market, Calvocoressi was released on bail. 301 Unaware of the police
raid at Madone del Pilone, Calvocoressi returned to Istanbul to put the money into
circulation in Ottoman markets. The Sardinian government was unconcerned for
297 Journal de Constantinople Echo de l’Orient; 20 March 1858 and 27 March 1858.
298 Journal de Constantinople Echo d’Orient, 11 Janvier 1861.
299 Considering the political upheavals marked by democratic and liberal thought, the forgers were
frequently caricatured as archetypal heroes challenging state authority. See, Barosky, “Legal and
Illegal Moneymaking: Colonial American Counterfeiters and the Novelization of Eighteenth-Century
Crime,” 533-534, and Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the
Unites States.
300 BOA HR.H. 169/2, 25 February. 1858. There were other trials of small-scale that took place in
Venice and Messina. BOA HR.MKT. 258/69, 379/29 and 325/9.
301 Calvocoressi was in an accomplice with an English named Thomas Moss. The Ottoman Consul of
Birmingham covered all the expenses of the prosecution, including the ultimate bail. Besides, the
English police officers who assisted them received a significant sum of gratuity. BOA. İ.HR.
177/9725, BOA. HR. MKT. 275/60, 283/41, and 343/81, BOA HR.SFR. 3 48/13, Journal de
Constantinople, 13 October 1858 and 27 October 1858, and Öztel, “Osmanlı Devleti’nde Madeni ve
Kağıt Para Kalpazanlığında Yabancıların ve Yabancı Ülkelerin Rolü (1818-1923)”, 174-175.
117
three reasons: the counterfeit money was not in circulation in Sardinia, he had not
been caught in the act, and Calvocoressi was an Ottoman subject, which further
cleared him of charges in Italy.302 In May 1860, Meclis-i Vala (Ottoman Supreme
Council) sentenced him to ten years of forced labor in Salonica in accordance with
Article 143 of the 1858 Penal Code.303
Despite it being a crime of international standing, only the Ottoman treasury
suffered harm. It was universally accepted that the right to conduct a trial belonged to
the injured party in crimes of grave consequences, and this regulation was usually
applied in principle regardless of the existence of an extradition treaty. Forgery was
one of the crimes in which this practice was observed. 304 Nevertheless, the Ottoman
government could neither demand Venanzi and Pandolfini ex gratia nor the forgers
arrested in Bologna. They were all Italian subjects and no nation had an obligation to
surrender its own citizens. 305 Instead, tribunals in Turin, Bologna, and Istanbul heard
each case separately, yet in close communication.
Rüstem Bey (later Rüstem Pasha) was the diplomatic agent in the field who
acted as the Ottoman plaintiff in judicial processes abroad. He was an Ottoman
diplomat of Italian origin and thus familiar with the Italian world. From the
Florentine Mariani family, Rüstem Bey had established connections in the Ottoman
Empire. Engin Deniz Akarlı notes that it was thanks to his mother’s connections that
Rüstem Bey first entered the Ottoman diplomatic corps as a protégé in the embassy
of Rome. His education and upbringing sped his distinguished career in the Ottoman
302 BOA HR.H. 169/2, April 1858.
303 BOA A.) MKT.MVL 123/38 and BOA HR.MKT. 336/6.
304 “Extradition. Fugitives from Justice. Necessity for Physical Presence at Time of Commission of
Crime”, 784, and Potter, “The Expansion of International Jurisdiction”, 550, and Fiore, Traite Droit
Pénal International et de L’Extradition, Vol. II, p.4
305 For example, Italy surrendered an Austrian subject Nicolas Cusma to Austria ex gratia in 1865.
Cusma had escaped to Italy after being accused of forgery in Alexandria, Egypt. See Bernard, Droit
international : Traité théorique et pratique de l'extradition comprenant l'exposition d'un projet de loi
universelle sur l'extradition, 187.
118
bureaucracy.306 In this respect, Rüstem Bey’s efforts during the legal affair was not
some overseas adventurism but the calculated diplomatic moves of an Ottoman
statesman relying on years long experience, prudence, and knowledge.
These pursuits were not confined to a single person. In this case, the success
of diplomatic network of Ottoman agents abroad revealed a sophisticated foreign
policy and the modus operandi of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry. The communication
channels that emerged among consuls in strategic locations had an enormous impact
on the flow of information. Indeed, the capture by the Italian police of the fugitives
of the Madone del Pilone team, Philippe Peppo Spadafora and Augustin Veiller,
owed much to diplomatic organs. Rüstem Bey sent messages to Ottoman consuls in
the ports of the Mediterranean Sea and to the embassies in Paris and Vienna to track
the fugitives. In the meantime, he was in close contact with Sigmund Spitzer, the
Ottoman plenipotentiary of Napoli (1857-1860), to monitor the judicial process in
Bologna. 307
Back in Istanbul, surveillance by the zabtiye (the Ottoman police) was in full
force, already ears pricked for any sign of the forgers on the lam. On the other hand,
the government offered imperial decorations and reward money to Ottoman subjects
to report suspicious activities. 308 A joint commission comprised of Ottoman officials
and consular delegates was established to interrogate the suspects in custody. 309
306 Starting his career as an official in the Translation Bureau, Rüstem Bey worket at Tahrirât-ı
Ecnebiyye Bureau. He was the plenipotentiary of Rome and Turin. He was appointed as ambassador
to Rome (1862-70), St. Petersburg (1870-73) and London (1885-his death). He also worked as
Ottoman vizier and governor to Mount Lebanon. See, DH. Said.d 2/100. Akarlı, The Long Peace:
Ottoman Lebanon, 1861-1920, 195; Khair, Le Moutaçarrifat du Mont-Liban, 87-89; and Kuneralp,
Son Dönem Osmanlı Erkân ve Ricâli (1839-1922): Prosopografik Rehber, 48 and 118.
307 Sardinia government consented the Ottoman request to be present as a litigant in trials took place in
Messina. BOA HR.MKT. 367/63 and 379/29.
308 BOA İ.DH. 391/25893 and 832/66943, BOA A.) MKT.NZD 342/48, BOA A.) MKT. MHM.
208/97, BOA HR.MKT. 12/23, and BOA A.) DVN. 161/100.
309 BOA HR.H. 169/5 and Journal de Constantinople Echo d’Orient, 28 Oct.1859. The English and
Austrian consulates initially raised difficulties not to surrender two Italian and Greek forgers under
their protection. After a series of official statements, they consented for an Ottoman tribunal. BOA,
MVL 845/75 and 844/40.
119
Photos of these felons were taken in the studio of Abdullah Frères and sent to Turin
and Bologna for their examination. 310 Fuad Pasha, the Ottoman Foreign Minister,
also contacted officials in İzmir, Salonica, Tripoli, Alexandria, Tunis, and other ports
and ordered the Imperial Police on patrol lest they get wind of the forgers.311 In the
1850s, postal services were the most efficient means of communication. Mailboats
carried all sorts of materials, and Trieste was a central station for shipments along
various Mediterranean routes.312 Official letters between Rüstem Bey and Fuad
Pasha were delivered within two or three weeks through this channel.313
The Ottoman diplomatic network resulted from long-term economic
investments in Europe. In the early modern period, diplomacy conducted abroad was
considered "a new type of espionage," as Fatih Yeşil describes it. 314 This structure
gradually transformed from a provisional intelligence service in the eighteenth
century to an elaborate consular institution. 315 For centuries, Ottoman overseas
310 Abdullah Frères were well-known palace photographers whose profession ranged from taking mug
shots of ordinary people and famous figures to landscapes, panoramas, and many other themes. To
learn more about them see; Camera Ottomana: Photography and Modernity in the Ottoman Empire
1840-1914, eds. Zeynep Çelik, Edhem Eldem, (Koç Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2015), Edhem Eldem,
“The Search for an Ottoman Vernacular Photography,” in Ritter M. and S.G. Scheiwiller (Eds.), The
Indigenous Lens: Early Photography in the Near and Middle East, (De Gruyter, 2018), pp.29-56, and
Ahmet Ersoy, “Ottomans and the Kodak Galaxy: Archiving Everyday Life and Historical Space in
Ottoman Illustrated Journals,” History of Photography, 40:3 (2016), p. 339.
311 BOA HR.MKT. 235/26 and BOA HR.H. 169/2: “Zaptiyeye verilüb Turin’de derdest olan
kalpazanların refiklerinden olan Agustin Veiller ile Spadoafora nam kimesnelerin ahzu girift olmaları
mukaddemâ ba-fermânnâme same-yi emrü işâr olunduğundan meclisçe memurlar tayiniyle ber vech-i
hukuk tahrirât-ı lazımeye sürât kılınmış ve elyevm taharri ettirileceği beyân olub bunların İzmir ve
Selanik ve İskenderiye ve Tunus ve Trablus taraflarına gitmeleri dahi memul bulunduğu cihetle
devleti aliyye memurlarına dahi bab-ı keyfiyet olan maslahatgüzâr-ı mumaileyhin tahrirâtında bab
olunmuş olmağla …”
312 The forgers also availed of that communication channel. During their investigation, some
Bolognese forgers confessed to hiding the fake money inside the sardine fish barrels, which were first
sent to Trieste by road and later shipped to Istanbul by a steamboat. BOA HR.H. 169/5, 15 February
1859.
313 Only by the late 1870s, the Ottoman telegraph operation stretched extensively beyond imperial
borders. See, Bektaş, “The Sultan’s Messenger: Cultural Constructions of Ottoman Telegraphy, 1847-
1880,” and BOA HR.H 169/2, 25 Feb. 1858 and 4 Mar. 1858.
314 Yeşil, “The Transformation of the Ottoman Diplomatic Mind: The Emergence of Licensed
Espionage,” 469.
315 Hawai’i faced similar experiences as a non-European state while establishing its diplomatic
services in Europe. They put strenuous efforts to assert themselves as a legitimate power in the
international politics. See Miller, “Trading Sovereignty and Labor: The Consular Network of
Nineteenth Century Hawai’i”.
120
commerce relied on the private enterprises of non-Muslim Ottoman merchants, and
Ottoman diplomatic delegates usually frequented locations in which those merchants
actively conducted in international trade. 316 Years of engagement in European
commerce and social ties led to an elaborate diplomatic structure in time. Except for
a brief interval in 1821, twelve Ottoman embassies had been active in Iran and the
major cities of Europe since 1793. Seventy-one Ottoman consulates followed in
various parts of the world.317 Meanwhile, Ottoman diplomatic agents built up their
personal networks in tandem with the various official ones placed at their disposal.318
The fight against the kaime forgers thus illustrates how, by the first half of the
century, diplomatic interaction was not restricted to state apparatuses but embodied
in and advanced by individual actors and the informal agencies they built up around
themselves. 319
316 Findley, “The Foundation of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry: The Beginnings of Bureaucratic
Reform under Selim III and Mahmud II,” 397.
317 By the first decades of the twentieth century, this number almost doubled for the embassies, as
there were 21 Ottoman embassies now. On the other hand, the number of consuls increased
exponentially, reaching 325 new establishments. See Bostan, Osmanlı Hariciyesinin Modern
Temelleri: II. Abdülhamid Döneminde Diplomasi. Compared to the many European countries, these
numbers are significant as France had ten, Britain had nine embassies by the same period. On the
other side, the Us opened its first embassy no earlier than 1893. See Weisbrode, Old Diplomacy
Revisited-A Study in the Modern History of Diplomatic Transformations.
318 For a comparative work in which Italian government similarly mobilized its various intelligence
service and police resources against Italian anarchist active in London between 1870-1914: See, Pada,
“The Spies Who came in from the Heat: The International Surveillance of the Anarchists in London”.
319 In their article, Alloul and Anwers similarly argues that the historians recently evaluated “the main
participants and divergent practices of diplomacy as a socio-cultural space, that is, rituals, networking,
perceptions, as well as the day-to-day realities behind the conduct of international relations”: See,
Alloul and Anwers, “What is (New in) New Diplomatic History,” 113.
121
Figure 7. Forgery network (1853-1859) For the animated version:
https://graphcommons.com/graphs/d226ebea-9383-4905-a2efdae1e75d0ead?
sel=96022144-5607-41ab-a4ae-6e523ee78fd8&auto=true
Figure 6. Diplomatic networking vis-à-vis the forgers (1858- 1860)
122
3.2.2 Rüstem Bey: An Ottoman Litigant at the Court of Turin
The prosecution of Alexandre Venanzi and Varallo Pandolfini started in late
February 1859 at the Court of Appeals, where the trial of the Bolognese forgers
would likewise take place in early March.320 After a year-long investigation, the
Royal Public Prosecutor of Turin compiled the evidence and transferred the case to
the Fiscal Prosecutor. In the company of two lawyers, a district attorney of Turin,
and a legal expert from the Piedmont-Sardinia parliament, Rüstem Bey attended each
session as a litigant.321
Defending Ottoman state interests in a foreign court and delegating work to
legal experts accordingly was novel at the time. It was also novel in diplomatic terms
and clearly showed the changing course of an Ottoman diplomacy no longer reliant
on the ad-hoc diplomacy of envoys temporarily sent to Europe. It was equally novel
in judicial terms: an experiment with proficient legal structures that were not yet
fully functioning at home. The modern attorney system did not yet exist. Until the
foundation of the Nizamiye (provincial) courts in the Ottoman provinces, legal
deputies known as vekils were employed to assist litigants in court procedures but did
not directly defend their causes. Their chief responsibility was to submit the
necessary documents to ensure an acquittal. Counseling and advocacy as a legal
profession became a common practice in Ottoman courts only in the 1870s during a
time of rising legal formalism in the judiciary. Attorneyship became a professional
occupation with the Dava Vekilleri Nizamnâmesi (Regulation on Attorneyship) of
1876, and the notarial system was established in 1878.322 The modernization process
320 BOA HR.H. 279/14, 7 March 1859.
321 BOA HR.MKT. 234/73, BOA HR.H. 169/3 and 169/2. The Ottoman empire paid 989.000 francs
for the District Attorney Mr. Vayra and 415.000 francs for the legist Mr. Lecchio. Unfortunately, I
could not detect the first names of these two figures.
322 Rubin, “The Trial of the Prosecutor Hamdi Bey: Inside and Out of the Ottoman “Nizamiye”
Court”, 763; Rubin, “From legal representation to advocacy: Attorneys and Clients in the Ottoman
123
in the legal arena was not restricted to a readymade reform packages from Europe
but owed much to domestic efforts to address various political and diplomatic
questions.
The Ottoman judicial system was discernably patchy compared to modern
legal structures as exemplified by the coexisting modern and traditional court
systems in the empire, which were often in tension.323 Nevertheless, domestic reform
was making piecemeal progress, and successive criminal codes had just been
promulgated. The Ottoman Investigative Courts (Tahkik Meclisleri) were established
in 1854 to function as a mixed court, although their impact remained limited to
certain regions of the empire. In these courts, the primary objective was to enforce
the Ottoman penal code, against which foreign consulates sometimes raised
complaints.324 There were also reservations concerning their operation as trials were
conducted in Turkish and no legal advisors were present. In this respect, they closely
resembled Sharia courts.325 Nonetheless, it was neither a weak nor dysfunctional
legal system. The Ottoman bureaucracy benefitted from centuries-long accumulation
of legal knowledge and managed to bestow the system with the latest advances.326
The amalgam of legal structures at home were becoming efficient at the same
time that they were becoming part of diplomatic policies abroad. In this case, Rüstem
Nizamiye Courts”, 113, and Jennings, “The Office of Vekil (Wakil) in the 17th Century Ottoman
Sharia Courts,” 148, and Özman, “The Potrait of Ottoman Bar Attorney and Bar Associations: State,
Secularization and Institutionalization of Professional Interests,” 325-328.
323 For example, at the beginning of the century, a French entomologist and traveler Antoine Olivier
expressed his astonishment at how legal procedures and the judicial structure were insufficient in
function compared to their European counterparts. Olivier, Travels in the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and
Persia, Vol., 181.
324 BOA HR. MKT 328/79. For example, when the mixed court was established in Larnaca in 1863,
the French consul refused the trial of their citizens by the new penal code. While other consuls
accepted the regulation, the former criticized the Ottoman government for not informing them in
advance: See, BOA HR.H 426/28.
325 Schull, “Ottoman Criminal Justice and the Transformation of Islamic Criminal Law and
Punishment in the Age of Modernity”, 23.
326 For a comprehensive analysis, See Barkey, “Aspects of Legal Pluralism in the Ottoman Empire”,
in Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1500-1850, and Rubin, Ottoman Nizamiye Courts.
124
Bey’s position as a litigant was a decision made for political and practical reasons.
As a diplomat, he had had difficulty obtaining the investigative reports of the Italian
police. His new role as litigant legitimated this purpose. Fuad Pasha reasoned that
they could interfere in the ongoing judicial process whenever Ottoman sovereignty
was at stake.327 This was a known formula since a similar legal case involving fraud,
the Mestrallet case, had ended up with a nolle prosequi (unwillingness to pursue
trial) the previous year. The Turin Court of Appeal had dismissed the case due to
scant evidence and the absence of an Ottoman deputy during the trials.328 To mitigate
the setbacks of the previous year, the 1858 Penal Code further consolidated Rüstem
Bey’s position, whereupon the laws of each state would determine the course of
judicial process.
3.3 The Penal Codes: Symbol of Change and Sovereignty
3.3.1 The 1858 Ottoman Penal Code
In consideration of prejudices that prevail as such and to prevent unease
aroused public concerns, the Sublime Porte adopted legislation whose
principals were drawn from a French model, the content of which it largely
reproduced. In the view of any impartial man who has some notion of law, the
Sharia, particularly the parts concerning property, obligations, and agreements,
constitutes an irrevocable proof of a great relationship to Roman law, which
today forms the basis of civil laws. The Sublime Porte also introduced a penal
code whose structure, like the French law, is based on three modes of
punishment, and later codes were introduced for criminal investigation,
including indictments and testimony and prescribing the formalities to be
performed to arrest and try the guilty. This comprehensive legislation of the
Ottoman Empire, which has been in operation for a few years and has been
applied by courts composed of Muslim and non-Muslim judges, testifies to the
desire of the Sublime Porte to provide justice for all.329
327 BOA HR.H 169/2, 7 March 1858.
328 BOA HR.TO 99/31, and BOA HR.H 169/2.
329 Aleko Pasha (1822-1910), whose original name was Alexander Bogoridi, was the Ottoman
statesman of Bulgarian origin. After holding different official positions, he became the Governor-
General of Eastern Rumelia. Aleko Pasha had a degree in law from Germany. HR.H 212/5, Apr.
1877.
125
The words of Aleko Pasha echoed deep resentment for the unfair attacks against
Ottoman legal system. Growing emphasis on the rule of law in the Ottoman Empire
coincided with the Tanzimat reforms, a broader process that incorporated new
institutions, legislative forces and legal rhetoric. Public law gradually outweighed
private law and became emblematic of territorial sovereignty.330 Ottoman penal
codes illustrated a fundamental evolution of discourse in that direction. The first
article of the 1858 Penal Code states that
it is the state’s responsibility to enforce punishment for
wrongdoings against individuals, disturbances caused to public order, and
direct threats to the state. For this reason, this code regulates various
degrees of penalty, the application of which is transferred to the higher
authority of the Sharia; individual rights enshrined by the Sharia cannot be
infringed in any case.331
The value of the preliminary article is that it underscores public order and state
security as much as private law. Private law prioritized the Sharia and positioned the
sultan as the primary lawgiver.332 In this respect, the text did not unambiguously
distinguish between private and territorial law as Islamic law maintained its place
alongside the novel rhetoric and the legal discourse. Instead, an emphasis on public
order and the territoriality of law became gradually more evident in an ongoing
process of codification and the application of procedures.333
330 Paz, “Documenting Justice: New Recording Practices and the Establishment of an Activist
Criminal Court System in the Ottoman Provinces (1840-late 1860s)”, 82.
331 Madde 1: “Doğrudan doğruya hükümet aleyhine vuku bulan cerâyimin icrâ-yı mücâzatı devlete ait
olduğu gibi, bir şahıs aleyhinde vuku bulan cerâyimin âsayiş-i umumiyi ihlal eylemesi ciheti dahi
kezalik devlete ait olduğundan, tayin ve icrası şer’an emr-i ulül-emre ait olan ta’zirin tayin-i derecâtım
dahi işbu Kanunname mütekeffil ve mutazamm olub ancak herhalde şer’an muayyen olan hukuk-u
şahsiyeye halel gelmeyecektir”, Akgündüz, Mukayeseli Islâm ve Osmanlı Hukuku Külliyatı, 834.
332 Under the Shari’a law, there were hardly any preventive measures as the crime and its perception
mattered instead of the motives for the criminal action. The qadı courts usually resorted to kıssas
(reprisal) and diyet (blood money) to restore the public peace. If the offenses posed a threat to the
Ottoman state, they were treated as hadd crimes (as a reference to Quran) and these offenses were
severely punished. See, Schull, “Ottoman Criminal Justice and the Transformation of Islamic
Criminal Law and Punishment in the Age of Modernity,” and Aslan, “Transformation of Turkish
Criminal Law from the Ottoman-Islamic Law to the Civil Law Tradition.”
333 Heinzelman also underlines the same article clause to assert the emphasis for public order,
Heinzelman, “The Ruler’s Monologue: The Rhetoric of the Ottoman Penal Code of 1858”, 85.
126
In this respect, there was a continuity to Ottoman criminal regulations starting
with the 1840 Penal Code. The latest version, the 1858 Penal Code, took the 1832
French Penal Code as a model even as it profoundly elaborated on the earlier
legislation.334 The 1840 Penal Code first outlined the importance of a public realm
distinct from private space and guaranteed by legal rights. The law put forward
punitive policies not strictly for individuals but for society as a collective. The 1851
Penal Code likewise highlighted public security and the status of subjects before the
law, thus, the 1858 Penal Code further advancing the dialogue between the state and
society more than ever. 335 A dual trial system was introduced that gave the state the
option to impose a retrial if deemed necessary. Investigation of court evidence and
testimonial hearings were to proceed in a more bureaucratic fashion.336
There are criticisms of the shortcomings of the 1858 Penal Code such as
Tobias Heinzelmann’s argument that the legislation adopted a different stance that
western counterparts by not including Article 4 of the French Penal Code. The article
in question echoed the principle of Beccaria: no punishment without a law.337
Heinzelmann blamed the coexistence of two legal realms in the Ottoman Empire.338
These fluid judicial bodies were insufficient to define the limits of laws in practice as
well as the limits of their power to impose sanctions. Moreover, Gabriel Baer points
334 Heinzelman, “The Ruler’s Monologue: The Rhetoric of the Ottoman Penal Code of 1858”, 295.
For a comparison : See, Code Pénale ; and Duvergier, Code Penal Annoté : edition de 1832.
335 Kırlı, Yolsuzluğun İcadı: 1840 Ceza Kanunu, İktidar ve Bürokrasi, 111, and Schull, “Ottoman
Criminal Justice and the Transformation of Islamic Criminal Law and Punishment in the Age of
Modernity”, 26.
336 Petrov, “Everyday Forms of Compliance: Subaltern Commentaries on Ottoman Reform, 1864-
1868,” 738.
337 Cesare Beccaria was a famous Italian jurist (1738-1794), who is famous with his acclaimed work
On Crimes and Punishments. He was one of the pioneers who supported a reformation in the punitive
systems, which should be regulated according to the nature of crime and the punitive policies
guaranteed by the official penal codes. See, Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments.
338 Heinzelman, “The Ruler’s Monologue: The Rhetoric of the Ottoman Penal Code of 1858”, 318.
Article 4 of 1832 French Penal Code : “Nulle contravention, nul délit, nul crime, ne peuvent être punis
de peines qui n’étaient pas prononcée par la loi avant qu’ils fussent commis,” Duvergier, Code Penal
Annoté : edition de 1832, 6.
127
that the content in the 1858 Penal Code was incomprehensive, in part because of the
absence of criminal procedures.339
While procedural laws were indeed later added in 1879, it was a problem in
earlier decades as these procedural laws determined and regulated how judicial
courts would operate. On the other hand, the insufficiency of the content of the laws
to address every crime had been an ongoing problem since the 1840 Penal Code.
Thus, the principle of no punishment without a law was frequently ignored by the
introduction of ad hoc solutions applicable to individual legal cases.340 However, the
1858 Penal Code substantially expanded and revised the content of criminal
prosecution. Its two hundred sixty-four new articles divulge the thorough manner in
which the code was prepared, especially considering the paucity of earlier versions.
And while the principles promoted by Beccaria were not explicitly stated in the 1858
Penal Code, Article 15 suggests the similar sentiment that all crimes and felonies be
punished according to effective laws and regulations instead of former ones. There is
a clear correspondence between the laws and punitive measures.341 In this respect,
each penal code, and chiefly the one of 1858, made valuable contributions to the
body of Ottoman law. These crucial developments gradually established a judicial
system based on the principle of the rule of law.
Ottoman penal codes included strict measures against forgery. Article 12 of
Part 3 of the 1851 Penal Code states that forgers and their accomplices who
circulated counterfeit currency would be imprisoned for from six months up to four
339 Baer, “The Transition from Traditional to Western Criminal Law in Turkey and Egypt,” 146 and
158.
340 Bingöl, Tanzimat Sonrası Taşra ve Merkezde Yargı Reformu, 537.
341 Article 15: “Her cinayet ve cünha ve kabahatin taraf-ı hükûmetten zahire ihraç̧ olunduğu veya
müddeisi zuhur eylediği zamanda mer'î olan kanun ve nizam ile tedibi icra olunup muahhar olan
kanun ile mücazatı icra olunamaz,” Akgündüz, Mukayeseli İslam ve Osmanlı Hukuku Külliyatı, 836.
128
years.342 Articles 143 to 148 of Part 14 of the 1858 Penal Code further refined the
punishment by replacing imprisonment with ten years of forced labor. Extended
incarceration was prescribed for related crimes. Article 144 likewise indicates the
exact punishment for foreign forgers who circulated counterfeit money in the
Ottoman Empire.343
In the case of Madone del Pilone forgery, it was a transnational crime that
affected both regions. The extradition of Pandolfini was not an option as he was
Sardinian national, and no state was obliged to extradite its own subjects. Sardinian
Penal Code took a firm stance concerning this point, though the Sardinian laws
allowed a pleas to be made against their subjects in cases where an official request
was submitted by a foreign government.344 However, the nature of this forgery
rightly justified a lawsuit in Italy, as the money had been produced in Turin. For the
same reason, remonstrances against the prosecution of Venanzi by his lawyer were
denied. He claimed in vain that Venanzi’s alleged actions only had a legal basis only
in the Ottoman Empire since Venanzi was Roman and only the Ottoman Empire
suffered any damage.345 For this reason, Sardinian government had jurisdiction for
charges of forgery. Consequently, not only Rüstem Bey but both parties were to
respect one another’s state laws to arrive at a legal resolution. The first task was to
compare the 1858 Penal Code with the Sardinian laws.
342 “Sikke-i sultaniye ve evrak-ı nakdiyeye taklid eden kalpazan eşhas dahi derece-i sû-i a'maline göre
altı mahdan dört seneye kadar pırankaya konula ve kalp sürücülerin haklarında dahi derece-i cürüm ve
kabahatlerine göre kalpazan cezası ayniyle icra kılma.”, Akgündüz, Mukayeseli İslam ve Osmanlı
Hukuku Külliyatı, 828.
343 “Her kim memâlik-i mahrûsede tedavül etmekte olan meskûkât-ı nühasiyeye takliden sikke kat'
eder ve o misillû kalp meskûkâtın memâlik-i mahrûsede tedavülüne veyahut bilâd-i ecnebiyeden gelip
derûn-i memâlik-i Hazret-i Padişahîye dühulüne muîn olur ise muvakkaten küreğe konulur.”,
Akgündüz, Mukayeseli İslam ve Osmanlı Hukuku Külliyatı, 857.
344 “Charlton Extradition Case (Charlton vs Kelly),” 649.
345 BOA HR.H 169/2, 5 March 1859.
129
3.3.2 The 1859 Italian Penal Code and Risorgimento
Like the Ottoman Empire, Italy had a new penal code which was promulgated in
1859. Since the Middle Ages, city-states on the peninsula had counted on the
territoriality of law.346 By 1814, each kingdom had its own criminal codes which
partly reflected the legacy of the 1810 French Penal Code. The Sardinian Penal
Code, an amalgam of the French code and the House of Savoy was put in force in
January 1840. In the wake of an ongoing codification process that started with the
1723 Sardinian Constitution, parts of the penal code were annulled while others
underwent extensive modification. This code reached its ultimate form in 1859 and
was entered into force throughout Italy. When Camillo Benso, the famous Count
Cavour,347 issued a public statement on the new Italian political regime, he held up
international law and recent codification efforts as the beacons of judicial
advancement. 348 However, most kingdoms hesitated to put this code into effect due
to territorial concerns amid a civil war. Until the 1889 Zanardelli Code, which was
adopted by consensus as the official Italian Penal Code, constant debates on the
promulgation of new criminal legislation took place in parliament. During that
period, legal experts and jurists pondered the creation of “an Italian genius of
criminal law on which the new penal code should be based as a peculiar creation
influenced by neither the Napoleonic code nor the German model.”349
Article 9 of the 1859 Penal Code underscored the principle of locus regit
actum for all offenses, including those by foreigners. If fugitives sought refuge in
346 Alexander, “International Criminal Law”, 95.
347 Camillo Benso (1810-1861) was an Italian statesman from Turin. During the monarchy of Victor
Emmanuel II, the King of Sardinia (1861-1878), Count Cavour was the Ministry of Finances and
Ministry of Agriculture and Trade. He was later appointed as Prime Minister of Sardinia-Piedmont,
and he pursued this career as the first Prime Minister of Italy.
348 R.D., “Review: Storia degli studi del diritto internazionale in Italia by Augusto Pierantonio”.
349 Pifferi, “The Roots of Italian Penal Codification: Nation Building and the Claim for a Peculiar
Identity in Criminal Law”, 16.
130
Italy, the law allowed their surrender when an affected state made an official request,
otherwise, Article 6 would be in effect. The latter article explained in detail how to
punish or remit the offenses of such criminals. Punitive measures for various types of
fraud ranged from seven to ten years of incarceration.350 However, the 1859 Penal
Code remained only semi-official until November; the previous penal code was still
valid, which caused divergence among judicial authorities' decisions. The Sardinian
Prosecutor of State demanded fifteen years of forced labor for both offenders, as
prescribed by the old law. But, the Court of Appeal ultimately allowed 8 years of
incarceration as prescribed by Article 357 of the 1859 Penal Code. The fugitives
Spadafora and Veiller were sentenced to the same punishment in absentia. On April
9, 1859, the Court of Cassation approved their eight-year sentences.351
Venanzi’s lawyer protested the decision on the basis of the plurality of law.
The forgery was not a crime according to the Sardinian penal code. He was shocked
by the sentence which could only be justified in political terms as a favor made to a
friend and ally. The court did not heed his claim that the silence of law on this point
should prompt the interpretation of the text in extenso.352 The ultimate decision of
the court was thus the outcome of legal mediation between two governments, for
which reason the objections of the defendants were quickly overruled. Rüstem Bey
expressed his pleasure that all his efforts were rewarded. The penalty of eight years
sufficiently corresponded to the ten-year period of incarceration in the Ottoman
Empire, so justice was secured in a fairway. He thought that the judgment met the
350 Pifferi, “The Roots of Italian Penal Codification: Nation Building and the Claim for a Peculiar
Identity in Criminal Law”, 101-104. Articles 316-328 also explain the penalty on forgery and
falsification of documents/money.
351 BOA HR.H 169/2, 14 April 1859.
352 BOA HR.H 169/2, 5 March 1859.
131
ultimate goal, which was to deter similar offenses from threatening the State
Treasury in the future.353
However, the Ottoman state was unwilling to be contented by trials, even if it
was satisfied with the outcome. Given the economic burdens endured, Rüstem Bey
also asked for reparations of 37,804 francs, which the criminal tribunal ultimately
granted. The recuperation of reparations was then rendered symbolic by the promise
of an almshouse in Turin: a token of Ottoman altruism and power that would further
the image of the Ottoman state among both domestic and foreign audiences.354
Meanwhile, trials in Bologna were not advancing smoothly due to political
upheaval in the region. As Rüstem Bey was already occupied and the political
conditions required more work in the field than a diplomatic agency could provide,
an Ottoman police officer, dragoman Joseph Ange Tkiades, went there to be a part of
the surveillance operation against the forgers.355 There was a political vacuum in
papal states at the time. The geography comprised of Rome, Bologna, and Ferreira
was under the control of the Pope, and Austria was lending full support to the current
administration.356 His position as a police officer enabled Tkiades to collaborate with
the police chief of Bologna, Chevalier Giri. But Giri was constantly being called to
maintain control over the region at large, so Giacomo Antonelli, the Cardinal
Secretary of Rome (1848-1876), also assisted Tkiades in his mission.357
353 BOA HR.H 169/2, 10 March 1859.
354 BOA HR.H 169/2, 10 March 1859.
355 BOA HR.MKT 283/84 and 285/73. Fuad Pasha later called him back to Istanbul to track other
forgers active in Venice and Athens. Tkiades was almost an Ottoman Sherlock, chasing the runaways
at full speed from one place to another. See, BOA HR.H 169/5, 23 March 1859.
356 The Kingdom of Two Sicilies, the neighbor region of the Papal States in the South, also received
the same support from Austria.
357 BOA HR.H. 169/5, 27 Feb. and 17 Oct. 1859. Giacomo Antonelli (1806-1876) was the proponent
of Italian unification, representing the interests of the Vatican and the Papal States in international
politics.
132
The 1832 criminal legislation of the pontificate contained strict measures
against forgery and embezzlement.358 However, contemporaneous political and
social conditions had undermined judicial function in the region, creating a tangible
void of legal authority.359 Further impediments were caused by the bureaucratic
process, and the resulting delays served the interests of the forgers, the elapsing time
increased their chances of released from preventive detention. Bolognese authorities
also could not decipher the nuances of the 1851 and the 1858 Ottoman penal codes,
so the interrogation of the Bolognese forgers detained in Istanbul were likewise
continually interrupted. They opted to rely on an official report sent by the Ottoman
police force, but it was only treated as an accusation rather than as legal evidence for
a trial. Rüstem Bey frequently expressed his displeasure with this setback. 360
When the lawsuit at last arrived before the Bolognese Tribunal of the First
Instance in December 1860, the 1859 Sardinian Penal Code was about to be
officially adopted in Romagna, as the region had recently been annexed. This
situation created a duality of law, further complicating the matter with the effect that
the whole procedure had to be started anew. 361 Ultimately, in April 1861, eight
convicts received ten years of forced labor according to Article 330 of the 1859
Sardinian Penal Code and Articles 230/231 of the criminal laws of the pontificate. 362
358 Similar to the Sardinian penal codes, the penalties on forgery varied between 10-15 years forced
labor, or life-time imprisonment for dire situations. See, Regolamento sui Delitti e Sulle Pene del 20
Settembre 1832, 40-41 and 59.
359 During this period, the crime rate was exponentially increasing. The Bolognese Court of Assize
reported 483 cases of assault and theft in the year 1861. The number is significant as it far surpassed
statistics collected during the revolutionary era. See, Hughes, Crime, Disorder and the Risorgimento:
The Politics of Policing in Bologna, 203-243 and 245.
360 BOA HR.H. 169/5; 17 Nov., 22 Feb. 1860, 23 Apr., 25 Apr. 1860, and BOA HR.MKT. 329/1.
361 BOA HR.H 169/5, 8 Dec. and 27 Dec. 1860. See, Hughes, Crime, Disorder and the Risorgimento:
The Politics of Policing in Bologna, 243.
362 BOA HR.H 169/5, 4 April 1861. Article 330 of the Sardinian Penal Code: “se si tratterà di
contraffazione o di falsificazione nei regi stati di obbligazione o carte di credito pubblico equivalenti a
moneta emesse sotto qualunque denominazione da un governo straniero, o di introduzione dolosa di
esse nei regi stati, ovunque siano state contraffatte o falsificate, ovvero di uso doloso delle medesime;
la pena sarà della reclusione non minore di anni cinque, estensibile anche ai lavori forzati per anni
dieci.” Codice penale per gli stati di s.m.il re di Sardegna, 105. Articles 230/231 of the Pontificate
133
The sentences corresponded to the ten-year penalties issued by the Ottoman Courts
in February 1861 in accordance with after Articles 143 and 148 of the 1858 Penal
Code.363 As this forgery incident unravels, the long and laborious collaboration the
Ottoman Empire and Italy established moved beyond capitulatory predicaments and
proved a success in a period of a major political crisis that wrought havoc on their
territories.
Table 6. The Forgery Network of Turin-Istanbul-Bologna
Name of the Forgers Age Birthplace Occupation Place of Arrest
Alexandre Venanzi
(alias Jean Baptiste
Bongiaci in Istanbul)
24 Rome Sculptor Turin
Louis Varallo Pandolfini
(alias Aristidi Pallatiano)
41 Moncalvo, province of
Casal in Piedmont
Ex-military officer
(he was a sergeant in the
Sardinian troops; later he
became the officer in Anglo-
Italian Legion)
Turin
Antoinette Biancardi
(wife of Varallo
Pandolfini)
24 Moncalvo
Turin
(later released)
Augustin Veiller
(alias Alphonse Invert)
(alias Mayner)
50 Rome
(he lived in Turin)
Lithographer - engraver Fugitive
Spadofora Philippe Peppo 26 Rome
(he lived in Turin)
Painter -engraver - sculptor Fugitive
Dimitri Calvocoressi
(alias Mircovitch)
(alias Falzone)
25 Scutari
(Ottoman Greek)
As Mircovitch, lived in
Sardine, Sassari
Merchant
(his office was located in
Stamboul near the Porte)
Istanbul
Marcello Brescianni Brescia
(he lived in Istanbul)
Lawyer
(he had an office at Galata)
Istanbul
Ambrosio Bondesio 55 Genoa
(he lived in Istanbul)
Lawyer
(he had an office at Pera)
Turin
(later released)
Ulyssee Baldini364 27 Bologna
(Austrian Protégé)
Goldsmith, engraver Bologna
Raphael Randa Boschi 40 Bologna (Budrio)
(Austrian protégé)
Cook, café owner Bologna
legislation: “Qualunque altra persona che commette falsità in una scrittura autentica e pubblica, o in
una scrittura ò epoca di commercio o di banco, è punita con la galera dai cinque anni ai dieci” and
“Alla medesima pena è soggetto quello che sciente mente ha fatto uso degli atti falsi con scienza della
loro falsità.” Regolamento sui Delitti e Sulle Pene del 20 Settembre 1832, 41.
363 BOA HR.H 169/5, 21 Feb. 1861.
364 BOA HR.MKT. 284/69.
134
Ludovico Boschi 32 Bologna
(Austrian protégé)
Carpenter at the place of
Diomanikli in Beşiktaş,
merchant (he sold drinks at
Balıklıova, Gallipoli and at the
battlefronts of Kamışlı, Keçe and
Varna)
(he worked in the Hotel Nestano
owned by a Greek lady at
Galata)
Istanbul
Raffaele Crudeli 40 Bologna Singer
Bologna
Gezri Venissi 43 Livorno
(he lived in Istanbul)
(Austrian protégé)
Interpreter Istanbul
Roberto Diamanti 36 Livorno
(he lived in Istanbul)
(Austrian protégé)
Carpenter
(he worked at the house of
Mavrocordato at Pera and
Dolmabahçe Palace)
Istanbul
(he died during the
judicial process)
Andonaki Dragonicos 32 Ionian from Ithaca
Island
(he lived in Istanbul)
(English protégé)
Carpenter
(he had a store at Yeni Çarşı)
Istanbul
Thomas Facchini
51 Schwerin/ Mecklenburg
(he lived in Bologna)
Lithographer Bologna
Sebastiano Zanetti
34 Bologna Lithographer Bologna
Antonio Dareni 365
(brother in law of
Sebastiano Zanetti)
28 Bologna Lithographer Bologna
Thumb Guilliame
23 Wurttemberg
(he lived in Bologna)
Lithographer Bologna
Angelo Gennari (Lougi
Ergolani)
- Rome
(Austrian Protégé)
- Venice
Busi Vincenzo Italian (?)
Fugitive
Gaetano Manzoni Sardinia Worked as waiter at the café
Prado in Beyoğlu and as
coachman at the butcher shop
Parmesani at Feriköy
Istanbul
Francisco Petris Sardinia (Salazzo) Blacksmith at the army during
Crimean War
(He had a beverage store at
Feriköy)
Istanbul
Margarita de Petris
(wife of Francisco Petris)
26 Sardinia (Salazzo) He had a beverage store at
Feriköy
Istanbul
Clitze Cole (Gaufliano
Makri)
36 Malta
(English protégé)
He was engaged in commerce Istanbul
Tepeto Galita (Nitto) 44 Latin-Ottoman Painter
Istanbul
365 BOA. HR. H. 211/2.
135
Table 7. Beyoğlu: Crime Scene of Forgery (1856-59)366
Name of the Forgers The Meeting Place Location
*Francesco Pedroni Pedrozzi
*Ulysse Baldini
*Angelo Gennari
*Aristide Bongiaci
*Agostino Maureno
*Viello Gio Balta
House of Pedrozzi
(Jewelry shop of Francesso Pedroni
Pedrozzi)
Pera
*Angelo Gennari
*Louis Varallo Pandolfini
*Ulysse Baldini
House of Bondesio Pera
*Francisco Petris
*Margarita Petris
*Gaetano Manzo
*Ludovico Boschi
Beverage shop
(it was ran by Francis and Margarita
de Petris)
Feriköy
*Francisco Petris
*Gaetano Manzo
*Giovanni Killo (Machinist)
Café Charalanpas Kalyoncu Kulluk
*Francisco Petris
*Gaetano Manzo
*Ludovico Boschi
*Carlato (?)
*Nitto (Tepeto Galita)
The Butcher Shop Parmesani
(it was ran by Cesare Parmesani)
Feriköy
*Gaetano Manzo
*Ludovico Boschi
Café Bülbül Beyoğlu
*Gaetano Manzo
*Ludovico Boschi
*Gezri Venissi
House of Gezri Venissi Petit Champs de Morts
*Gaetano Manzo
*Ludovico Boschi
*Gezri Venissi
*Andonaki Drogonicos
The water factory
(it was owned by Greek Leonide
Sarandi)
Located next to the Taksim Fountain
*Gaetano Manzo
*Clitze Cole (Maltese)
*Gezri Venissi
*Ludovico Boschi
*Andonaki Drogonicos
English Casino Located across the Sardine Hospital
(Later Italian Hospital) at Beyoğlu
*Gezri Venissi
*Clitze Cole
Café Roco Galata
3.4 Conclusion
The capitulatory system guided the spirit of Ottoman-Italian relations for centuries.
In this respect, these relations were no different from those observed with most other
366 BOA HR.H. 169/5. Except for the Italian hospital, these places were not in the list of 1868-69
Istanbul yearbook. Considering the ten-year lapse between the forgery incident and the yearbook’s
publication date, it is no surprise that we could not encounter any of these places. This could also
reflect on the swift urban change of Istanbul. Or, these places were simply omitted in the yearbook as
they had not much significance. See, Raphael Cervati, L’Indicateur Constantinopolitain: Guide
Commercial, Premier Année 1868-1869, (Imprimerie G. B. Pagano, 1868).
136
European states. In a series of confrontations over questions of jurisdiction
arguments were based on or opposed to the extraterritorial privileges. Numerous
legal conflicts of identical character are held in the archives. Their records usually
narrate similar stories of Italian consulates denying requests for the surrender of
convicts to Ottoman local courts even as the latter repeatedly claimed jurisdiction,
especially if one of the litigants was Ottoman. In these cases, Italian authorities
resorted to a familiar tactic among capitulatory states. They did not send dragomans
to the courts, rendering the cases null and void (keenlemyekûn). In other
circumstances, they overlooked offenses by permitting the escape of criminals from
justice before any official prosecution started.367
From this standpoint, victorious judicial-diplomatic collaborations like the
one revealed in this chapter cannot be held up as evidence repudiating the
capitulations. On the contrary, the well-established doctrines of the capitulatory
reality were always present and fully operational, functioning directly against
Ottoman sovereignty. However, this chapter shows that the Ottoman judicial system
moved beyond arguments construed against the capitulations in many venues. In
matters of international security, both parties were seeking to maintain order and
punish criminals. Moreover, blame for the problems of the capitulatory system
cannot be put only on Europe. As legal codification and institutional reforms in law
367 The following examples represent only the tiny results of in-depth digging of the archival
documents cataloged as ‘miscellaneous correspondence with Italy.’ Thus, they cover a few documents
that dated to late 1860-early 1870. These documents should be considered illustrative for other
documents of similar nature that could pop up anywhere in the archives. BOA HR.H. 511/62: the legal
case of a certain Mehmed, who murdered an official from the Italian Marine Forces in 1868. BOA
HR.H. 512/28: the legal case of Italian Galizzi, who was arrested and imprisoned by the Ottoman
police in 1871. BOA HR.H. 512/35: The Italian subject Petrini threw a chemical bottle to a woman
passing by whose eyes and face got severely injured in 1871. Despite the Ottoman protests, the Italian
consul in İzmir showed no effort to find and arrest him. BOA HR.H. 513/35: The Italian Giovanni,
who committed vol in Istanbul, was arrested in Magnesia. He was first sent to İzmir, where he would
be transported to Istanbul via a ship. However, he escaped somehow on the way. BOA HR.H. 514/3:
The legal case of Italian Luigi Paverni, who was arrested and brought to the Ottoman court in 1874.
BOA HR.H. 513/44: Legal case of an Italian against a Russian that stirred a debate over the judicial
competency in 1874.
137
advanced, Ottoman juridical competency further legitimated its territorial
sovereignty. Statements by Ottoman officials making avail of international law were
the best testament to this evolution.
This chapter has recounted how Ottoman envoys, especially Rüstem Bey,
furthered their causes using penal codes and various diplomatic networks to establish
new channels of communication and trace forgers on the lam. Their success was on
account of these instruments, other informal agencies, and their technical know-how.
Interstate collaboration with Italy proceeded smoothly except for times of unforeseen
political and social upheaval in one of the two geographies or the other. Forgery was
a crime with severe consequences. Many states worked jointly in the international
arena to regulate the extradition of forgers, who were considered anarchists targeting
state security and interests. This case of forgery was one of the first examples of
Ottoman efforts to combat transnational crime in the absence of extradition treaty in
the early nineteenth century. This episode suggests the need to expand the sources
used in Ottoman legal studies to shed light on similar legal conflicts that move
arguments beyond the pretext of capitulations.
On the other hand, this chapter contextualizes a reading of a micro episode in
a broad historical framework. As Giovanni Levi says, “it is not the ‘microness’ of the
phenomenon studied that characterizes microhistory, but its habit of reading
microscopically in order to highlight facts and issues of relevance.”368 The plans of
Dimitri Calvocoressi and Ambrosio Bondesio, which were hatched amid the Crimean
War, surpassed their expectations, and ultimately a vast criminal network emerged in
its aftermath. The war exhausted the Ottoman Empire and Europe, and the
Risorgimento was still at its peak on the Italian peninsula. In this atmosphere, the
368 Levi, G. “Frail Frontier,” 38.
138
network of forgery expanded from the war fronts in Crimea to Istanbul, Turin, and
Bologna. The operation was facilitated by a lack of security due to ongoing turmoil.
It was difficult to reign in mobility in such times of crisis. Accordingly, this chapter
shows the value of similar stories overshadowed by the grand narratives of
momentous events in history.
139
CHAPTER 4
THE 1874 EXTRADITION TREATY AND THE LEGAL BATTLE OVER
JURISDICTION BETWEEN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE UNITED
STATES 369
This chapter provides a historical explanation of the legal battle over jurisdiction
fought between the Ottoman Empire and the United States on multi-levels. It focuses
on the 1874 Extradition Treaty, the only such official agreement signed by the
Ottoman state in the nineteenth century. This official agreement with the United
States resembled treaties signed among European powers in the same epoch and was
enacted alongside the 1874 Naturalization Act, the latter of which was never put in
force. The abeyance of the naturalization issue directly affected the fate of the
extradition treaty. Moreover, ongoing controversy over Article 4 of the 1830 Treaty
of Commerce and Navigation further contributed to a diplomatic quagmire that
would last years. The procedures imposed by Washington only continued to prevent
successful extradition, and ad hoc political actions adopted on both sides further
complicated negotiations.
The first section of this chapter analyses the historical context of the 1874
Extradition Treaty, examining political tensions over naturalization that emerged
from various legal disputes over the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law. Then, to shed
further light on the extradition debate, the chapter explores a legal conflict between
the Ottoman Empire and the United States, known as the Kelly Affair, which was a
369 An abridged version of this chapter has recently published in New Perspectives on Turkey. See
Kamay “The Ottoman Empire, the United States, and the legal battle over extradition: the ‘Kelly
affair’,” 78-99.
140
testing ground for the 1874 Extradition Treaty.370 The legal diplomacy adopted by
the Ottoman Empire, an old power with a resolve to survive, and the United States, a
power on the rise, shook up the inter-imperial relations in which Europe had been the
locus of privilege and power. It demonstrated that the power balance had shifted in
perpetuity.371 The episode thus offers the chance to revisit the extraterritorial regime
in the Ottoman Empire by delving into questions of subjecthood and legal belonging.
In the last section of this chapter, I argue that ensuing Ottoman–American relations
regarding extradition and jurisdictional rights were formulated, in significant part, by
policies influenced by the experience of the Kelly Affair.
4.1 The Historical Background of the 1874 Extradition Treaty
The negotiation of a US-Ottoman extradition treaty first arose in the context of the
question of subjecthood. An increasing number of Ottoman subjects, mainly from
among its Armenian population, were seeking naturalization in the United States
while maintaining their Ottoman birth identity, which was a threat from the Ottoman
perspective. Correspondingly, felons on both sides remained in judicial limbo due to
their ambiguous legal status, thereby avoiding punishment. For this reason, the
extradition treaty emerged alongside negotiations over naturalization, which were
intended to resolve the nationality problem of American and Ottoman subjects.
The 1874 Naturalization Act strikingly resembled the United States’
convention with Germany.372 On the other hand, the 1874 Extradition Treaty took
the form of the 1868 American–Italian Extradition Treaty. Comprised of eight
370 For the Ottoman-Turkish Text see İ. HR. 264-15815 and Appendix B.
371 Keene, Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics, 114–15.
372 The U.S. government followed an identical pattern while drafting a naturalization treaty with other
states. However, Germany encountered problems when implementing the extradition convention
because of the controversy over naturalized Americans in the German army. BOA HR. ID. 139/2,
139/3, 139/17 and 139/35.
141
articles, it was signed on 11 August 1874, by the US Minister Resident, George H.
Boker, and the Ottoman Foreign Minister, Aarifi Pasha. The Ottoman government
ratified the agreement in September, and the treaty came into full force in April
1875, when Grant gave a speech to Congress regarding its ratification.373 However,
political considerations prevented both the act and the treaty from being applied.
Initially, Edward Joy Morris, the Minister Resident of US Consulate in
Istanbul (1861–1870), suggested that an extradition treaty along with a naturalization
act be formulated with the Sublime Porte in 1868.374 Secretary of State William H.
Seward (1861–1869) articulated this desire to Eduard Blacque (Blak Bey), the
Ottoman Ambassador to Washington (1867–1873), as an opportunity to set a novel
precedent for European powers in their relations with the Ottoman Empire:
We are now convinced of the progressive opinions which prevail in Turkey
and of the sincere desire on the part of its sovereign and the outstanding men
who govern the country to walk wisely in the way of civilization. The
considerable facts which occur and the liberal reforms which are daily
accomplished do not leave any doubt in this regard, and as for us, we no
longer have any hesitation in considering Turkey as an Asian state with a lack
of institutions. On the contrary, we want to be the first to treat Turkey on the
same footing as any civilized state in Europe. We want the American people
to come to know and appreciate the difference between Ottoman society
today and that of just fifty years ago; let them finally acknowledge that there
are no longer any Turks as the fierce enemies of Christians and European
civilizations. In a word, I repeat, we want to show our eagerness to bring,
little by little, our citizens to modify their beliefs and their ideas, which are in
the abundance of old prejudices that unfortunately still exist in our country
against the Ottoman race. We want to achieve that by claiming equity and
developing our relations with the East. We show you an unequivocal
testimony of our sincere intentions, and the Federal Government proposes to
the Sultan's government to accede to a naturalization treaty that we have just
concluded with Prussia and Bavaria.375
373 BOA A.) DVN.NMH. 21/8, BOA MHD. 265 and 269, BOA HR.ID. 139/15, 139/16, and BOA
HR. TO. 512/23, and Salname-i Nezaret-i Hariciye, 559, and The Times, 4 Sep. 1874.
374 BOA HR. ID. 139/6.
375 BOA HR.ID. 139/3.
142
Blak Bey regarded the invitation as a promising defense against the indiscriminate
granting of the protection of the American flag to Ottoman subjects by the United
States. He described this diplomatic act as a significant step towards abolishing the
central predicament of capitulations.376 Nevertheless, Safvet Pasha and Fuad Pasha,
who successively held the post of Foreign Minister in 1869, did not share his
confidence. Due to the 1869 Nationality Law, they were cautious of any
naturalization project that did not follow the same course as treaties between the
United States and Germany and Bavaria.377 As it turned out, they were not wrong.
4.1.1 The 1869 Nationality Law (Tabiiyet Nizamnâmesi)
The nine article 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law took effect on 28 January of 1869. 378
On 17 July of 1867, the Ottoman Nationality Bureau was established, and a
commission of Ottoman officers and consular agents was appointed to register the
nationalities of residents in the provinces. Foreign nationals listed in these records
had to carry an official certificate issued by the commission as proof of their
nationality. These certificates were valid in all the tribunals and courts in the
empire.379 This law was an important milestone for determining who was or was not
officially an Ottoman. Beforehand, the millet system had designated the legal status
of Ottomans.380 This system regulated the place and role of religious communities
vis-à-vis a backdrop of Muslim Ottomans. Representatives, elected from among the
religious community of each group, acted as intermediaries among the state, the
376 BOA HR.ID. 139/3.
377 BOA HR.ID. 139/7.
378 Düstur, I. Tertip, 16-18.
379 Arminjon, Étrangers et Protégés dans l’Empire Ottoman, 137, and for a lengthy discussion on this
matter Moore, A Digest of International Law, Vol. III, 680-708.
380 Millet, as a term, here describes the religious groups in the Ottoman Empire rather than ‘the nation’
as in modern definition.
143
other non-Muslim and Muslim populations, and their own communities. Religious
diversity and a special poll tax (cizye) imposed on non-Muslim subjects were two
main features that characterized the millet system for centuries.381
The 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law introduced a secular understanding of
subjecthood as a legal concept since there was no reference to religious or ethnic
classification. The law considered anyone born to Ottoman parents to be an Ottoman
subject. If their parents were foreign nationals, children born in Ottoman territory
had the right to assume Ottoman subjecthood three years after coming of age.
Moreover, foreign nationals could acquire Ottoman subjecthood after residing in
Ottoman territory for five years. Ottoman women who married foreigners could
regain Ottoman subjecthood by submitting a petition within three years after the
death of their husbands. 382
The most significant parts of this law were contained in Articles 5 and 6,
which became the crux of many conflicts over the question of subjecthood.
According to these articles, when Ottoman subjects sought to obtain another
nationality, they had to inform and receive the consent of the Ottoman state, which
would authorize the change of nationality by imperial decree. Otherwise, they would
continue to be considered Ottomans and their new identities would be null and void
in the view of the Ottoman state.383
381 For a comprehensive and critical revisit to millet system, see Barkey and Gavrilis, “The Ottoman
Millet System: Non-Territorial Autonomy and its Contemporary Legacy,” 24-42.
382 Düstur, I. Tertip, 16-18.
383 Düstur, I. Tertip, 17: Article 5, “Tebaa-yı Saltanat-ı Seniyyeden me’zunen tâbiyyet-i ecnebiyyeye
giren eşhas tebdil-i tâbiyet etdikleri tarihden itibaren ecnebi sıfatında tutulup haklarında ol vechle
muamele olunur. Fakat Devlet-i Aliyyeden me’zun olmaksızın tâbiyyet-i ecnebiyyeye girer ise işbu
tâbiyyeti cedidesi kanlembiken? ve kendisi kemakân tebaa-yı Devlet-i Aliyye’den azad (?) olunup
kâffe-yi hususatta tebaa-yı Devlet-i Aliyye hakkında olunan muamelâtın aynı icrâ kılınacaktır.
Herhâlde Devlet-i Aliyye’den bir şahsın terk-i tabiyyet etmesi mutlaka irâde-i seniyye üzerine
verilecek bir senede muallak olacaktır,” and Article 6, “Saltanat-ı Seniyye tarafından mezun
olmaksızın diyar-ı ecnebiyyede tebdil-i tabiyyet eden veyahut bir ecnebi devletin hıdmet-i
askeriyesine giren şahsı Devlet-i Aliyye ister ise tabiyyetten ıskât edebilir ve bu makule tabiyyeti ıskât
olunan eşhasın Memâlik-i Şâhâneye avdeti memnu’ olur.”
144
In context, the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law reflected the principles of both
jus soli (right of soil) and jus sanguinis (right of blood) since the importance of
residence in Ottoman territory was equivalent to that placed on Ottoman lineage and
birth. The rights extended to the Ottoman women were especially clear indications of
the desire to preserve their Ottoman identity, in contrast with usual practice observed
in Europe.384 According to Ebru Akçasu, the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law had
much in common with Italian and Russian citizenship laws, which also combined
these two legal principles. By contrast, countries such as England, Austro-Hungary,
and Germany strictly underscored the birthright and blood. In pointing out the
nuances of this law in comparison with legislation in other countries, Akçasu argues
that the Ottoman regulation of subjecthood was more “inclusive” and “expansionist”
than portrayed otherwise. She opposes the idea that the Ottoman state, in the face of
its waning power over the previous decades, designed a particular notion of
nationality characterized by bonds of loyalty to the imperial state.385
The concept of Ottoman nationality cannot be treated as equivalent to the
prevalent notion of citizenship in Europe and the United States. In those countries,
citizenship was the embodiment of a series of civic duties and legal and political
rights. Unlike in the Ottoman case, the questions of nationhood and citizenship were
not addressed by supplementary regulations; they were fundamental to either state
constitutions or civil codes. On the contrary, the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law
specified the conditions by which to become an Ottoman or lose that distinction.386
384 “1874 Protecting the Prohibition of Marriage Between Iranians and the Ottoman Subjects” puts
further restrictions by preserving the legal status quo of the Ottoman women marrying Iranians as
Ottoman subjects. Thus, the children born were also treated as Ottomans. The regulation was the
outcome of political concerns, as the Ottoman state was worried about the increasing number of
conversions among the Iraqi Ottomans from Sunnism to Shiism. See Kern, Imperial Citizen:
Marriage and Citizenship in the Ottoman Frontier Provinces of Iraq, 27 and 89.
385 Akçasu, “Nation and Migration in Late-Ottoman Spheres of (Legal) Belonging: A Comparative
Look at Laws on Nationality,” 2-5.
386 Hanley, “What Ottoman Nationality Was and Was Not?”, 277.
145
In this respect, Will Hanley characterizes the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law not as
the bestowing of citizenship rights but rather as a naturalization regulation defined
more by the principle of jus sanguinis. Accordingly, it primarily concerned who was
officially Ottoman; social and political rights were of secondary importance in the
face of this legal ambiguity.387
Even though the concept of nationality was a part of private international law,
the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law primarily addressed foreign audiences.388 It was
the product of and response to a long history of increasing foreign influence in the
Ottoman Empire. Selim Deringil states that “the sphere of influence was being
played out over the bodies of non-Muslims subjects” in the nineteenth century. He
adds that, from the outset, the subjecthood problem was the outcome of foreign
politics.389 The call for equality vis-a-vis the non-Muslim Ottoman subjects were
hallmarks of the 1856 Reform Edict (Islahat Fermanı) and the Paris Peace Treaty.
However, the policies for safeguarding the non-Muslim Ottomans extend long before
that time.
Since the eighteenth century, consulates in the Ottoman Empire employed
Ottoman subjects, mostly non-Muslim Ottomans, and granted them the same
extraterritorial privileges the consuls themselves enjoyed on account of the
capitulatory system. The high number of consular agents and dragomans under
protégé status who were Ottoman subjects became an increasing concern for the
empire as they retained their Ottoman identity even as they acquired foreign
naturalization. While the first attempt to resolve this problem, in 1852, was a failure,
387 Hanley, “When Did Egyptians Stop Being Ottomans? An Imperial Citizenship Case Study,” 94,
and Hanley, “What Ottoman Nationality Was and Was Not?”, 278.
388 Will Hanley argues that the Egyptian compendium on nationality also had similar characteristics
with the 1869 Ottoman Law of Nationality and addressed the Western states. Hanley, Hanley, “When
Did Egyptians Stop Being Ottomans? An Imperial Citizenship Case Study,” 96.
389 Deringil, Conversion and Apostasy in Late Ottoman Empire, 167 and 188.
146
the Ottoman state made a genuine effort to nip it in the bud in the 1860s when it
realized the number of Ottoman protèges exceeded the foreign nationals employed in
the consulates. The 1863 Regulation of Foreign Consulates was the first serious
endeavor to clarify the limitations of the protégé status. Thus, only Ottoman subjects
employed as the consular agents, as dragomans of either the ecclesiastical missions
or foreign monasteries, or as yasakçı kavass (security forces) could receive protégé
status. However, Ottoman subjects thus employed still had to perform their military
obligations to the empire either by service or payment. It was underscored that none
could renounce their Ottoman identity by obtaining a protégé title.390
Conflicts in foreign politics precipitated the need to address the subjecthood
issue specifically in a legal framework. Due to the flow of immigrants from
territories lost, such as Morean immigrants to the empire in 1830 and Algerians in
1848 due to French occupation, the Ottoman state was compelled to establish a
permanent solution to these people’s legal identification. The definitive problem that
eventually brought about the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law was the American
naturalization of many Ottomans in the 1850s. The 1863 Regulation was the
precursor of the 1869 regulation as it established the groundwork to avert legal
loopholes with respect to double citizenship.391 Nevertheless, the neither effectively
curtailed the increasing number of American naturalized Armenians and Syrians,
thus paving the way for the 1874 Naturalization Act.392
390 Aristarchi Bey, Legislation Ottoman, Vol. IV, and Van den Steen de Jehay, De la Situation Légale
des Sujets Ottomans non-Musulmans, 503 ; and Serbestoğlu, “Zorunlu Bir Modernleşme Örneği
Olarak Osmanlı Tabiiyet Kanunu,” 119.
391 See Torunoğlu, “The Neo-Hellenes in the Ottoman Empire, 1830-1869,” 49-70; and Serbestoğlu,
Zorunlu Bir Modernleşme Örneği Olarak Osmanlı Tabiiyet Kanunu,” 193-214.
392 Karpat, “The Ottoman Emigration to America, 1860-1914,” 190.
147
4.1.2 The Conflict over the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law
As Fuad and Savfet Pashas anticipated, the US-German naturalization agreement was
not a practicable model for the 1874 Naturalization Act as it contradicted the
principles of the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law.393 The first conundrum originated
from Article 1, which treated anyone who resided for five years in a country as
naturalized subject. The Ottoman government could not approve this mandate as it
disregarded the obligation of obtaining authorization for Ottoman subjecthood in
conformance with Article 5 of the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law. Thus, the
Ottoman government pushed American agents to acknowledge the prerequisite of an
imperial decree by adding the clause: “a simple declaration of becoming an Ottoman
subject or an American citizen would not suffice in any case to produce the effects of
naturalization.” In this respect, an Ottoman who was a naturalized American had no
definitive legal status in the Ottoman Empire since the 1869 Ottoman Nationality
Law was not retroactive. Which is to say, all Ottoman subjects who were naturalized
Americans before 1869 were accepted as Ottoman subjects.394
However, US citizenship regulations did not conform to the Ottoman
understanding. Ever since the United States War of Independence (1775-1783), its
regulations relied on the principle of jus soli, according to which being born an
American or acquiring naturalization made no difference. Adhering to the idea that
anyone could choose to change their nationality by voluntary expatriation, the basic
requirements to become an American under the American Naturalization Act of 1795
was conditioned on five-year residency, an oath of allegiance, and having good
393 For the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law, see Y.EE 41/133 and Appendix C.
394 BOA HR.ID. 139/8.
148
traits.395 Thus, the American delegation did not accept the Ottoman revisions to
Article 1 as they could not make sense of imperial authorization.396
Other difficulties stemmed from Article 2, articulating statute of limitations
for crimes perpetrated in the home country. It stated that,
All subjects who are naturalized in one of the two states and returned to the
other may be sought by their country of origin for punishment for
actions committed there before their emigration, provided that
there is no lapse of time.397
The Ottoman state considered lapse of time an impediment that would allow
impunity for naturalized criminals. They made the further proposal regarding that a
two-year condition stay in the country of naturalization implied a defective
renunciation of their nationality of birth.398 In the end, the United States Senate did
not ratify the agreement and overlooked the proposals made by the Ottomans. Both
states informally recognized this agreement until the Ottomans unilaterally defaulted
on it in the early 1890s.399 Up until then, both parties frequently negotiated the
conflicting terms of the 1874 Naturalization Act.400
As stated, American regulations on naturalization did not prioritize blood
right over territorial allegiance. However, race discrimination made these regulations
distinct from European counterparts. These race theories, which primarily rested on a
white-black divide, laid the groundwork for the US immigration policies throughout
the nineteenth century.401 There were endless race-based debates over the legal status
395 Perl-Rosenthal, Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution, 102 and 183.
396 BOA HR.ID. 139/11. In 1891, they were still discussing the retroactivity of the 1869 Nationality
Law. BOA HR.ID. 140/8.
397 BOA HR.ID. 139/2.
398 BOA HR.ID. 139/8.
399The 1874 Naturalization Act was first officially negotiated on August 11, 1874. Renewed
negotiations in February 1889 did not result in success. BOA A.) DVN.NHM. 21/8.
400 NARA 8778/40 (Notes from the Turkish Legation in the United States to the Department of State,
1867–1906), BOA HR.ID. 140/4,140/9 and 140/19.
401 Before the Civil War, it was nothing but a painful process for the population of African descent to
fight against various discriminatory regulations concerning traveling and citizenship rights, not to
149
of Asian, Japanese, Mexican, Armenian, and Syrian immigrants with respect to the
US system of citizenship.402
Especially by early the twentieth century, these racial categories were
reconsidered in a new policy that directly affected Ottoman subjects. The US
Tribunal of the 1st Instance decided to no longer affirm the naturalization of the
Asiatic race in the Ottoman Empire, with reference to Armenians, Turks, Syrians,
and various Arab populations. Shortly thereafter, an appeal for naturalization by a
Syrian was rejected in 1909. The Ottoman Minister in Washington, Alfred Rüstem
Bey (Bilinski) (June 1914 – October 1914), protested the humiliating policy adopted
vis-à-vis Ottoman subjects in the American press. He underscored that his
remonstrance was not against the decision but against the reasoning that the tribunal
invoked to justify its refusal. The policy, which positioned Ottoman subjects as
inferior, offended both Ottoman dignity and diplomatic tradition as the American
Department of State did not endorse the court decision, either.403 Either the latter's
efforts or Alfred Rüstem Bey's protest in the press prompted the Court of Georgia to
accept a Syrian, George Najour, as a naturalized American in the same year. In the
following decade, courts approved seven naturalization appeals among Syrian,
Armenian, and Asian candidates.404 However, many Ottomans had already obtained
American naturalization by that time, a disproportionate situation considered the low
number of Americans who would potentially secure an Ottoman citizenship
compared to the increasing flow of Ottomans to the United States.405
mention the harsh treatments they had to endure frequently. See Stordeur Pryor, Colored Travelers:
Mobility and the Fight for Citizenship Before the Civil War.
402 Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America, 100.
403 BOA HR.ID. 140/26 and 140/29.
404 Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America, 108 and 109.
405 BOA HR. ID. 139/13. This was an ensuing problem alike between the United States and Germany.
Whereas Germany requested thirty people from the United States, between 1871 and 1874, there came
only three requests from the US side. In this respect, the first diplomatic agent of the German Empire
in Washington, Kurd Von Schlözer, proposed to the Ottoman government to compare their
150
This large number of migrants, which prompted the pressing need for a
naturalization convention, became, paradoxically, the prominent political obstacle in
the way of establishing an extradition practice. The naturalized Ottoman population
in Istanbul was primarily regarded as a future threat due to its high number.
Meanwhile, the conflicts arose because of Ottoman fears that certain Armenian
groups may instigate subversive activities. The latter were deemed political
criminals, and their extradition was not an option unless they accepted voluntary
expulsion.406 Instead, the Ottoman police often arrested them without making
criminal charges.407
Two such arrests, reported consecutively in 1893 in Salonica and Istanbul,
became the last straw. In reply to US protests, Ottoman officials claimed that their
decisions were not arbitrary but confirmed the applicable laws and regulations in the
empire. They had reason to be suspicious of the political intentions of these two
Armenians, who had obtained US naturalization without imperial authorization, for
which Foreign Minister Said Pasha was demanding their immediate deportation.408 In
1894, the Ottoman state transformed this security practice into legitimate state policy
by declaring that all who had become naturalized since 1869 would be turned out
agreements. He wanted to be sure whether the Washington Cabinet followed similar principles with
Germany and the Ottoman Empire likewise they did with Europe. Since the German Empire was a
new power, they desired to be treated equally in European politics. See: BOA HR.ID. 139/17.
406 BOA HR. İD. 140/3 and 140/16. Many of the naturalized Jewish population in Palestine were
another concern for the Ottoman state in the late 19th c. They wrote protests to the Us Legation to stop
protecting these populations. See BOA HR.ID 140/23. David Gutman explains these problems
engendered by the naturalization draft and the governments’ switching policies in detail. See: Gutman,
The Politics of Armenian Migration to North America, 1885–1915, 124–43.
407 The Ottoman state had already a cautious stance towards the naturalized Americans before the
1869 Nationality Law and the 1874 Naturalization Treaty. For example, in 1868, the naturalized
American captain, Pantaleon Petronus, of Greek origin, was arrested by the Ottoman authorities for
disrupting the public order in Chios. The Ottoman court overlooked the US protests and claims over
Petronus’ identity and judged him in the presence of a Greek dragoman. See: BOA HR.H. 346/2.
408 BOA HR.ID 140/11, 140/12, 140/14, and 140/15.
151
from the Ottoman territories if they returned.409 This state policy compelled many
Armenians to renounce their Ottoman identity (terk-i tabiiyet).410 Given the recent
developments, Ottoman resentment due to the failed attempts to address the
naturalization question was a primary reason that the 1874 Extradition Treaty was
not enforced.
Along with obstacles caused by the question of naturalization, there were
economic concerns. Aristarchi Bey warned the Ottoman government about the
lengthy procedures and vast expense of extradition proceedings. From his colleagues
in Germany, Italy, and Belgium, he learned that such proceedings were at the mercy
of lawyers who, as they were poorly paid, exploited all legal complications in their
favor, namely the conflicts of law between states. The lawsuits lasted years, with
expenses amounting to fifteen to twenty-five thousand francs.411 The Kelly Affair
would ultimately validate this concern. In the beginning, the 1874 Extradition Treaty
seemed to be a plausible solution to increasing criminality, yet political debates over
the 1830 treaty further thwarted its official application. The Kelly Affair thus became
a testing ground for the 1874 Extradition Treaty and a turning point for future
American-Ottoman conflicts over US jurisdictional rights in the empire.
4.2 The Legal battle over Extradition: The Kelly Affair
On 14 February 1877, Ottoman authorities received word that an American had
murdered an Ottoman citizen Tahir, an officer of a customs house in Smyrna
409 BOA HR.ID. 140/17. This regulation did not bring an immediate success to naturalization question
as a deterrent factor. In 1899, another American naturalized Charles Moses was arrested out of similar
excuses and the same debates recurred on his identity and expulsion. BOA HR.SYS. 2793/6.
410 Photographing these people became the standard regulation and legal documentation to certify their
expatriation. Hazal Özdemir’s research focuses on this practice. See Özdemir, “Osmanlı Ermenilerinin
Göçünün Fotoğrafını Çekmek: Fotoğrafçılar, Arka Planları ve Terk-i Tabiiyet Fotoğrafları” 48-59.
411 BOA HR. ID. 139/26.
152
(modern-day Izmir). The accused, Patrick Kelly, was a crew member of the USS
Vandalia,412 a warship docked in the harbor at the time of the incident. As soon as
the Ottoman police arrested him, they notified the consulate in Izmir.413 After an
initial inquiry, police handed Kelly over to diplomatic agents to detain him in a
consular prison until a local court hearing. However, in a departure from the
customary practice among capitulatory states, the American Consul-General in
Istanbul, Horace Maynard, granted the head of the US Legation in Izmir, Enoch
Joyce Smithers, permission to hold an independent consular trial on May 15, 1877.
Convinced of Kelly’s innocence, the legation released him without reporting to the
Ottoman government.414
The unilateral consular decision to acquit Kelly was unprecedented, and no
such legal provision was outlined in the capitulations. US diplomats involved in the
Kelly Affair acted contrary to customary procedure by carrying out the trial for
Kelly, and the Ottoman refusal to recognize the consular court ruling did not
discourage them. Resolving the conflict over jurisdiction proved challenging, in large
part due to the disputed translation of Article 4 of the 1830 treaty, which regulated
the sojourning rights and legal status of US citizens in Ottoman territory. 415 When
the Ottomans took steps to rearrest him, Patrick Kelly disappeared, and his
whereabouts would become a critical facet of the subsequent conflict between
Washington and Istanbul. Thus, the debate over extradition in the Kelly Affair move
beyond the capitulatory regime and judicial predicaments, opening discussions of the
412 The USS Vandalia was a United States Navy warship. It sank close to the Samoan Islands in the
South Pacific Ocean in 1899 as a result of a hurricane. See: Kimberly, Samoan Hurricane.
413 BOA HR. TH. 26/44, 30/18, 30/72 and 33/51.
414 BOA HR.H. 232/4.
415 Sinan Kuneralp addressed the diplomatic exchanges related to Article 4 of the 1830 treaty and their
relevance to the Kelly affair in depth. See: Kuneralp, “Ottoman Diplomacy and the Controversy over
the Interpretation of Article 4 of the Turco-American Treaty of 1830,” 7–20. I express my thanks to
Kuneralp for kindly permitting me to broaden the legal scope of the Kelly affair.
153
broader notion of jurisdiction in the Ottoman legal system and its engagement with
international law.
William Evarts: What do you want to do? Patrick Kelly is gone.
Grégoire Aristarchi: No, he did not run away; your agents let him go.
Evarts: As long as he is out of Ottoman territory, this is no longer the
issue. I see no other solution except for the extradition treaty. The
United States Government has no right to use executive powers
against Kelly. If you think you have the right to complain about this
because you claim that our agents helped the fugitive leave, you
could ask for satisfaction by way of extradition.
Aristarchi: We believe that the extradition convention applies only to
those who escape on their own. Patrick Kelly does not belong in this
category. Your government is responsible for his disappearance, and
besides, he is not in the United States now. He is traveling in the
waters of the Levant aboard the Vandalia, and the criminal has
returned several times to Smyrna.
Evarts: Why did you not stop him, then?
Aristarchi: Because we are discussing the matter with your
government, and because the American captains are somewhat hotheaded.
They could threaten to bombard Smyrna as they once
threatened to do in Tripoli.416
The conversation between US Secretary of State, William Evarts, and the Ottoman
Minister in Washington, Grégoire Aristarchi (Aristarchi Bey), testifies to the
sophisticated diplomatic advances and parries employed by both states during the
Kelly Affair. When referring to the threat of the naval bombing of Tripoli, Aristarchi
Bey was referring to a series of conflicts between the US and the suzerain powers of
the empire that had come to a head in two battles fought near the North African
coast. Known as the Barbary Wars in the West, these campaigns took place between
1801–05 and 1815–16.417 The larger-scale imperialist ventures of the United States
overseas had not yet taken place. Additionally, the threat of bombings can be
attributed to the imprudent blustering of American captains rather than a general US
416 BOA HR.H. 232/4.
417 See: Lambert, The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World.
154
policy of encroachment. However, it was apparent to Ottoman observers that
American diplomacy throughout the world at the close of the century was
characterized by a carrot-and-stick strategy.418 Aristarchi Bey’s emphasis on the
Barbary Wars, which had occurred more than half a century earlier, must be
understood in this light.
These words were a testament to the discretion of a seasoned Ottoman
diplomat, who carefully weighed the stance of his opponent. Aristarchi Bey
acknowledged the need for a delicate balance in the Ottoman state’s diplomacy with
the United States. In this respect, he was a crucial figure in the Kelly Affair. As the
Ottoman representative in Washington (1873–83), Aristarchi Bey was an Ottoman
diplomat of Greek descent with years of experience.419 He was more than just a
career diplomat since he was also educated as a jurist and served in various
provinces.420 Furthermore, he was the author of the legal collection Législation
ottomane.421
The Ottomans did not sweep the Kelly Affair under the diplomatic rug. On
the contrary, the Sublime Porte conducted an effective campaign of legal diplomacy
that reflected confidence in its developing judicial system. While the initial conflict
erupted over a jurisdictional conflict, the Ottoman state had granted the United States
the most favored nation title upon which the latter’s claims were built. When
Ottoman subjects were party to a criminal case, the so-called privilege of
418 Bender, A Nation among Nations: America’s Place in World History, 183, and Yılmaz, Turkish-
American Relations, 1800-1952: Between the Stars, Stripes and the Crescent, 11-15.
419 After 1883, he was dismissed from his post for the reasons not clearly stated. See: Kuneralp, “The
Last of the Phanariotes: Grégoire d'Aristarchi Bey (1843–1914), an Ottoman Diplomat and Publicist
in Search of Identity.”
420 Strauss, “A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire: Translations of the Kanuni Esasi and Other
Official Texts in Minority Languages,” 27.
421 See Aristarchi Grégoire Bey, Législation Ottomane; ou Recueil des lois, règlements, ordonnances,
traités, capitulations et autres documents officiels de l’Empire Ottoman, and The New York Times,
Mar. 12, 1875.
155
extraterritoriality was never officially accorded to American nationals, just as it was
withheld from other European powers. Aristarchi Bey referred to this privilege as an
“imaginary feature” in one of his dispatches, implying that it did not reflect practice
in the least.422 In any case, American consular representatives attempted to distort the
terms of the capitulatory agreement. They solicited every means to push their
extraterritorial right, occasionally making use of variances in Article 4 of the 1830
treaty. On May 15, 1877, Consul General Horace Maynard supported their claims by
quoting the English version of Article 4 as follows:
By these clauses the United States Government understands that those of its
citizens who may have rendered themselves guilty of an infraction of the
Turkish law within the Ottoman territory shall, nevertheless be considered as
invested with the privilege of extraterritoriality, and shall not be amenable to
Turkish law and procedure, but that these citizens may claim the right to be
tried, and if found guilty, to be punished according to the laws of their own
country which would be applicable to infractions of the law of like nature
with those of which they may have been accused.423
However, this article differed between the Ottoman-Turkish and English translations
of the text. Whereas the English translation stated that the rights to try and punish
were the judicial prerogative of the American Consul General, the original Ottoman-
Turkish version touched only on the point of judicial competency, thus leaving the
door open to American claims of misinterpretation by the Ottomans.424 Jay Morris
stated that the English version was based on the verified French version and
translated upon the US government's official order. The first draft was signed in
Constantinople. However, the Ottoman officials received no satisfactory explanation
422 BOA HR.H. 232/4.
423 “Considerations on Article IV of the Turco-American Treaty of 1830, in its bearings on the
Position of American Citizens in Turkey,” NARA 5084.
424 For the American translation; See: Bevans, Treaties and Other International Agreements of the
United States of America, 1776–1949, 621; and for the original Ottoman Turkish text, See: “Devlet-i
Aliye ile Düvel-i Mütehabbe Beynlerinde Teyemmüna Mün’akid olan Muahedât-ı Atika ve
Cedideden Memurîn-i Saltanat-ı Seniyyeye Müracaatı Lâzım Gelen Fukarat-ı Ahdiyeye Mutazammın
Risaledir.”
156
about the origin of the confusion. Aristarchi Bey speculated that the variance in
translation could have stemmed between the French and English versions rather than
the Turkish one, as the official document ratified in Washington was neither of these
versions.425
Zülal Muslu argues that consular dragomans in the Ottoman Empire were
more than translators of official documents or court interpreters. They were active
participants in judicial procedures who held the right to confirm the court decisions
and initiate prosecutions when conflicts arose among their consular agents. The
active nature of their role was apparent in the translation processes, as well. These
officials had a rich knowledge of the law and diplomacy, which was manifest in the
art of their assigned translations.426 Nevertheless, it is hard to ascertain the extent to
which they contributed to conflicts caused by misinterpretation in the translation of
diplomatic documents. Disputes over Article 4 of the 1830 treaty point to the
importance and role of the dragomans in foreign politics. More than as a matter of
translation, however, Article 4 reflected the prevailing, de facto US stance towards
the legal system of the Ottoman Empire. In 1880, for example, a naturalized
Armenian, Melkon Markarian, was imprisoned in Istanbul to await trial for the
homicide of Mıgırdiç, an Ottoman Armenian from Muş. Horace Maynard reacted to
the Ottoman decision to hold the trial with the assistance of the dragomans, as
follows:
Permit me to remark that it has been the uniform policy of the United States
of America in treating with non-Christian powers, whose modes of justice
and forms of punishment are unlike its own, to stipulate that when United
States citizens are guilty of crimes or offences within the territorial limits of
425 BOA HR.H. 232/4.
426 Muslu, “Language and Power: The Dragoman as a Link in the Chain Between the Law of Nations
and the Ottoman Empire,” 56. In her work, Muslu focuses on the dragomans as the production of their
cultural and social upbringing. She examines how the dragomans took an active part in the Ottoman
engagement with international law.
157
such powers, they shall be tried and punished by the diplomatic or consular
offices of the United States, and I am persuaded there will be great
unwillingness to depart from this policy.427
When American authorities pressed their right to try Kelly using the excuse of a
difference in translation, they were reacting with that established notion in mind.428
They frequently resorted to Article 8 of the Ottoman-Belgian Treaty, which similarly
underscored the Belgian right to jurisdiction over its citizens. The Ottoman
government countered that the government of Belgium never abused the capitulatory
regulations but respected the Ottoman jurisdiction.429
On the other hand, the US Consul Enoch Joyce Smithers articulated another
reason for freeing Kelly. Discounting the competency of the Ottoman legal system,
he added, “I wish your excellency to understand that I claim not only to be present at
the Tribunal regularly instituted but also claim an indispensable right to give my
voice to the judgment.”430 He insisted that an “extraordinary” tribunal was necessary
rather than leaving the case to the Ottoman Court of Appeals (Temyiz Mahkemesi).431
This attitude by an American diplomat reflected a widely-shared European bias
against the Ottoman judiciary system. Most believed that the concept of territorial
sovereignty was unknown in the Ottoman empire, which legitimized their insistence
on extraterritoriality.432 However, as Shih-Shun Liu argues, “extraterritoriality was
427 BOA HR.H. 346/19.
428 Article 4 of the 1830 Treaty was always a headache for the Ottoman Empire in its relationship with
the United States. Not to encounter similar problems, Aristarchi Bey checked the English and French
translations of the 1874 Extradition Treaty during the negotiations. BOA HR.H. 139/29.
429 BOA HR.H. 232/4. Other capitulatory states sometimes manipulated these two articles in both
treaties as a trump card to justify their jurisdictional claims of various sorts. For example, in 1874, the
Italian consulate rejected the sentence heard in the mixed court without a dragoman. Rather than
referring to the customary practice usually observed for centuries, he referred to Article 4 of the 1830
Treaty. The weaning power of capitulations is embedded in such daily legal practices, which
demonstrate a more significant change in the Ottoman legal system if taken as a cumulation. As the
Ottoman legal structure strengthened over time, the capitulatory states had to find new legal outlets for
their jurisdictional claims. See, BOA HR.H. 513/54.
430 BOA HR.H. 232/4.
431 BOA HR.H. 232/4.
432 Féraud-Giraud, “De La Juridiction Française Dans Les Échelles Du Levant,” 581.
158
nothing but a legacy of the undefined or vaguely defined status of the alien in the
ancient world, and a survival of the medieval theory of the personality of laws vs.
territoriality of law, which was once prevalent everywhere in Europe.”433 Its
centuries-long survival as a legal phenomenon was particular to a select few
countries, among which the Ottoman Empire was the most prominent.434
Smithers’ excuse had no legal basis in the Ottoman judicial system. First off,
other European powers generally deferred to the Ottoman judicial system, if
reluctantly.435 Additionally, investigative courts (tahkik meclisleri) were established
in 1854 to function like a mixed court, hearing criminal cases involving Ottoman and
foreign subjects in the provinces. Despite their shortcomings, these investigative
courts conducted trials in the presence of a dragoman, in conformance with
capitulatory regulations.436 Consuls had only limited powers of adjudication in
criminal cases with Ottoman litigants.
For lawsuits in mixed courts, Ottoman legal experts frequently stressed the
weight of the Ottoman penal codes as emblematic of territorial law. According to
Zohrab, the penal codes should be the sole reference in criminal cases and should be
in force everywhere, including in consular institutions.437 On the other and, Hamayak
Hüsrevyan emphasized that European powers flouted the jurisdictional rights of the
European subjects. The lack of regulations concerning territorial jurisdiction
permitted occasions in which justice could be manipulated.438
433 Liu, Extraterritoriality: Its Rise and Decline, 229.
434 Özsu, “The Ottoman Empire, the Origins of Extraterritoriality, and International Legal Theory,”
129.
435 Ahmed Cevdet, Tezakir I–II, 62.
436 Testa, Recueil de Traités de la Porte Ottoman avec Les Puissance Étrangères, Vol. 5, 153.
437 Zohrab, Hukuk-u Ceza, 95.
438 Hüsreyvan, Hukuk-u Hususiye-i Düvel, 181; and Brown, Foreigners in Turkey, Their Juridical
Status, 62.
159
In the Kelly Affair, the question of who had the right to preside over a trial
ended in deadlock over the controversial Article 4. The Ottoman government insisted
on its jurisdictional rights. The situation compelled Washington to seek other legal
maneuvers, and they proposed extradition. The proposal took Istanbul by surprise, as
the terms of the treaty did not correspond to the case. Extradition proceedings
required that Kelly be returned to the empire for a fair trial, but they could not find
him. Additionally, no country would extradite its own citizen. For these reasons,
Ottoman officials had already written off the possibility of extradition as a
diplomatic solution.
Instead, they laid out a strategy of hearing to a strict interpretation of the
treaty stipulations. The Ottoman Foreign Minister, Mehmed Esad Safvet Pasha,
issued a rather shrewd answer, stating that they could not request extradition of the
accused as he was not legally defined as a fugitive. 439 He was a detained suspect
whom American consular agents had released in a criminal action. Only intent to
escape could justify a demand of extradition. Safvet Pasha was directly quoting the
relevant articles of the 1874 Extradition Treaty. He backed his claims by highlighting
another technical obstacle to extradition. Even if Patrick Kelly had fled by his own
means, extradition was not a viable legal option as the murder was unintentional.
Article 2 of the 1874 Extradition Treaty supports this argument.
Persons shall be delivered up who shall have been convicted of, or be
charged, according to the provisions of this convention, with any of
the following crimes: murder, comprehending the crimes designated
by the terms of parricide, assassination, poisoning and infanticide,
and the attempt to commit murder.440
439 Mehmet Esad Safvet Pasha held this post many times in different decades.
440 Bevans, Treaties, 643; BOA İ.HR. 264/15815.
160
Safvet Pasha pointed out that the murder of Tahir did not conform to these
stipulations. Patrick Kelly was inebriated on the day of the attack and smashed a
bottle over Tahir’s head. The latter eventually died. The circumstances clearly
indicated that it was not premeditated but fell within the purview of involuntary
homicide. Thus, the extradition process could not be initiated, as there was no
reference to involuntary homicide in the treaty.441
Thus, Ottoman authorities could not initiate proceedings for Patrick Kelly.
Moreover, Kelly had not yet set foot on American soil and so was therefore not a
fugitive in American hands. Rumors that he was aboard the USS Vandalia offered
additional proof. This American warship was famous for its expeditions along
Mediterranean coasts between 1876 and 1878.442 Aristarchi Bey claimed that the
implicit threat of attack by American captains prevented the Ottomans from
apprehending Kelly in the ports, but the presence of American President Ulysses
Grant on the ship might have been another reason for hesitations. While his visit to
Istanbul was a grand occasion in the international arena,443 the tension of the Kelly
Affair hung in the air. In reference to Grant’s visit, the Ottoman government
expressed regret that “the present unhappy state of affairs prevented many courtesies
they would gladly have extended.”444 Adherence to the treaty could not have resulted
in Kelly’s extradition as no regulations permitted arrest on the open sea. On the other
hand, Evarts made clear that the United States would not attempt to repatriate Kelly
if he took refuge in a third state.445
441 BOA HR.H. 232/4.
442 USS Vandalia https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/OnlineLibrary/photos/sh-usn/usnshv/
vandla2.htm
443 Daily Levant Herald, “General Grant in Constantinople.”
444 “Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the
Annual Message of the President, December 6, 1880,” No. 508/230.
445 BOA HR.H. 232/4. In the 1874 Extradition Treaty, there was no statement about fugitives who
escaped to a third location.
161
No clause in the 1874 Extradition Treaty addressed jurisdiction at sea counted
against the Ottomans. According to international law, crimes committed in territorial
waters were to be treated under territorial jurisdictions. The Kelly Affair was one
such example; as Patrick Kelly had murdered the customs officer in the Ottoman
harbor, which would be readily accepted as territorial waters if not land.446 The
multilateral extradition treaty signed among the Latin American states and the United
States in 1879 likewise included an article stating that “for the purpose of extradition,
national jurisdiction includes the territorial waters, merchant vessels on the high seas,
and men-of-war wherever they may be located.”447 This point went unnoticed by the
Ottoman state which otherwise paid heed to the treaty’s stipulations. They could
have pressed Washington to recall the USS Vandalia to the Ottoman harbor by
diplomatic means. This last solution may have ended with a victory for the Ottomans
as the US government had been forced to submit in a similar incident with China in
1821.
Francis Terranova, an Italian sailor employed on the American opium ship
Emily, threw a jug at a Chinese woman in a rowboat alongside to the ship after a
dispute over the products she wished to sell. Hit on the forehead, she fell and
drowned, which was considered a willful homicide according to Chinese law. Even
though the US consul of Canton refused to allow the Chinese to prosecute, just as in
446 If the crime had been on the American ship at open seas, both sides might have claimed the right to
prosecute a trial. The ship could be considered American territory for the American side, whereas the
Ottoman side had the right to claim the accused as the victim was an Ottoman. In a similar case in
1864, an Ottoman subject, Marcos Vartos, participated the assassination of the captain of a British
ship, Flowery Land. As the ship was on board and the captain was English, the British courts tried him
and the other four accomplices. They were sentenced to death without any protest from the Ottoman
state. Instead, the Ottoman Embassy in London provided legal assistance to Vartos from the outset of
the trials. On the other hand, Archimandrite Narcissus Morphinos, the head of the Greek Church in
London, paid several visits to the prison to give him religious relief until his prosecution. BOA HR.H.
165/13.
447 This was Article 4 of the Inter-American Extradition Treaty signed on March 27, 1879 at Lima.
See Zanotti, Extradition in Multilateral Treaties and Conventions, 94.
162
the Kelly Affair, China instituted an embargo. Ultimately, Terranova was
surrendered to the Chinese and sentenced to death.448
Acknowledging the difficulties of arresting Kelly and the procedural
obstacles to his extradition, Istanbul resorted to another means of diplomacy:
international law. They were determined to handle the conflict by adopting the legal
parlance of the time. Maurus Reinkowski aptly remarks that the regular flow of
Ottoman correspondence was a remarkable manifestation of the imperial “political
idiom” and “rhetoric of power” of its time.449 One of the most effective weapons of
the nineteenth century was international law, which European states bent to extend
their reach overseas. The Ottoman Empire, to its best abilities, also availed itself of
this tool.450
A few decades earlier, European diplomats had looked down on Ottoman
officials for their ignorance of the subject. In 1836, William Churchill, an English
journalist living in Istanbul, accidentally killed an Ottoman boy in the Belgrade
forest. His arrest and trial were hotly disputed in diplomatic circles. When Yusuf
Halis Efendi, a civil servant in the Translation Office, quoted a prominent book on
the law of nations to Frederick Pisani, the chief dragoman of the English embassy,
the latter turned a deaf ear and suggested that international law was not fit for
448 Chen, “Universalism and Equal Sovereignty as Contested Myths of International Law in the Sino-
Western Encounter,” 98 and 100. For a comparative example, the Lady Hughes affair of 1784 is also
an illustrative case. This controversy of similar nature occurred between the British Empire and China
paved the way for the 1889 Chinese Extradition Ordinance a century later. See, Chen, “Law, Empire
and Historiography of Modern Sino–Western Relations: A Case Study of Lady Hughes Controversy
in 1784,” 1–54; and “Chinese Extradition Ordinance.”
449 Reinkowski marks the power of daily correspondences in the Ottoman bureaucracy to understand
its political discourse. I apply his arguments to Ottoman foreign relations in the nineteenth century to
demonstrate how international law transformed the state discourse. See: Reinkowski, “The State’s
Security and the Subjects’ Prosperity: Notions of Order in Ottoman Bureaucratic Correspondence
(19th Century),”195.
450 Genell, “The Well-Defended Domains: Eurocentric International Law and the Making of the
Ottoman Office of Legal Counsel,” 256.
163
Ottomans.451 From the 1850s onwards, an increasing engagement with international
law transformed the Ottoman state’s asymmetrical relationship to Europe.
The Ottoman government learned through bitter experience how European
powers intervened in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire. The principles of
international law frequently worked against Ottoman interests as “noninterventionism
was the rule but the exception became the norm when it considered
the Ottomans.”452 Under the pretense of humanitarian intervention, European nations
frequently decried Ottoman domestic crises (which were often instigated by foreign
agents) erupted, including the issue of Crete and the 1860 Intervention in Lebanon.453
The Bulgarian massacres of 1876 and the Berlin Conference furthered Ottoman
understanding of international politics, which was increasingly guided by
Machtpolitik. Pushing back against this order, Ottoman officials employed
international law. This was the same tool that European powers distorted to carry out
their “dual civilizing mission,” which brought “peace and order within the European
system” but used “force to (civilize) outsiders.”454 Likewise, Ottoman bureaucrats
increasingly leveraged international law in their foreign relations.455
Safvet Pasha claimed that the issues emerging from the Kelly Affair were not
limited to the specific American and Ottoman conflict due to their international
character.456 Applying the same argument, Aristarchi Bey played for an international
audience. The illegal attempt to try and release Kelly was contrary to the spirit and
451Akif Paşa, Tabsıra, 27.
452 Fujinami, “The First Ottoman History of International Law,” 257.
453 See: Rodogno, Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire, 1815–1914.
454 Coates, Legalist Empire: International Law and American Foreign Relations in the Early
Twentieth Century, 12.
455 Palabıyık, “The Emergence of the Idea of International Law in the Ottoman Empire before the
Treaty of Paris (1856),” 241; Aral, “The Ottoman ‘School of International Law as Featured in
Textbooks,” 70–97.
456 BOA HR.H. 232/4.
164
principles of the esteemed international law.457 In return, the US government ignored
the protests and hid behind a mask of supposedly amicable relations that were being
maintained between the two governments. Aristarchi Bey remarked that if the
American government insisted on extradition, the Ottomans would appeal to the
Ottoman parliament (Meclis-i Mebusan). He asserted that the American government,
a burgeoning constitutional power, would be embarrassed by the resulting
international furors. Founded just two years earlier, the Ottoman parliament
symbolized widely held hopes for a representative government. Ottoman officials
were eager to prove “the actual value of Ottoman institutions” and expose “the
abuses of foreign agents” in the empire. With reference to the latter point, Aristarchi
Bey blamed US agents, who had made their claims without concrete evidence and
without consulting lawyers.458
The politically legal discourse and the holding forth the text of the treaty
indicated a novel diplomatic direction. Aristarchi Bey noted that there was trust in
official Ottoman judicial system which was characterized by domestic legal
formalism. The Ottoman state relied considerably on the opinions of legal advisors.
Nevertheless, daily politics was always close to the surface as neither Ottoman nor
American officials spoke or acted in the Kelly Affair without due consideration. The
Sublime Porte pursued legal diplomacy only to the extent permitted by its pragmatic
concerns. While it rebuffed the suggestion of demanding extradition by claiming that
the 1874 Extradition Treaty was inapplicable in cases of involuntary homicide, it was
primarily occupied with the costs of extradition proceedings, which amounted to 40
457 BOA HR.H. 232/4.
458 BOA HR.H. 232/4.
165
to 50 thousand francs. These expenses were too high to cover the probable number of
extradition proceedings. Aristarchi Bey reported that other states also abandoned the
repatriation of even the most offensive fugitives out of economic concerns.459
On the other hand, Washington remained distrustful of the capacity of the
Ottoman judicial system. Otherwise, it would not have insisted on extradition,
particularly with the knowledge that it could not be applied under the circumstances.
In the United States, official treaties were as highly valued as congressional acts.
In1848, by an act of Congress, the regulation of jurisdictional issues came under the
control of the judicial system rather than being administered by the executive branch.
Extradition treaties, in particular, were thus drafted to conform to the principles of
statutory laws.460 In this respect, US authorities could have surrendered Kelly to the
Ottoman courts rather than essentially opting out the extradition treaty.
The obstacles to the extradition and impartial trial of Kelly vexed the
Ottoman government, which feared that the incident would end with his impunity.
Ultimately, in 1878, the United States consented to give 1200 dollars to Tahir’s
family. Aristarchi Bey confirmed that the acceptance of the payment signified the
end of the crisis.461 The reasons that the Ottoman state spent so much time and effort
waging a legal battle against the American legation to protect its jurisdiction within
its own territory only to accept pecuniary compensation must be considered within
the broader historical framework of US-Ottoman interstate politics.
459 BOA HR.H. 232/4.
460 Rogers, “Supreme Court of the United States and Rauscher,” 227; Hyde, “Notes on Extradition
Treaties of the United States,” 488.
461 BOA HR.H. 232/4.
166
4.3 The Slippery Foundation of Foreign Diplomacy: Ottoman-American Relations
Ottoman-American relations primarily originated from commercial ventures. A ship
sailing under the US flag, the Grand Turk, docked in an Ottoman harbor for the first
time in 1782,462 and efforts to establish a US Consulate in the empire were realized
in 1824. A longtime resident of Izmir, David Offley, was the first consul to be
appointed. A couple of years later, both parties signed the 1830 Treaty of Commerce
and Navigation, and by 1867, American merchants were frequenting Ottoman
ports.463
In contrast with the relatively recent origin of the Ottoman-US relations, the
attitude adopted by the Americans during the Kelly Affair was reminiscent of powers
long accustomed to a capitulatory system. In this respect, this legal conflict was a
pointed example of the rapid change of US policy in the international arena. Initially,
the founding fathers had the foresight to forge a political system that relied on
constitutional principles and a territorially well-defined state. As such, the United
States fine-tuned Westphalian sovereignty.464 Washington had a domestic agenda
that relied on territorial expansion and overall assimilation to American identity.
Unlike the imperialist ventures launched by Europe, their political ideals were
epitomized by the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, in which they reproached Europe for its
colonial enterprises in the Americas.465 However, the doctrine’s overarching
objective underwent a drastic change in response to novel foreign policy as the
462 Howard, “The Bicentennial American-Turkish Relations,” 292, and Kocabaşoğlu, Anadolu’daki
Amerika: Kendi Belgeleriyle 19. Yüzyılda Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’ndaki Amerikan Misyoner Okulları,
9.
463 Gordon, “Turkish-American Treaty Relations,” 711.
464 Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, 176.
465 Heiss, “The Evolution of the Imperial Idea and the U.S. National Identity,” 511. Just a few years
later in 1850s, the American hegemony was visible in Hawaii. Known as alii by title, a new Hawaiian
judicial system was established, combining Western legal philosophy and judicial structure with the
traditional institution. American lawyers and Protestant missionaries were influential in this process.
As both systems were difficult to adapt, alii remained an ephemeric experiment. See Silverman,
“Imposition of a Western Judicial System in the Hawaiian Monarchy,” 51.
167
United States adopted a more imperialist outlook against which it had taken a
vigorous stance at the outset.466
In other words, the US legalist approach did not last long. Aggressive efforts
to carve out a place in world politics reflected the United States’ aspiration for power
and desire to catch up with Europe. For the young republic, the Ottoman Empire
ostensibly served as a place to test its strength and assert its overseas interests. The
United States was determined to compel the Ottomans to grant it the same privileges
accorded to Europeans. The American imperial gaze was not unique to the Ottoman
Empire; US influence was increasing in various distant geographies. In a session of
Congress held on 22 June 1860, the principle of foreign jurisdiction in China, Japan,
Siam, and Iran were laid out:
in regard to crimes and misdemeanours, the public functionaries are
hereby fully empowered to arraign and try […], all citizens of the
United States charged with offences against law, which shall be
committed in such countries, to sentence such offenders in the
manner herein authorized.467
For these countries above, the criteria of “civilization” seemed to determine
the course of the United States’ encroachment on their jurisdictions. Europeans,
similarly, felt the rising challenge posed by American statecraft. In the same decade
as the Kelly Affair, the case of Charles Lawrence (1876) created tension between the
US and British governments. Washington demanded the extradition of Lawrence,
who was accused of fraud against American financial interests. Ireland had earlier
extradited the convict, in accord with the 1842 Extradition Treaty. However, his trial
466 The Monroe doctrine gradually represented a more pervasive US policy waged particularly in the
Latin world with the excuse of national security. Thus, it is ironic how they quickly assumed a similar
position against Western America as the European states did. For two recent/revisionist studies on
these points, see Bryne, The Monroe Doctrine and the United States National Security in the Early
Twentieth Century, and Scarfi, “Denaturalizing the Monroe Doctrine: The rise of Latin American
legal anti-imperialism in the face of the modern US and hemispheric redefinition of the Monroe
Doctrine,” 541-555.
467 Thirty-Sixth Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/llsl-v12/
168
for multiple offenses was beyond obligations of the treaty, causing controversy over
the agreement. Ignoring the British protests, US authorities vigorously argued the
exceptional nature of the Lawrence case and strove to prevent British intervention.
Unlike in the Kelly Affair, where the accused had eluded justice, the British–
American legal battle resulted in the severe punishment of Lawrence by the
American courts.468 In this respect, the spirit of American diplomacy in the Lawrence
case strikingly resembled to the Kelly Affair which would take place a year later.
After this legal dispute, the Ottoman and US governments rarely invoked the
1874 Extradition Treaty. In one dispatch, Naum Pasha explicitly states that the treaty
was in disuse due to the naturalization quagmire and that the Americans were not
encouraging any cooperation, either.469 Costly procedures further hampered
extraditions, so the Ottomans side preferred to diplomacy, as the following legal
disputes illustrate.
When Lebanese citizen Tammous Elias Fares killed Emin Ibrahim Kader, a
Lebanese author, and then escaped to the United States in 1893, Washington rejected
Ottoman requests without even referencing to the treaty. They evaded the
implementation of the convention by raising additional procedural obstacles.
Secretary of State John W. Foster (1892–1893) announced that all extradition
procedures were being revised to follow the principles of Section of 5270, “Revised
Status of American Extradition Legislation”.470 The amendment was submitted to the
American Senate and the House of Representatives in 1887; however, the Ottoman
government was not informed whether the modifications would affect the validity of
468 Fiore, Traité de Droit Penal, 702–704.
469 BOA HR.İD.140/10.
470 BOA HR.İD.140/10.
169
the 1874 Extradition Treaty. As the title “American Extradition Legislation”
suggests, the new regulations rescinded official bilateral extradition treaties.
Thereafter, the US Magistrate Courts started adjudicating extradition proceedings.471
Until the 1910s, no archival records indicate any correspondence over the
extradition of ordinary criminals. While there are numerous political explanations,
the 1894 decision to deport Ottomans naturalized before 1869 was the most probable
reason that negotiations were suspended. In 1911, the case of Joseph Thomas Khouri,
a Syrian from Ninah who killed his two children and escaped to the United States,
revived the discussion of extradition. However, as he had been a naturalized
American since 1903, the Ottoman government cited expense as a reason for not
pursuing extradition, and it did nothing more until the case was resuscitated until
1917.472
The last official discussion of extradition was in 1912. The Diyarbekir Court
of Appeals condemned an Armenian named Dikran and his brother Yekun Bogos to
15 years of forced labor for a homicide committed in the same province. Dikran fled
to New York where his uncle Ohannes was living. The Ministry of Justice provided
the photograph of the convict and the arrest warrant notarized by the criminal court
in three languages (Turkish, English, and French), and appealed for his extradition
via diplomatic means rather than resorting to the treaty. Asım Bey, from the Office
of Legal Counsel, explained why the extradition treaty was not the best option in the
legal case. His words recalled the experience of the Kelly Affair. Istanbul still
harbored distrust issue; thus, it was uneasy about the transfer process lest the convict
471 BOA HR.İD. 139/59.
472 BOA HR.UHM. 98/43.
170
escape along the way. It was rare to find ships sailing directly aboard from Ottoman
ports or from other cities that would honor the principles of neutral maritime
transshipment.473 The US government strayed from the treaty regulations and
overlooked attempts at diplomacy, demanding instead a court trial before an
American magistrate. The documentation was insufficient, so an Ottoman agent was
invited to appear before the American court. Only after this individual stated the
accusations under oath, charged Dikran with the offense and presented the evidence,
would the magistrate commence the investigation.474
Eventually, the legal cases of Tanmous Elias Fares, Dikran, and Joseph
Thomas Khouri resulted in their impunity, and no further attempts were made by the
Ottomans to claim trial right them in the empire. The communication issues and
political disputes between the two parties undercut the functioning of the 1874
Extradition Treaty. Following these legal cases, both sides set the option of
extradition aside altogether. The convention remained officially in force yet was
rarely invoked until the Republican period.475
4.3.1 Was the Legal Battle Over? The Quagmire of Jurisdiction
The 1874 Extradition Treaty was a promising solution to multi-level jurisdictional
problems that Ottoman and US debates exacerbated. But on account of political
considerations, the convention failed to efficiently respond to the security crisis
473 BOA HR. UHM. 127/42, BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO 6/6, 6/7, and 6/8.
474 BOA HR.UHM. 127/42. However, the Ottoman Empire had immediately arrested, after the request
of American Government out of international comity, an Ottoman subject Memar Rızk, who killed
another Ottoman in New Jersey and escaped to Egypt in 1907. At the time, the US authorities
expressed their thanks for this courtesy of the Ottoman Empire and their action in this matter, See:
HR. ID. 140/46.
475 The United States and Turkey signed an extradition treaty on August 6, 1923, and they renewed it
on August 18, 1934. See; Bevans, Treaties, 642.
171
precipitated by increased transnational mobility. However, its failures aside, I argue
that the 1874 Extradition Treaty, when tested by the Kelly Affair, reoriented the
judicial policies each state resorted in the future. Crimes of political or anarchic
character were addressed in separate policies, which Chapter 6 examines. For USOttoman
disputes over ordinary crimes, Article 4 of the 1830 Treaty effectively
sabotaged any resolution that to the extent of opting out of capitulatory practices was
more effective. In 1889, the Ottoman Minister of Washington, Alexandros
Mavroyeni (1889–1899), expressed astonishment with regard to the prevailing
controversies over Article 4.
Every independent state exercises the right of trial unless it has renounced it
in whole or in part by an express and categorical text. Now, the Ottoman
Empire is an independent state; it was so in 1830, the date of the treaty...The
more I examine this controversy, the more impossible it is for me to
understand how a government like that of the United States of America, with
so high a sense of justice, has been able, for even a single instant, to contest
this right of trial in favor of such states like the Ottoman Empire.476
Due to the unremitting legal quagmire, Ottoman-US relations embraced an approach
distant from diplomatic courtesy; the two powers resumed their aggressive
diplomacy with respect to one another. The Ottoman government staunchly defended
its local justice, but US consular officers clung to the attitude displayed in the Kelly
Affair: an adamant refusal to deliver American criminals to Ottoman judicial system
in favor of trying them in consular courts.477 These offenders were often faced with
double jeopardy, as the imperial police often forcibly delivered them to the Ottoman
courts following their acquittal by their own consular agents. Consular authorities
476 NARA 5505 and BOA HR. TH. 272/69.
477 BOA BEO 302/22579 and 319/23872, and BOA HR. HMŞ. İŞO 185/19.
172
responded refusing to attend the Ottoman court trials, thus rendering the sentence
null and void. Unresolved conflicts and absence of the dragomans paralyzed judicial
proceeding and impeded justice, which necessitated the adoption of other legal
measures. In this respect, the cases of Maurice Pfloum and Albert Leighton are
representative of the jurisdictional battle waged by both parties in legal disputes.
The first official Ottoman attempt to overcome the predicaments of Article 4
was the Istimlâk Nizamnâmesi (property law) of 1867, which granted foreigners the
right to hold real estate. There was one major condition, which was the requirement
that these foreigners submit to Ottoman laws in all cases, if they wished to hold
property in the empire. The novel part of this regulation, which concerned foreigners,
was a procedure that had not existed in previous protocols. The law authorized the
Ottoman police to deliver search warrants for foreign properties and authorized local
courts to conduct trials without consular assistance if the scene of crime was more
than 9 hours from any consular institutions. This was a major blow to the
extraterritorial privileges that had previously governed such arrangements.478 To
rebuff American claims about Article 4, the 1867 Property Law became a frequently
quoted legal anchor for Ottoman diplomats and legal officials. The legal advisor
Gabriel Noradunghian first came up a solution in the case of Maurice Pfloum, in
1883. Pfloum was a doctor who provided medical services for tax collectors in Axos,
Crete. During a quarrel, one collector called the police complaining that he had been
insulted. The police beat Pfloum on their way to prison, and while resisting, Pfloum
was thrown and fell over another man, which was considered a double offense. The
478 BOA MHD 268, and Brown, Foreigners in Turkey: Their Juridical Status, 44.
173
Ottoman trial was conducted without the presence of a dragoman in the court in line
with relations of 1867 Property Law.479
A similar procedure was applied in the case of American Albert Leighton,
who killed a police agent and seriously injured an Ottoman soldier in Jerusalem in
1909. The legal advisor Hrant Abro argued that there was no need to refer to Article
4 as Leighton owned property in the empire and was thus subject to the 1867
Property Law. Notwithstanding an acquittal by the consulate, Leighton received a
two-year sentence by default on July 4th, Independence Day.480 Nevertheless,
Ottoman trials were not overall successful due to a lack of trust between the two
parties. The consulates did not recognize Ottoman jurisdiction. They were the ones to
incarcerate their subjects after sentences were imposed by the Ottoman judicial
system. As such, there was always a risk that criminals would suddenly disappear,
just as Patrick Kelly. The Ottoman and US parties found relief in deportation or
reparation only if dignity was at stake. In the case of deportations, the Ottoman
police accompanied criminals to the harbor to ensure the ships set sail. Sometimes
consulates revoked their passports to guarantee that these criminals remained out of
Ottoman territories for good.481
Reparation demands and indemnity were the legacies of the Kelly Affair,
which formed the basis of an alternative course of action to seek justice. When the
Ottoman Minister to Washington, Ali Ferruh Bey (1895–1899), recalled the Kelly
Affair in 1898, he praised the actions of the Ottoman government against the legal
479 BOA HR.H. 347/10.
480 BOA HR.H. 350/2 and HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 126/12.
481 They first put Leighton on a train from Jerusalem to Jaffa, where he would get on vapor in the
accompaniment of Ottoman police. BOA HR.H. 350/2. In 1902, the American consulate did not
deliver Abdulkadir Matami, the naturalized American accused of attacking a Greek woman in
Bayreuth, to the Ottoman authorities. The local officials arrested him by force and demanded the
expiration of his passport to expulse him at ease. BOA HR.H. 349/8.
174
assumptions of the American consulate. He evaluated the financial remuneration
given to Tahir’s family as the United States’ lack of confidence in its political stance
in the dispute.482 However, demands for repatriation became an occasional strategy
adopted by the two governments to gain diplomatic advantage in deadlocked legal
disputes. In the case of Maurice Pfloum, the American Legation demanded an
indemnity of 2000 pounds, regardless of the legal charges against him.483
When the parties were concerned about safeguarding their prestige, indemnity
acquired a symbolic meaning. When Sanderin Parson, an American missionary who
had been a thirty-year resident of the empire, was killed by three Circassians and
Kurds in Izmit in 1880, the event was closely followed by the international press.
Even though suspects were arrested, the American Legation blamed the Ottoman
government, pointing out the insufficiency of its internal security. They considered
deploying a warship to the empire, reasoning that the Parson murder was the result of
Muslim fanatism. The Ottoman government was compelled to compensate the
victim’s family to prevent further outcry.484 However, power relations were always
too fragile to cope with the fickle nature of day-to-day politics. In another, similar
murder case, the Ottoman state avoided the threats encountered in the Parson affair.
The famous American cyclist Franz Lenz was murdered in 1892 near Erzurum, a
stopover on his world tour. His assassins were never found.485 Ottoman state did not
482 NARA 8778/10.
483 BOA HR.H. 347/10
484 Sanderin Parson was killed along with his Armenian servant Garabet. They were on their way back
from a journey, travelling at night. During their sleep, those three bandits killed them to steal their
money. BOA HR.H. 347/1, and “Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States,
Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 6, 1880,” 619 and
620.
485 BOA HR.H. 349//1. Lenz was a long-distance cyclist who set off in 1892 for a world tour. In 1894,
his track vast lost while traveling between Kızıl Direk and Erzurum during his stopover in the
Ottoman Empire. Not having heard from him for months, another cyclist and his friend William
Sachleben reported the missing case to the American authorities. After local inquiries, it turned out
that some pieces of his bike were found in a region close to Karakilise. Even though five Kurds were
175
immediately consent to reparations for Lenz, requesting instead that the same amount
be paid for Janos Davud, who had recently been killed in West Virginia and whose
murderers had also not been found at the time.486
4.4 Conclusion
The only extradition treaty officially signed between the Ottoman Empire and the
United States was the 1874 Extradition Treaty. This chapter has focused on this
convention. The peculiarities of the 1874 Extradition Treaty, which was prepared
along with the1874 Naturalization Treaty, were due to the particular nature of
Ottoman-US relations. The convention was never effective in practice. Naturalization
problem resulted from the dual citizenship of large numbers of Armenian and Syrian
subjects, and Ottomans resented the fact that the 1874 Naturalization Treaty was
never officially sanctioned, hampering the effective application of the attendant
extradition treaty. The ambiguous legal standing of these populations of dual citizens
and the increased mobility of crime necessitated a political solution in which both
treaties would be enacted simultaneously. Nevertheless, the 1874 Naturalization
Treaty was incompatible with the 1869 Ottoman Nationality Law, and the political
interests of the two parties prevented their reconciliation. Accordingly, this chapter
provides a broad historical framework of Ottoman-US relations which influenced but
were not restricted to extradition negotiations.
In this respect, the Kelly Affair first tested the value of the 1874 Extradition
Treaty. First, the legal conflict illustrated the tension between the text of a law and its
accused of killing him to steal the silver parts of his bike, they were tried and acquitted in the lack of
enough evidence.
486 BOA HR.H. 349/1. See also, Herlihy, Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and
His Mysterious Disappearance, and Gambino, “The Unsolved Case of the ‘Lost Cyclist’”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-unsolved-case-of-the-lost-cyclist-57021309/
176
application. Politics, conflicts over jurisdiction, and the practices of extradition
reformulated the interpretation of the treaty text. While this chapter sheds new light
on the Ottoman attention to legal formalism, it also reveals that invoking official
legal documents was not always the best solution in practice. The agreement's
nuanced terms became excuses that both governments used to further political claims
in the following decades.
On the other hand, diplomatic controversies evident in the Kelly Affair
disclosed the nature of Ottoman-US relations. These relations originated in
commercial engagements dating to the late eighteenth century. Despite its formative
ideals of a Westphalian state, US foreign policy towards the Ottoman Empire soon
modelled itself on capitulatory regulations. Indeed, their jurisdictional claims
exceeded the privileges enjoyed by other capitulatory powers. Thus, American
authorities' translation of Article 4 of 1830 stirred up legal conflicts as was evident in
the Kelly Affair. Debates over extradition process over the course of decades were
the direct result of conflicts over Article 4.
However, the diplomacy adopted by Ottoman officials in the Kelly Affair
situated the Ottoman Empire, which was usually positioned as semi-power in the
geopolitical order, as a power passing between the Scylla and Charybdis of
sovereignty and a political dexterity equal to that of Great Powers. Since the
Ottoman state was more attuned to international law and was undertaking large-scale
legal reforms, the stringent stance embraced by both parties to Kelly Affair made it
difficult for either side to breach the jurisdictional limits in place. I have
demonstrated that the experiences of the Kelly Affair determined legal policies
adopted by Washington and Istanbul in later judicial conflicts. As the political
controversies over naturalization resumed, deportation and remuneration became
177
alternative legal mediums to respond to the reluctance of the Americans to surrender
criminals to the Ottoman judicial system.
178
CHAPTER 5
THE 1877-78 WAR AND THE SURGE OF CRIMINAL MOBILITY:
SURVEILLANCE AT THE OTTOMAN BORDERS
You have seen with your own eyes. Anatolia is swarming. The country is full
of migrants from around the world. Everyone is seeking a plot of land to
settle on, a roof over their heads.487
Chelkash: You might be going to kick up your heels in Turkey for aught
know.
Young Boy: In Tur-tur-key? Who of all Orthodox would think of going
there? What do you mean?
Chelkash: I mean that you’re a fool!488
Unlike the skeptical young boy, the words of Greg Chelkash, the drunkard and
professional thief that Maksim Gorky based on an acquaintance from Odessa, hints at
the reality of the Ottoman empire in the nineteenth century. The empire witnessed a
flux of migrants, and demographic changes were taking place on an epic scale in the
last quarter of the century. The country was not just a haven for broke opportunists
and vagabonds. Territorial losses, population exchanges, refugees, and the
transnational mobility of tribes, families, and criminals of various sorts contributed to
a security vacuum along the borders catalyzed by contemporaneous political and
social developments.489 The phenomenon of mobility was not unique to the Ottoman
487 “Sen kendi gözünle gördün. Anadolu kaynıyor. Dünyanın dört bir yanından göçler doldurmuş
ülkeyi. Herkes ayağını basacak bir toprak parçası, başını sokacak bir dam altı arıyor,” Kemal,
Karıncanın Su İçtiği, Bir Ada Hikayesi 2, 122. This fictional work of Yaşar Kemal narrates the 1923
population exchange between Turkey and Greece. The passage I have excerpted from the book
perfectly fits the nineteenth century reality, which was marked by large-scale population movements.
488 Gorky, Chelkash and Other Stories, 15.
489 For a comprehensive analysis on the Ottoman migration in the empire, see Kasaba, Moveable
Empire: Ottoman Nomads, Migrants & Refugees, and Blumi, Ottoman Refugees, 1878–1939:
Migration in a Post-Imperial World; Kale, “Transforming an Empire: the Ottoman Empire’s
Immigration and Settlement Policies in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century,” 252-271; and
Ferrara and Pianciola, “The dark side of connectedness: forced migrations and mass violence between
the late Tsarist and Ottoman empires (1853-1920),” 608-631.
179
empire; for a multitude of political and economic reasons, continuous population
movements were occurring across the world at the time.490
The Ottoman Empire, over its long history, always had to monitor waves of
mobility in frontier regions where security conditions were often unstable. The
borderlands often became zones of conflict and contestation due to shifting
boundaries, intra-communal rivalries, and how the population took advantage of
political contests among states. In this respect, the border regime as a state policy
was in a continual state of deconstruction in time and place.491 This chapter focuses
on the Ottoman border regime in a limited time period characterized by large-scale
human flows and social upheavals. By providing a historical framework for the
evolution of the Ottoman security system, it analyses a set of state policies that the
Ottoman Empire generated to counter criminal mobility, ensure justice, and conduct
surveillance along the Balkan and Russian frontiers after the 1877-78 Russo-Turkish
War.
In the aftermath of the war, the 1878 Congress of Berlin reshaped the political
maps of these regions. The new borders accompanied shifting national allegiances
that brought the legal status of different communities into question. Interstate
relations along the borders were affected by state policies largely informed by recent
490 The period between the years 1850 and 1914, particularly speaking, was called as ‘the Age of Mass
Migration.’ This terminology particularly referred to the large-scale migration to long-distance
geographies, such as the mass population flow from Europe to American worlds to pursue economic
opportunities. While the economic concerns were addressed as the primary push factor, there were
various other reasons underpinning the motives behind the 19th c. migration movements. See Hatton,
“The Age of Mass Migration: What We Can and Can’t Explain,” 11-29; and Knauf and Moreno,
Leaving Home: Migration Yesterday and Today.
491 The following work, which has recently been published, provides fresh insight into the
transgressive politics at the Ottoman frontiers, which adopts a wide scope of geographical analysis:
Age of Rogues: Rebels, Revolutionaries and Racketeers at the Frontiers of the Empire. For other
studies that focuses on a different aspect of Ottoman frontiers, see Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the
Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850– 1921; and Ateş, The Ottoman-Iranian Borderlands:
Making a Boundary, 1843-1914; and The Frontiers of the Ottoman World; and “The Habsburg-
Ottoman Borderlands: New Insights for the Study of the Nineteenth-Century European Legal and
Social Order,” and Ottoman Borderlands: Issues, Personalities, and Political Changes.
180
political memory. However, daily security concerns required immediate measures –
often tit for tat policies – that outweighed diplomatic courtesy and conflicts over
sovereignty. Given this, this chapter also reveals the problems encountered in the
conduct of diplomatic dialogue in the extradition process. The 1879 Ottoman judicial
reforms were decisive benchmarks; security policies and political debates over the
Ottoman border regime were transmuted into a legal state discourse that relied
instead on territorial sovereignty and legislative force. This chapter also demonstrates
how jurisdictional privileges under the capitulatory system waned after the
enactment of procedural codes.
5.1 The Concept of Border in the Ottoman Empire
“Border” is a loaded conceptual term. In terms of geography, it defines a physical
line dividing territorial spaces. Frontiers, on the other hand, refer to larger territorial
zones along the state borders.492 The terms border and frontier also connote the
history of different mechanisms of control formulated by states and the multifaceted
interaction of multiple actors – officials as well as people of diverse ethnic and
national backgrounds. In political thought, borders are conceptualized not only
according to a state's territorial boundaries but around various spatial formations
shaped primarily by administrative policies and the roles played by populations
settled in the borderlands.493 For example, workplace closures and regional
shutdowns caused by the Covid-19 pandemic indicate the evolving meaning and
492 Gadal and Jeansoulin, “Borders, Frontiers and Limits: Some Computational Concepts Beyond
Words,” 14. This study shows alternative definitions of these concepts in the field of geography.
493 Frederick Jackson Turner, who introduced the frontier thesis to the literature, likewise argued that
the American legislation as the primary power behind their national state was designed according to
frontier politics. See Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History, 44. For a recent
issue on the 19th-20th century migration and border politics, see Migration and border processes:
politics and practices of belonging and exclusion from the 19th to the 21st century.
181
abstraction of the contemporary concept of borders. Conversely, the humanitarian
crises due to refugees fleeing from the Middle East to Europe or from central
America to the United States underscore the durable, territorial character of border
regimes. Above all, the primary goal of border regimes is to govern regions along the
borders and keep them under constant surveillance.494
The Ottoman Empire, which had been expanding into new geographies for
centuries, always faced demographic mobility within its border regions and across
borders. As it was neighbor to many states, the Ottoman frontier zones present a
multitude of realities produced among various border communities and the state. On
one hand, the “hybrid frontier,” as Karen Barkey termed it, was shaped by existing
circumstances in border region that “promoted companionship, mutual assistance,
and concerted action especially in warfare, as well as a festivity, gift-giving, building
of reciprocity, as ways of reducing uncertainty.”495 She further demonstrates that for
centuries “imperial flexibility” was strengthened by close contact with local elites
and diverse demographics: the countless, varied interactions that occurred on a daily
basis along the frontiers. 496
Maps, as a technologic solution of modern states, came to demarcate borders
officially in the nineteenth century. Reşat Kasaba argues that these borderlines were
epitomized as symbols of sovereignty, legitimizing state claims over subjects and
territories, even though the mobility of populations rendered the presence of official
boundaries moot.497 For this reason, Sabri Ateş uses the term “filters” in reference to
the Ottoman-Iran borderlands, which represent a region that was continually
494 The following article revisits the border politics in the world with a critical analysis and
comprehensive literature survey. Laine, “Beyond Borders: Towards the Ethics of Unbounded
Inclusiveness,” 745-763.
495 Barkey, Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective, 42.
496 Barkey, Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective, 14.
497 Kasaba, Moveable Empire: Ottoman Nomads, Migrants & Refugees, 38.
182
undergoing a demographic, social, and economic transformation.498 Relations along
the Ottoman borders were part of an interactive process in which the empire had to
adapt state policies for current local conditions, populations, and the relative ease of
mobility. In these regions, conflicts were not restricted to local competition, crime,
and banditry; the borderlands also created “property’s violence, distinguishing and
constituting at one and the same time.” 499 Territorial changes following wars led
states to compel people retain or change their legal status with regard to property
owned in newly annexed lands. This disruption of daily life was a foothold for crime,
discord, and disregard for the rules that, in turn, resulted in systematic violence on
the part of the states.500 This is to say that these regions witnessed cooperation and
conflict simultaneously. The ambiguity with respect to identity and the dearth of
official registration before the late nineteenth century worked to the benefit of those
people who moved across these regions unfettered.501
5.2 Crime, Surveillance and Extradition at the Balkan Borders
The geography comprised of modern Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Bulgaria – namely the Balkan states – underwent
significant historical transformations in the nineteenth century, both under Ottoman
rule and subsequently as independent states. The many local uprisings, strife over the
Ottoman taxation system, large-scale banditry, and underground networks of armed
revolutionaries that characterized the epoch required particular surveillance and
498 Ateş, The Ottoman-Iranian Borderlands: Making a Boundary, 1843-1914, 9.
499 Blomley, “Law, Property, and the Geography of Violence: The Frontier, the Survey, and the Grid,”
135.
500 Hartmann, “The Central State in the Borderlands: Ottoman Eastern Anatolia in the Late Nineteenth
Century,” 172.
501 Reynolds, Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 101-
102.
183
preventive measures on the part of the Ottoman state. Especially in the last quarter of
the century, the first seeds of nationalism in the empire were spurred in these
countries. As a consequence, the region was an arena of violent clashes between the
state and local insurgents as well as fodder for foreign politics. The presence of a
large Christian population and the death toll resulting from recent rebellions turned
the domestic politics of Balkan nationalism into a humanitarian crisis in the
international arena. In particular, the 1876 Batak Massacre of Bulgarians drew harsh
criticism from Europe. Drawing attention to the antithetical relationship between
Balkan nationalism and international law, Ntina Tzouvala argues that the European
powers “showed a strong preference for manufacturing forms of limited international
legal personality as steps towards independence and/or for conditioning sovereignty
upon schemes of internationalization.” 502 The 1877 Russo-Turkish War and the
subsequent Congress of Berlin were explicit points of reference for her.
The border disputes with Balkan states was a long-running issue that
occupied the Ottoman political agenda throughout the century. The first serious
disputes arose between the Ottoman Empire and Greece in the 1830s, after the Greek
War of Independence. Instability on the frontiers caused by clashes between Ottoman
and Greek insurgents upstaged diplomatic efforts. The resurgence of the same issues
in the 1850s and 1860s demonstrated a need for a long-term border regime based on
cooperation and mutual trust. In reality, both governments favored ad-hoc policies
that lacked well-conceived surveillance and came at the expense of rampant
banditry.503 Around this time, the Ottoman empire and Montenegro began struggling
502 Tzouvala, “‘These Ancient Arenas of Racial Struggles’: International Law and the Balkans, 1878-
1949,” 1151.
503 On Ottoman-Greek border; see Gounaris, “Blood Brother in Despair: Greek Brigands, Albanian
Rebels and the Greek-Ottoman Frontier, 1829-1831,” 1-26; and Gavrilis, “The Greek-Ottoman
Boundary as Institution, Locality and Process, 1832-1882,” 1531; and Özkan, “The Final Phase of the
184
with similar problems. European states recognized Montenegro’s independence after
its victory at the Battle of Grahovac in 1858, though the Ottoman empire would not
acknowledge it until 1878. In the aftermath of the battle, the parties engaged in
years-long negotiations to determine the Bosnian border.504
In the history of Ottoman-Balkan frontier disputes, the Russo-Turkish War
(1877-1878) (93 Harbi) was the first momentous event to significantly reshape the
map. The war was instigated by the Russian desire to establish a strategic outpost
along the Black Sea and was further sparked by a conflict over the status of Orthodox
Christians in the Balkans. These circumstances were accompanied by a longsimmering
series of uprisings in the region. In 1876, Serbia, Montenegro, and
Bulgaria rebelled against the empire due to ongoing economic problems and the
burden of increasing taxes. The war resulted in the Ottoman’s defeat and destined the
empire to territorial shrinkage in the Balkans and Eastern Anatolia, eventually
contributing to its demographic homogeneity in the long run.505
The Congress of Berlin was convened after the war with the participation of
Russia, the Ottoman Empire, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Austria-
Hungary, and the Balkan States.506 Ultimately, Romania,507 Serbia, and Montenegro
Greek Revolution: Delimitation, Determination and Demarcation of the First Greek Borders in
Ottoman Sources,” 111-138.
504 See Gölen, “Karadağ Devleti’nin Doğuşu: Osmanlı Karadağ Sınır Tespiti,” 659-698, also see the
following archival file which the former article does not use. It contains numerous official documents
on this particular border issue, BOA HR.SYS. 822/3.
505 The Ottoman Empire also lost some of its territories in Eastern Anatolia. Kotur, located in the east
of Van, was left to Iran, and Russia annexed Kars, Ardahan, and Batum. Bayezid and Alashkert, ceded
to Russia by the Treaty of San Stefano (1878), returned to the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand,
Crete remained under Ottoman control until it gained autonomy in 1898. Ultimately, the Ottoman
Empire also had to pay a substantial war indemnity. See War and Diplomacy: The Russo-Turkish War
of 1877-1878 and the Treaty of Berlin, and Keçecizade İzzet Fuat, 1293 Osmanlı-Rus Seferi, and
Jenkins, The Russo-Turkish War: Janus or the Double-Faced Ministry, and Hozier, The Russo-
Turkish War.
506 The Congress was convened at the request of Austria-Hungary, which the United Kingdom and
France supported, to revise the conditions of the Treaty of San Stefano. They were concerned by the
Russian demands legitimated in that treaty.
507 It was renamed the United Principalities and the Kingdom of Romania in 1881.
185
gained complete independence. Bosnia-Herzegovina remained a nominal Ottoman
territory, though Austro-Hungary was given control of the region and eventually
unilaterally annexed it in 1908. The Principality of Bulgaria emerged as an
autonomous state, a title it retained until its independence in 1908. Serbia had been
an autonomous state since 1832. In 1878, the city of Nis came under its control,
whereas Dobruja was ceded to Romania. Greece, which gained its independence in
1830, annexed the Thessaly region and a portion of southern Epirus following the
Convention of Constantinople on 2 July 1881. Ultimately, in 1885, Eastern Rumelia
became part of Bulgaria. 508
This new territorial design not only resulted in shifting borderlines and
demographic change; states had to revisit the question of national allegiance which
accompanied the question of legal belonging. Allegiances were precarious due to the
transfers of property titles in newly annexed regions. The solutions to these problems
were conceptually formulated in the Treaty of Berlin. Newly independent states were
to establish joint committees with the Ottoman Empire within three years to work on
“the mode of alienation, working, or use, on the account of the Sublime Porte, of the
property belonging the state and religious foundations (Vakoufs), as well as the
questions regarding the interests of private persons engaged therein.” 509
The Ottoman government declared that anyone who wished to change their
subjecthood in order to settle or remain in an independent Balkan state had to inform
the empire and be issued an imperial decree in conformance with the 1869 Ottoman
Nationality Law. Otherwise, they would forfeit their Ottoman identity and whose all
508See, “Treaty Between Great Britain, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Russia, and Turkey for the
Settlement of Affairs in the East: Signed at Berlin, July 13, 1878.”
509 See the Articles XXX, XXXIX, and XLVI in “Treaty Between Great Britain, Germany, Austria,
France, Italy, Russia, and Turkey for the Settlement of Affairs in the East: Signed at Berlin, July 13,
1878.” As Romania no longer shared a border with the Ottoman Empire, a European commission was
suggested to demarcate the region’s borderline with Bulgaria.
186
legal rights before the Ottoman judicial system. For properties belonging to
emigrants (muhacirûn) from the Balkan states, who were mainly Muslims, the
Ottoman government agreed upon different regulations for each individual state.510
The policies formulated to formalize the status of emigrants and administer the new
frontier zones took time. Sporadic meetings were held for these purposes up until the
Balkan Wars.511 In the meantime, massive migration and ongoing unrest compelled
more immediate solutions to secure the borders.
To secure the frontier zones in the Balkans, the Ottoman Empire adopted a
series of security measures. In 1881, they reinforced their military presence,
deploying twenty-four infantry regiments near the Balkan borders.512 Passport
officers were employed at all border crossings.513 By 1912, in the eve of the Balkan
510 The Ottoman state officially announced in the 1880s that any Ottoman who became Romanian or
Serb without official consent and returned to the empire would be considered Ottoman and treated in
that way: BOA DH. MKT. 1347/15, and 1642/40, and BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 145/1 and 145/3. A large
portion of lands and real estate belonged to the Muslim population in Serbia. These properties
belonging to the emigrants settled in the Ottoman Empire were given to the peasants on the condition
that they could pay the owners. It was the regulation stipulated by Article 39 of the Treaty of Berlin.
Milos Jagodic explains that the peasants usually manipulated this process in many ways. Ultimately,
the Serbian government had to make the payments. See Jagodic, “The Emigration of Muslims from
the New Serbian Regions,” 14. The Convention of Constantinople signed by the Ottoman Empire and
Greece in 1881 put the three-year rule for the residents of Thessaly to decide where to settle: BOA
HR. SYS. 2942/75, and BOA HR.SFR.3. 280/20. The Muslim population remained in the territories
that left for Greece were the pretext for a series of problems concerning mobility control and legal
belonging: Immig, “The ‘New’ Muslim Minorities in Greece: Between Emigration and Political
Participation, 1881–1886,” 511–522, and BOA HR. HMŞ. İŞO. 164/17. In 1885, the Council of State
held a long session that debated the payment required from the Greek side for the properties formerly
belonged to the Muslim emigrants: BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO 168/5. A similar regulation came into a
discussion for the properties of Dobruja emigrants in 1888 and Montenegrin emigrants in1906: Hunt,
“Changing Identities at the Fringes of the Late Ottoman Empire: The Muslims of Dobruca, 1839-
1914,” 193-203; and BOA BEO 2878/215794. When the control of Eastern Rumelia was left to
Bulgaria, the properties of Muslim populations were transferred to the Bulgarian Christians. Anna
Mirkova does an extensive reading over the property politics in the region while focusing on the larger
political framework that displays the sovereignty rivalry among the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, and
Russia. See Mırkova, “’ Population Politics’ at the End of Empire: Migration and Sovereignty in
Ottoman Eastern Rumelia, 1877-1886,” 955-985.
511 In the Ottoman archives, particularly in the catalog HR.ID., numerous documents chronologically
listed the negotiations between the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan states to administer the frontier
regions and demarcate the borderlines.
512 Erickson, “Template for Destruction: The Congress of Berlin and the Evolution of Ottoman
Counterinsurgency Practices,” 353-354.
513 These officers received a monthly payment of 350-400 piastres. BOA DH.MKT. 1434/42, 1886
and BOA. İ.ŞD. 87/5164, 1886. For the Greek borderlines: BOA ŞD. 2092/19, 1886 and BOA İ.ŞD.
81/4781. For the Serbian borderlines: BOA DH.MKT. 1792/63. For the Montenegrin borderlines:
BOA DH.MKT. 1912/71, 1891.
187
Wars, many border commissariats (hudut komiserliği) had also been established by
appointing officers in charge of routine patrols in the frontier zones. The mixed
committees (karma komisyon) were responsible for supervising the security of the
borderlands and set the agenda for the commissariats.514
The pace of these developments was irregular, and before the upcoming
Balkan Wars, widespread banditry was the most challenging security issue which
compelled the states to formulate additional purity measures in case of exigent
circumstances. Serbian authorities often complained of Albanians of transgressing
the borders and called on the commissariats of both sides to act in unison.515 They
urged that additional Ottoman soldiers be deployed rather than irregulars (başıbozuk)
who were mainly comprised of Albanian nationals who were not always
cooperative.516 Likewise, Greece demanded that measures be taken to prevent the
Ottoman gendarmerie from crossing the Greek border under the pretense of pursuing
criminal suspects.517 In most other cases, however, authorities prepared for prompt,
joint action to counter the mobility of criminals at the borders. When perpetrators
were arrested in a border zone, officials employed usually preferred a collaborative
judicial inquiry, for which a simple procés-verbal was enough to proceed.518
On the other hand, the Ottoman state sought to introduce long-term in
treaties. In 1881, the legal advisor Parnis Efendi proposed revamping the 1856 treaty
514 The Ottoman Empire and Serbia prepared the regulations for the organization of the border
guardianship (sınır muhafızlığı teşkili nizamnamesi) in December 1893: BOA HR.SYS. 1438/25. The
mixed committee decided to take lengthy measures at the Serbian borders in 1898, see BOA HR.TH.
212/46. For the regulation to secure the peace (musalaha-yı umumiye nizamnamesi) at the borders of
Montenegro, see BOA MV. 71/47, 1889; and BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 107/29, 1908. For the mixed
committee, see BOA HR.SYS. 138/14. For the Ottoman-Bulgarian frontier protocol prepared by the
mixed committee in 1910, see BOA HR.SFR. (04) 416/76.
515 BOA HR.TO. 299/23, 1879; BOA HR.TH. 37/18, 1880; BOA HR.TO. 19/19, 1885; BOA HR.TH.
149/37, 1894; and BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO 183/46, 1895.
516 BOA HR.SYS. 1445/6, 1887; and HR.SYS. 1430/70, 1897.
517 BOA DH.MKT. 1576/120; 1888 and BOA I.MTZ. (01) 18/735, 1888.
518 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 183/17; 1895, BOA HR.SYS. 1439/91, 1898; BOA HR.TH. 259/82, 1901;
BOA HR.SYS. 1444/30, 1911. BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 166/47, 1884, BOA HR.SYS. 323/2, 1885.
188
with Greece for the extirpation of brigandage (tenkil-i eşkiyâ), the stipulations of
which were no longer sufficient for the contemporaneous circumstances. A similar
treatise was negotiated with Bulgaria in 1889.519 By the advent of the twentieth
century, mugshots, as a new forensic tool, facilitated criminal prosecutions and the
investigation of banditry at the borders. When the Ottoman state received news that
suspected bandits were moving toward the borders, their photos were immediately
sent the authorities in the respective provinces. This measure enabled police forces to
make the necessary preparations to prevent raids in advance.520
519 BOA HR.SYS. 1730/61, 1881. On the pretext of capitulations, Greece was reluctant to renew the
1856 treaty: BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 157/42, 1886. The 1856 Treaty for the Extirpation of Brigandage
was composed of eight articles: BOA HR.SYS. 1628/2. The Ottoman-Bulgarian project was
composed of 6 articles: BOA HR.TO. 479/8, 1889.
520 In 1906, the Ottoman government confirmed the rumors that a band of brigands from Greece
crossed the borders, and they had seditious plans to provoke the Bulgarian and Wallachian
populations. The authorities immediately sent their photos to local governors: BOA BEO
2772/207833. In 1911, the Ottoman state was after Kostika Mavlasko, who was recently expelled
from Romania. After confirming his identity through his mugshot and completing his official
paperwork on fingerprint, they were planning to expel him from the empire: BOA DH.EUM. KADL
4/9. In 1912, the Ottoman government gave the notice to the Ottoman embassy of Sofia to send them
the photos of the suspects who were tracked down at the Bulgarian borders: BOA HR.SFR. (04)
862/21.
189
Figure 8. Notorious brigand Sayef. In 1903, the Ottoman government
received news that he and his entourage were planning to cross the
Bulgarian border.521
Treaties for the extirpation of brigandage represented the preventive measures
that the military and police forces used to trace bandits and deliver them to justice –
measures unlike diplomatic mediation and negotiations of jurisdiction in the frame of
extradition treaties. However, extradition was frequently discussed as an ideal
solution in lieu of the such regulations. Notwithstanding the inconclusive outcomes,
521 BOA A.) MTZ (04) 92/59. The Ottoman authorities were after Sayef for more than a year. A priest
in the profession, he later participated in the comitadjis, the rebel bands fighting against the Ottoman
military forces in the Balkans. Even though he was captured and put under custody in May 1903, he
was killed during a shoot-out in the same month: BOA A) MTZ. (04) 75/46, 1902; BOA Y.PRK.UM.
64/44, 1903; and BOA TFR. I.SL. 16/1594, 1903.6
190
the Ottoman and Balkan states engaged in many diplomatic dialogues to arrive at an
extradition convention. The crucial point here is to understand the power politics and
hierarchical relations. This created contradictions in the state discourse to assert
political stance and the diplomatic mediations against ongoing crime. The memory of
disorder and bloodshed was fresh on everyone's minds. So, in any event, the
existence of a treaty would not have redressed all grievances. As such, power politics
was more visible in the negotiation of extradition with the Balkan states. The
situation at the time was forged mainly by tit-for-tat policies and not by the adoption
of international law on equal terms. Thus, the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan states
often had to exercise diplomatic caution.
A couple of diplomatic efforts more clearly reveal the asymmetrical nature of
the dialogues. In 1887, the Ottoman government rejected a request from Montenegro
for an extradition treaty, using the latter’s recent political past to implicitly refuse to
acknowledge its official status. Tensions arose with other states still under Ottoman
suzerainty, as well, due to similar stances by the Ottomans dating to before the 1877-
78 War. In 1870, for example, the Ottoman state was reluctant to accept a similar
offer from Romania since it felt no obligation to have an extradition treaty with a
principality under its rule. This attitude changed little in the coming decades.522
A similar dispute had occurred with Bulgaria in 1884. When a Bulgarian
killed an Ottoman gendarme and was condemned to death by the military court,
Bulgaria claimed that a homicide case committed justified his extradition to
Bulgaria. They proposed to exchange two Ottomans detainees in return for their
national, a solution to which Balkan states frequently turned in cases of deadlock.523
522 BOA HR.H. 561/8, 1870. After Romania gained its independence, the two sides negotiated in vain
for the extradition of many fugitives: BOA MV. 38/6,1888; and BOA HR.SYS. 1055/3, 1894-1913.
523 The Ottoman state proposed surrendering Serbian Gurcic for four Ottoman deserters who escaped
to Serbia: BOA HR.H. 50/15, 1882. In return for Vangelia Constate, the Ottoman state demanded
191
Legal advisors Gabriel Noradunghian and Carl Gerscher initially appealed to the rule
of law citing Article 12 of the Treaty of Berlin, which stated that "persons belonging
to the Principality of Bulgaria, who shall travel or dwell in the other parts of the
Ottoman Empire, shall be subject to the Ottoman authorities and law."524 They
ultimately lashed out at Bulgaria’s insistence, which they claimed could barely be
justified even in times of war. They argued that the Ottoman state cannot acquiesce
to the arbitrary whims of vassal states that should, instead, be the primary parties
responsible for the order and security of the frontiers.525
The absence of an extradition treaty with Balkan states meant that numerous
cases were unresolved and criminals unpunished. After all, bilateral extradition
treaties were essential as they removed procedural barriers resulting from
jurisdictional conflicts and differing laws. Thus, they acted as powerful instruments
of international law, enabling the states to pursue diplomacy on equal terms above
the fray of the day’s political problems.526 And yet, those very issues – like ongoing
concerns over border security – were a strong incentive not to establish bilateral
treaties, as the case of Balkan frontiers demonstrates. The absence of bilateral treaties
necessitated the adoption of provisory agreements, which were frequently negotiated
with Balkan states.527 These pacts were not binding, leaving space for states to
maneuver with respect to security politics on the ground at the borders. Nevertheless,
the practice of extradition was more viable given the semi-official sanction of these
Receb Ismail from Skopje: BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO 5/53, 1892. For fugitive Anastos Panayiotou, who
murdered the brother of late grand vizier Hilmi Pasha, Greece demanded their national Georgios
Sideris: BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 5/40, 1909.
524 BOA HR.SYS. 323/2; and “Treaty Between Great Britain, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Russia,
and Turkey for the Settlement of Affairs in the East: Signed at Berlin, July 13, 1878.”
525 BOA HR.SYS. 323/2, 1886.
526 In the archives, most of the documents on extradition are composed of dry diplomatic
correspondences stating that the extradition procedure could not be realized due to the absence of a
treaty agreement.
527 For Bulgaria: BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 5/3, 1910. For Greece, BOA HR.SYS. 1664/2, 1889. For
Montenegro: BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 7/24, 1908.
192
provisory agreements. Gerscher and Noradunghian evaluated one such agreement
with Serbia as a step toward a future, official treaty.528 Until then, criminals could be
surrendered provided that the Serbian government reciprocated. Requests for
extradition would be accompanied by legal documentation, such as arrest warrants
and witness statements, which incontestably established the guilt of the accused.529
Provisory agreements fell under the aegis of the reciprocity principle
(mükabele-i bil-misl, muamele-yi mütekabile); diplomatic courtesies mediated in this
way indicated increasing mutual trust in interstate relations.530 However, the
Ottoman state more often rejected reciprocal extradition by noting its own local
jurisdiction. The emphasis on the reach of Ottoman justice was a ready response to
the arguments of the Balkan states. These arguments were also closely related to
legal developments introduced as part of the 1879 judicial reforms, particularly the
1879 Ottoman Code of Criminal Procedure which established the basis for growing
confidence in legal formalism.
5.3 The 1879 Judicial Reforms and the Ottoman Code of Criminal Procedure
In 1879, a set of judicial reforms were introduced in the Ottoman Empire. Since the
onset of the Tanzimat, these regulations formed the second most significant
nineteenth-century legal reforms in scope. Furthermore, the Ottoman Empire
528 The initial attempt for an extradition treaty came from the Ottoman Empire when they demanded
Arso Sevdic from Novi Bazar in 1885. As future requests on both sides failed, they often resorted to
the provisory agreements. See, BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO 158/23, 1885; BOA HR.H. 637/7,1888; BOA
HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 7/5, 1898; BOA BEO 3699/277415,1907; and BOA DH. SYS. 39/50, 1911.
529 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 156/19, 1886. The draft for an extradition treaty with Serbia was approved by
the Ottoman Council of Ministers in 1909, see BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 7/6.
530 The promise for a reciprocal treatment in extradition practice was the discourse frequently resorted
for diplomatic mediations. For the extradition of Romanian Eron Rosenfield in 1908: BOA HR.
HMŞ.İŞO. 7/31. For the extradition of Montenegrin Pavel Radakovich in 1910: BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO
7/22. For the extradition of Ottoman Namık from Greece in 1905: BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 6/4. Until an
official treaty was signed with Bulgaria, the Ottoman government gave notice to the Foreign Ministry
and Ministry of Justice to proceed to exchange criminals with one another instead of extradition: BOA
BEO 3843/288189, 1911.
193
consolidated its legal power at home during this period despite losing significant
territory in the recent war. The growing importance of legal formalism was a doubleedged
sword which turned the state foreign policy to a new direction. The Office of
Legal Counsel, which was the best symbol of the new state policies in the
international arena, was a product of this reform process. At the same time, the
structural evolution of the Nizamiye courts, which were established in 1864, came to
a conclusion. To facilitate the function of the judicial system, they were divided into
three branches: the court of first instance (bidayet), the court of appeal (istinaf), and
the court of cassation (temyiz). Legal advocacy came to be regulated and
investigating magistrates and public prosecutors emerged as two discrete professions.
The civil and criminal procedural codes formed the most significant part of the
judicial reforms.531
The Ottoman Code of Criminal Procedure entered into force on 26 June 1879.
Though largely remodeled after the 1808 French Code of Criminal Procedure, it
nevertheless depended on an accumulation of precedents in Ottoman law.532 Avi
Rubin defines the function and scope of the procedural codes as follows:
These codes prescribed hundreds of procedural motions, from the very initial
stage of submitting a civil lawsuit or criminal bill of indictment to the last
stages of execution of rulings in both the civil and criminal courts. They
ushered in functions hitherto unknown in Islamic law, such as the
investigating magistrate (müstantık) and the public prosecutor (müddei-i
umumi). The latter carried out duties in both the criminal and the civil
domains. The meticulous codes allowed the judges who worked in the courts
no leeway as far as the procedure was concerned.533
531 On 1879 judicial reforms: Demirel, Adliye Nezareti Kuruluşu ve Faaliyetleri (1876-1914).
532 Young, Corps de Droit Ottoman, Vol. VII., 226-300. The Ottoman Code of Civil Procedure was
enacted a year later, on 10 June 1880. This law was in force until 1927.
533 Rubin, “Legal borrowing and its impact on Ottoman legal culture in the late nineteenth century,”
284.
194
The 1879 Code of Criminal Procedure was composed of 487 articles;534 thus an
exhaustively detailed legal guide to the procedures of the court, as Rubin indicates.
As prescribed in the code, the investigating magistrate and public prosecutor had the
leading roles in the oversight of the prosecution process. Despite disregard for the
regulations in practice, which mainly stemmed from inadequate personnel and
finances, these steps to reform the legal field nevertheless made the rule of law more
visible. Moreover, the 1879 Code of Criminal Procedure revisited and expanded the
scope of penal legislation. 535
The Ottoman government frequently cited this code when emphasizing its
jurisdiction over a locale in extradition arguments. On the other side, the absence of
articles in the 1879 Code of Criminal Procedure addressing the enforcement of
punishment for fugitives – whether Ottoman or foreign – who took refuge in the
empire after committing a crime abroad was the basis of Ottoman disregard for
arresting or punishing criminals in that category. The new law empowered state
discourse on legal authority, and the lack of relevant articles on the latter issue were
not seen as disadvantage. It enabled officials’ diplomatic maneuverability in
extradition disputes.536
534 For the full text see; Gökçen, “1296 (1879) Tarihli Usul-i Muhakemat-ı Cezaiye Kanun-ı
Muvakkatı,” 203-288.
535 Demirel, Adliye Nezareti Kuruluşu ve Faaliyetleri (1876-1914), 301-302; and Ekinci, Osmanlı
Mahkemeleri: Tanzimat ve Sonrası, 233.
536 By addressing the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Office of Legal Counsel stated that they could
not surrender the bandits, who crossed the borders of Serbia and Montenegro, to cause unrest in Yeni
Bazaar: BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 175/53, 1890. Adopting similar arguments, the Ottoman government
rejected the extradition of İvan Stanbulov, who was charged with forgery of official documents and
corruption by Bulgaria: BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 5/16, 1909. The Ottoman Şahsuvar Numan Ramadan,
from Tetovo, murdered someone and escaped to Romania in 1895. The Romanian government was
reluctant to extradite him, fearing that he could receive the death penalty as a sentence. In a yearlong
diplomatic correspondence, the Ottoman state frequently underlined the competency of their
legislation: BOA HR.SYS. 1055/3, 1895.
195
The arguments the Ottoman state employed in its diplomatic correspondence
often came to a head with Bulgaria.537 In 1885, the principality of Bulgaria legislated
its own penal code grounded on territorial sovereignty. Article 4 of the code stated
that anyone – Bulgarian or foreign – who committed a crime abroad and escaped to
Bulgaria would be punished provided that the Bulgarian penal code recognized that
category of crime. Article 5, on the other hand, touched upon the issue of nationality
and claimed that any Bulgarian charged with a crime that took place abroad had the
right to a trial. Relying on the power of penal codes, Bulgaria thus contained its own
jurisdiction and preferred reciprocity with respect to extradition rather than a treaty.
However, the Ottoman state was not keen on reciprocity since it similarly claimed
jurisdiction, which was upheld by the Code of Criminal Procedure.538 This stance
risked the impunity of criminals because, unlike the Bulgarian penal code, the
procedural code did not compel the punishment of criminals who committed a crime
and then escaped to the empire (with the exception of crimes committed by an
Ottoman subject abroad against another Ottoman). In the latter case, Article 7 of the
Code of Criminal Procedure claimed the right of the Ottoman judicial system to try
the case.539
While the arguments of both states stemmed from a growing emphasis on
criminal law, political stances hovered in the background. However, these stances,
which were a hallmark of the power hierarchy in Ottoman-Bulgarian diplomacy, did
not last. Given frequent impunity in criminal cases, Istanbul ultimately called for an
official extradition treaty. The draft proposed by the Ottoman Ministry of Justice in
537 For instance, Ramazan Hakkı Öztan’s portrait of the revolutionary figure Naum Tyufekchiev sheds
light on the Ottoman-Bulgarian frontier regime with its complicated diplomatic and political
trajectories revealed in the larger historical context. See Öztan, “Chemistry Revolution: Naum
Tyufekchiev and the Trajectories of Revolutionary Violence in Late Ottoman Europe,” 261-301.
538 BOA HR.SYS. 323/2, 1885; and BOA HR.SYS. 346/4, 1891-1915.
539 Gökçen, “1296 (1879) Tarihli Usul-i Muhakemat-ı Cezaiye Kanun-ı Muvakkatı,” 204.
196
1906 broached the sore points caused by the aforementioned conflicts between the
Bulgarian Penal Code and the Ottoman Code of Criminal Procedure. The emphasis
on Ottoman territorial law was evident, but the first clause of the draft, which
required the extradition of political criminals to the Ottoman Empire was most
striking. Political crime was often treated as a nonextraditable offense, which was the
source of fierce polemics about the nature of political crime and anarchism in the
international arena.540 Ongoing unrest and rebellions pushed the Ottoman
government to adopt sterner measures against anarchic activity by disregarding the
sacrosanct category of political crime.
A joint committee established a year later work on an extradition treaty that
was never officially enforced.541 In 1909, the Office of Legal Counsel addressed the
failure of these efforts at length, ultimately proposing a provisory agreement on
limitrophe security. Due to omissions in the Ottoman Code of Procedural Law, the
success of such a provisory agreement treaty seemed unlikely as the Ottoman state
tended to rely on its own legislation. Given the Ottoman state’s experiences, legal
advisors were also suspicious that Bulgaria, like other Balkan states, would not
observe an official extradition treaty.542
540 BOA A.) MTZ (04). 141/3, 1906.
541 BOA A.) MTZ. (04) 159/13, 1907. The Bulgarian Ministry of Justice had already set to work to
formulate an extradition treaty at home: BOA A.) MTZ. (04) 124/9, 1904.
542 BOA İ.HR.423/1, 1909: Bulgaristan hükümeti Bulgaristan’da ikâ-yı cürm ile arazi-yi osmaniyeye
firar ve iltica eden şahsın iadesini taleb ve iltimas eylemiş olmasına mükabil hükümet-i müşarünileyh
ile devlet-i aliyye arasında iade-yi mücrimin muahedesi mevcud bulunmadığından iltimas ve ifali
terviç ve kabul olamayacağı bildirilmiş ise de bu gibi eşhasın memalik-i ecnebiyede irtikab eyledikleri
ceraim usul-ü muhakemat-ı cezaiyede tasrih edilmiş ifalden olmadığı cihetle cezasız kalmalarına
mahal bırakmamak üzere bir iade-yi mücrimin mukavelenamesi akdi zımmında Bulgaristan ile
sefaretden nezaret-i celilerine müracaat olunmuş ve akdi mezkure vakte muhtaç olduğundan şimdilik
bir itilaf istihsali şifahen taleb edilmişdi. Bulgaristan hükümetinin dahi sair Balkan hükümeti gibi
taahüdatına tamamıyle riayet edeceği müşkül olduğundan ağır bir muameleyi ihtiyar etmek olacak
olan bir mukavele-yi daime ve katıyye akdinden evel alelade bir takdir-i şifahi ile kabul olmak üzere
bir itilafname-yi muvakkat tanzim ve imza ederek mücrimlerin iadesi hususu ne dereceye kadar
takdir-i ehem görüleceği tahrir etmek sureti nezaret-i penahilerinden dahi münasib görülür.”
197
The strong stance maintained by the Ottoman state in its diplomacy with
Bulgaria, which was useless in the face of urgent security concerns, was similar to
the Greek case. The ease of mobility over the borders by land and sea was a deep
concern for the Ottoman Council of State, prompting it to frequently confer with the
Office of Legal Counsel. In a report dated 1887, Gabriel Noradunghian stated that
the capitulatory system took the option of an extradition treaty with Greece off the
table, although both states were aware of the utility of such a solution.543 On the
other hand, reciprocity was rarely an issue. Athens prioritized consular courts,
especially in the border cities of Janina and Preveza, to which the Ottoman state
responded by bolstering its emphasis on jurisdiction or opting for deportation as a
last resort.544 However, the protection that Greece claimed vis-à-vis Ottoman-Greek
subjects posed a long-term problem when it came to day-to-day security politics in
frontier regions. Greece was reluctant to accept fugitive or criminal Ottoman Greeks
from the empire,545 even when, ultimately, most were relieved of their Ottoman
subjecthood.546
The 1897 Greco-Ottoman War, which was triggered by the ambiguous status
of Crete and resulted in Ottoman victory, significantly reoriented negotiations on the
543 BOA HR. SYS. 1664/2, 1889.
544 BOA HR. HMŞİ.İŞO. 157/42, 1887; BOA HR.H. 689/20, 1888.
545 BOA HR. SYS. 1664/2, 1889-1912; and BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 90/21: “Yanni vilayeti ahalisinden
olub memalik-i Osmaniye’de eşkıyalık ile meznun şakinin firaren bulundukları memalik-i
Yunanistan’da mevkuf bulunduklarından hin-i tahliyelerinde memalik-i Osmaniye’ye iadeleri
mümkün olamayacağı Atina sefaret-i seniyyesi maslahatgüzarinın işar-ı cevabiyesinden olduğuna ve
tebaa-yı Osmaniye’nin Yunanistan’da ahz-u girift ve tevkif ve muhakeme ve dûçar u mücazaat
edilmeleri ve memalik-i Osmaniye’deki rumların Yunan hükümeti tarafından himayesi demek olan bu
halin gayr-i caiz bulunduğuna ve iade-i mücrimin muahedesi akd edilmesine dair…”
546 Yorgis, who was arrested in Strumica, was expatriated as it was realized that he went to Greece and
obtained Greek nationality without the official imperial decree: BOA HR.TH. 91/42, Jul. 1889.
Christakis, who committed a crime in Manastir and escaped to Greece while under judicial
prosecution, was expatriated with his mother from Ottoman subjecthood: BOA DH.MKT. 2276/130,
1902. In most other cases, however, the asylum of these subjects to Greece without informing the
Ottoman state was enough reason for their expatriation. Especially the conscription to the Greek army
was a strong motive behind the expatriation process: BOA BEO 925/69316, 1897; BOA MV 110/90,
1905; BOA İ.HR. 427/34, 1911.
198
issue of extradition.547 After the war, a clerk of the Foreign Ministry, Nuri Bey, and
the legal advisors Hakkı Bey and Gabriel Noradunghian were delegated to a joint
committee to formulate a series of pacts on consular convention, extradition,
brigandage, and nationality.548 However, the nationality question was suspended
when unrest among Macedonian rebels escalated. The Macedonian Revolutionary
Organization (MRO), which had been supported by Greek forces during the war,
took the debate on extradition to an international, political stage. The Illustrated
London News argued that the Ottoman insistence on abolishing capitulations and
signing an extradition treaty responded to the issue of Ottoman Greek subjects, but
that the abolition of capitulations would prompt a massacre similar to that of the
Armenians, whereas the extradition treaty meant that “every Macedonian insurgent
who fled to Greece would have to be surrendered to the Turkish butchers.”549 In this
respect, the 1897 War and the aftermath, which left the issue of extradition
unresolved, demonstrated the triumph of politics over diplomacy. Eventually, the
Ottoman Empire was compelled to expel many Ottoman Greeks to end the longlasting
dispute.550
The border regime in the Balkan frontiers was characterized by an amalgam
of surveillance systems and security provisions that were ad hoc or at the mercy of
fickle political relations. The criminal mobility of criminals in border zones should
547 After the Greco-Ottoman War, Crete was officially recognized as an autonomous state.
548 BOA BEO. 1060/79447, 29 Dec. 1897: “Yunan Hükümeti ile akd olunacak eşkiyâ takibi, iade-i
mücrimin, tâbiiyet ve konsolosluk mukavelelerinin Yunan delegeleriyle müzakeresine Divan-ı
Muhasebat Reisi Hasan Fehmi Paşa’nın riyaseti tahtında Tahrirat-ı Hariciye Kâtibi Nuri ve Hukuk
Müşavirleri Hakkı beyler ile Gabriel Efendi’nin memuriyetleri hakkında.”
549 “The Greco-Turkish War,” The Illustrated London News, 22 May 1897. The work of Garabet
Moumdjian analyzes the historical context of the relations of Macedonian and Armenian
revolutionaries while focusing on the common political ideals they shared in their actions:
Moumdjian, “Rebels with a Cause: Armenian-Macedonian Relations and Their Bulgarian Connection,
1895-1913,” 132-175.
550 The expulsion process was closely monitored by French, English, and Russian legations: BOA
HR.SYS. 1742/137, Ap. 1897. The Russian embassy submitted a list of the Ottoman Greeks that they
requested to stay in the empire: BOA HR.SYS. 1742/134, Apr. 1897.
199
be closely evaluated vis-à-vis the difficulty of formal extradition. While security
concerns promoted a diplomatic discourse in communications among the states, the
scale of political crises obliged more immediate solutions that were often far from
diplomacy. This notwithstanding, recent Ottoman judicial reforms were generally
effective. The concept of legal sovereignty had a firm foothold in the procedural
codes, the restructured court system resonated profoundly in Ottoman foreign
politics, and the capitulation system suffered a severe blow. These novel practices in
the legal field brought about sweeping changes in the nature of relations between the
Ottoman state and European powers.
5.3.1 Consular Reactions to the Ottoman Code of Criminal Procedure
As the new procedural codes elaborated upon every step of prosecutions, the
presence of consular representatives in Ottoman court hearings and their signature on
judgments were no longer deemed necessary. Public prosecutors brought
eyewitnesses to the tribunals, instead. Lawyers for the indicted were assigned from
among court members, and the chief justice appointed interpreters. 24-hour
preventive confinement in an Ottoman jail (kabl’el-hükm habs) prior to a court trial
was authorized, so police forces often avoided surrendering criminals to their
consulates until the day of prosecution.551 These adjustments bypassed traditional
privileges of the consulates in the operation of criminal prosecutions; an official
decree issued in 1881 further curbed the reach of consular jurisdiction. The Ottoman
tribunals were endowed with judicial authority over criminal cases involving foreign
nationals that had been heard by consulates up until then. The new policy was
justified, the Sublime Porte asserted, because the capitulations only granted
551 See Articles 71, 224, 250 and 286 of the Ottoman Code of Criminal Procedure: Gökçen, “1296
(1879) Tarihli Usul-i Muhakemat-ı Cezaiye Kanun-ı Muvakkatı,” 203-288.
200
consulates to try niza (dispute) among European powers that pertained to civil
affairs. Offenses of a criminal nature, on the other hand, were subject to Ottoman
justice.552
The new ordinances drew an immediate rebuff from the consulates. On
February 1881, they requested a commission of consular authorities and officials
from the Ottoman Ministry of Justice and Foreign Affairs. The English, Italian,
German and Russian embassies worked in unison, as their official correspondence
echoed identical demands. The proposals they outlined addressed both the civil and
criminal procedural codes as well as the precepts of criminal sentencing. On April
1881, the commission met to discuss modifications to the provisions of the new
legislation. A councilor from the Ministry of Justice presided over the assembly.
They rejected the paragraphs declaring that the signatures of the investigative
magistrate and public prosecutor on judicial decisions was sufficient. Instead,
consular authorities reclaimed their right to be present as official deputies during
court hearing as well as the obligation to obtain their signatures on judgments lest
they be considered null and void (keenlemyekûn). They further insisted that foreign
suspects could be released on bail procured by another foreigner. Ultimately, they
demanded that the official summons to court be delivered to indicted individuals by
consul authorities and that the official waiting period be predicated on the time of
this summons.553
The negotiation of these issues, which took place among the Office of the
Grand Viziership (baş vekâlet dairesi), the Ministry of Justice, the ministry of
Interior Affairs, and the Office of Legal Counsel, illustrated how different state
agencies reckoned critical matters that touched on the capitulations and Ottoman
552 Brown, Foreigners in Turkey: Their Juridical Status, 68.
553 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 166/36; and BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 165/54.
201
legal sovereignty. The opinions proffered by each office also reveal a noticeable
clash of ideas. The points regarding bail and the summons to court were brushed off
for future discussion. Regarding the other issues, Grand Vizier Mehmed Said Pasha
reacted strongly to the consular demands, which he argued would result in a multiheaded
legal system that was not a part of capitulatory statutes. In his reports to the
Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Interior Affairs, he stated that these traditional
practices encroached on territorial and jurisdictional autonomy. He awaited a
resolution that would neither wholly disavow the traditional practices nor, at the
expense of legal sovereignty.554
Both ministers, in response, conveyed similar opinions on the presence of
consular representatives in tribunal hearings. For years, they had been preoccupied
with this uneasy situation.555 Mahmud Nedim Pasha, the Minister of Interior Affairs,
remarked that they had attempted to abolish these procedures a few years before but
had shelved the plans in the face of the consular pushback. In fact, the idea had been
on the agenda since the institution of Nizamiye courts when the judicial system in
Istanbul and provinces was still chaotic. However, they backed off to preserve the
status quo hearing that the backlash could interrupt the administration of justice.
Before making an ultimate decision, he suggested conferring with the Office of Legal
Counsel. 556
554 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 166/36: “tercümanlar yalnız usul-u muhâkemâtın süferan memurları
muavenetiyle icra olunmasını ve aksi takdirde de kemayenbagi sonrasında tutulmasını ve
müstantikleriyle müddei-i umumilerin ve heyet-i ihtiyarın tebaa-yı ecnebiye aid muamelatında hazır
bulunanlarını ve kararın zirine imza eylemeleri mukavelatını almak istememiş oldukları anlaşılub
bunlar ise uhud-u kadimede münderic olmayan bin başlı ve istiklal-i muhâkemeye bir takım imtiyazâtı
gayet kolaylıkla rabıt ettirmek demek olub kabul olamayacağı…”
555 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 166/36: “bu misüllü taassül kabilinden olan usul-ü hazıranın lüzumu çok
zamanlardan berü devletçe anlaşılmış ise de buna hal ve zaman müsaid olmadığından evvela usul
cereyan etmekde olub ancak bunlardan en çirkini ki sefarin tercümanlarının muhakeme-yi müzakerat
hikayesinde hazır bulunduğu hususudur,” August 1882.
556 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 166/36: Teşkilat-ı mezkurenin ecnebiler tarafından gördüğü şekle mebni
dersaadetin ve taşraların umur-u adliyesi bir hayal-i medet tarifi kabul etmiş mertebede karışık halde
bulunduğu sürede mahkeme-yi nizamiyenin temininden şimdiye kadar cereyan edüb o emri sami ile
teakküd etmiş ve asaf-ı çakeri tarafından men edilememiş olan teamül ve adatların devletin gavial-i
202
The opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel departed from the views
articulated by these state departments. The hesitancy of the ministries and the Grand
Vizier to settle the subject compelled them to submit the issue to legal advisors. The
officials were right to hesitate; legal advisors pointed out the problems that could
emerge if established practices were quickly waved off.557 Mehmed Said Pasha had
stressed that the privileges granted to the consulates were not binding, the Office of
Legal Counsel confuted this argument with reference to the relevant clauses in the
capitulations. These clauses clearly prescribed the presence of consular authorities
during Ottoman trials, but this was not the real issue since they were all aware of
what the capitulations contained. The legal advisors feared that any radical stance on
the part of the Ottomans could result in the forfeit of the right to try foreign nationals
altogether. The jurisdictional claims of the United States and Belgium, which relied
on conflicting interpretations of their capitulations, could serve as a model for other
consulates.558
The ministries and the grand vizierate maintained their resolve despite the
warning by the Office of Legal Counsel to proceed cautiously. In 1883, the consuls
reworded their earlier requests, and the meantime, they instigated a similar debate on
preventive confinement.559 Increasing complaints filed in the Ottoman courts, in
which foreigners charged with crimes where it remanded to custody, stirred another
hazırasına bir gaile daha açmamak ve bu halde sefaretlerin vukubulacak itiraz ve muhalefetlerine
mebni umur-u adliyenin ihlaline sebebiyet verilmemek mütaalasıyla zikr olunan teamül ve adatlara
göre şimdilik muamele olunması zaruri görünmüşdür.”
557 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 166/36: “Esbab-ı meşruiyemizi adliye dairesinde 1881 tarihinde vukubulan
ictima-yı marülbeyan mazbatası muhteviyatına muvafakat etmekde hiçbir beis olmayacağı reyindeyiz.
Muhtevayı halin neticeyi zaruriyesi olarak adaletin cereyanı ve müsalemenin tesviyesi dahi tehire
düçar olmuş olur.”
558 These were Article 4 of the 1830 Ottoman-US Treaty and Article 9 of 1838 Ottoman-Belgian
Treaty. BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 166/36: ahkâm-ı mezkureye maznun-u tebeyyüs olanlara mana verilür
ise mahkeme-yi osmaniyenin mevad-ı cezaiyede tebaa-yı ecnebiye üzerindeki hukukiyeti tamamilen
izale etmekden başka bir şeye hasıl olamaz.”
559 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 165/54, 1883.
203
round of conversation between the Ministry of Justice and the Foreign Ministry. In
this debate, the Office of Legal Counsel, which maintained the same position,
expressed resentment at being portrayed as if it were denigrating the competency of
the Ottoman legal system.560 To the contrary, they unconditionally acknowledged
that the power to arbitrate belonged to the respective courts of law and that the
traditional regulations were inimical to Ottoman executive power over its
jurisdictions. It was precisely this legal principle of independence that encouraged
the judicial authorities to defend the capacity of Ottoman law. They were in no way
suggested that the consuls be authorized to detain their nationals; they were merely
calling attention to potential outcomes lest the Ottoman state adopt an inflexible
position as the embassies were not yet ready to accept recent developments.561
The fears of these legal advisors were not unfounded. In 1893, the Grand
Vizierate complained that ongoing consular actions were hampering the smooth
operations of the courts. However, the courts in the provinces, whose judicial
procedures were directed by the hardline Council of Ministers (Meclis-i Mahsusa-yı
Vükela), did not back off with respect to the practice of preventive confinement.562
The Council of Ministers was an important state body that was instituted during the
Tanzimat. Vested with administrative and judicial functions, this executive body was
directly responsible to the sultan. It was usually presided over by the Grand Vizier,
560 BOA HR.TH. 77/40, 1884: “Bab-ı ali hukuk müşavirliğinin memurin-i osmaniyenin tebaa-yı
ecnebiyye hakkında tertib olunan mücazat-ı icraya hak ve salahiyetleri olduğu bit-teyid adeta inkar-ı
hukukiyet eylemekde oldukları edâ olunur.”
561 BOA HR.TH. 77/40, 1884: “Çakerlerini o yolda beyan-ı mütalaaya sevk iden şey memurin-i
Osmaniyenin kuvve-yi adliyeyi icra mahsusunda caiz oldukları istiklal nam kaidesini mevki-i icraya
vaz ile beraber…” “herkesin malumu olduğu vechle mücazatın memurin-i Osmaniye tarafından icrası
kaidesi henüz temasil kabul olunmayub Bab-ı Ali ile bazı sefaretlerinde daimi ihtilaf olmakdadır.”
“Mamafih mütalaa name-yi acizanemizde canib-i hükümet-i seniyyeden bu babda süfera-yı
ecnebiyeye sarahaten bir müsaade icrasını asla teklif etmeden maksad-ı acizanemizce tebaa-yı
ecnebiyenin kabl’el-muhakeme habs ve tevkif meselesine pek şiddetlü tavır alınır ise böyle bir
hareketden husul-ü melhuz olan tahziri Bab-ı Ali’nin beyninde nazarı dikkatine vaz eylemekden ibaret
idi.”
562 BOA Y.PRK.AZN.7/8, 1893.
204
and those in the highest echelons of Ottoman bureaucracy such as the Shayk al-
Islam, the Head Soldier (serasker), the Grand Admiral and others attended the
meetings. This body of senior bureaucrats contributed to many legislative decisions
in the empire. 563 In 1895, the Council of Ministers convened to review the notices
sent by the embassies to the Foreign Ministry in which they protested the acceptance
of foreign testimony in the Ottoman courts without the presence of dragomans.
Rather than annulling the practice, the Council of Ministers called for Ottoman
authorities to respectfully seek the consent of the consular legations (istihsal-i
muvafakatlerine sarf-ı mesai olunması).564 Ultimately, in 1907, the Ministry of
Justice officially announced that this regulation was being into effect as efforts to
convince the legations had not worked.565
The opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel, on the other hand, were the
frank expression of legal experts and state officials who were personally acquainted
with the assorted foreign affairs of consular authorities. Confident of the advances
made in the Ottoman legal system, they merely wished to highlight one crucial
caveat: the need to patiently prepare the groundwork for these procedures to be
implemented. Otherwise, the discourse of these legal advisors was determined, and
they defended the Ottoman interests in their conversations with consular legations.
For example, unlike earlier statements citing the articles of the capitulations as proof
of the right for consular representatives to be present in the courts, the Office of
Legal Counsel advocated the opposite in a notice sent to the legations in 1911. It
argued that none of these articles explicitly stated the obligation to allow dragomans
to be present in Ottoman tribunals. The insistence of the consulates only contributed
563 Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. II, 81-82.
564 BOA BEO 593/44469, 1895. The protests came from the legations of Italy, Austria, Holland,
Belgium, and Greece.
565 BOA HR.ID. 2037/71, 26 Apr. 1907.
205
to the impunity of crime, as the new organization of the judicial system had already
abolished the earlier regulations.566
In brief, the 1879 judicial reforms and the Ottoman Code of Criminal
Procedure brought about major amendments to judicial practices. It was a gradual
process that suffered numerous setbacks as the Ottoman state had to frequently
confront consular authorities and apply provisional procedures to satisfy capitulatory
powers. Indeed, power politics often overshadowed the headway made by the
Ottomans in legal formalization as European legations did not readily welcome the
reforms. This, in turn, prompted debates among the empire’s various state agencies.
Whereas Ottoman officials all eagerly endorsed the new judicial structure, their
disputes revealed a tension between the decisions of veteran bureaucrats, for whom it
was a matter of pride, and the discretion of legal advisors who were more familiar
with the behavior of the European consuls vis-à-vis jurisdictional matters. However,
the ultimate success of this chapter of Ottoman legal history was to showcase the
progress made in the rule of law, regardless of the various obstacles.
5.4 Crime, Surveillance and Extradition at the Russian Borders
Like the Balkan frontiers, the eastern frontiers after the 1877-78 War and the
Congress of Berlin required a new form of border regime to establish effective
surveillance. This section focuses only on the Russian border; the Iranian border
requires a separate analysis due to sui-generis geopolitical conditions resulting from
566 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 182/62, 17 Aug. 1911: “Gerek mahkemede gerek devair-i istintakiyede
şuhudun istimainda bir tercümanın hazır bulunması uhud olmadığından bu hususda ısrar ve sebat ile
beraber bir takım erbab-ı ceraimin de cezadan verasete kalmalarını meydan verilmemesi elzem
bulunduğu, halbuki muahedat-ı meriyyede bu hususa dair bir sarahat olmadığı gibi nizamname-yi
mezkurede veyahud diğer bir takım namede bir kayıd olsa bile teşkilat-ı cedide-yi adliyye ile bu
nizamnameler mefsuhdur.” The Office of Legal Counsel made similar statements in the following
years: BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 182/45, 1912; and 182/57, 1912; and BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 182/65, 1914.
206
state-tribe relations in the frontier zone. It is sufficient to note that border
commissariats controlled the border security in the Iran-Ottoman zones. Joint
jurisdiction was implemented for crime, and extradition, like with Russia, relied on
reciprocity.567 In 1913, a committee within the Ministry of War declared that the
border commissariat would continue to maintain law and order along the Iranian
frontier.568
As interstate relations with Russia had been governed by capitulations and
consular jurisdiction, this section first discusses the border security with respect to
criminal mobility in the first half of the nineteenth century. Then it proceeds to the
period after the 1877-78 War.
5.4.1 Mobility Control, Domestic Security and the Criminal Exchange before the
1877-78 War
Ottoman control over border mobility cannot be evaluated without considering the
state’s empire-wide security policies, which would evolve during the late nineteenth
century. During the reign of Mahmud II, the Ottoman Empire introduced a set of
state measures to control mobility within the empire and across its borders. The
position of Ihtisap Nazırı or Ihtisab Ağası (city mayor), who was mainly responsible
for controlling market prices, was created in 1826. This office was also responsible
for monitoring people entering and leaving Istanbul. In 1854, this title was replaced
by the şehir emini, the authority responsible for the municipal affairs of cities.569 This
office issued regulations (Ihtisab Ağalığı Nizamnamesi) which for the first-time
introduce an Ottoman proto-passport model known as the mürûr tezkeresi. It further
567 BOA MV. 52/7, Mar. 1890; and MV. 72/41, Dec. 1892.
568 BOA BEO 4140/310444, Jan. 1913. For the dialogues for an extradition treaty; BOA HR.SYS. 696/2,
Apr. 1914.
569 Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. II, 46.
207
issued a regulation to prevent unauthorized mobility (men-i mürûr nizamnamesi) in
1841. Christopher Herzog explains that "a valid passport was required to state the
name of the traveler, the name of his (or her) father, the destination and the purpose
of travel and a rough description of the traveler's physical appearance.”570
Initially valid for domestic use, this paper document and the requirements to
obtain it were elaborated upon in subsequent years. After passport regulations
entered into force in 1867, this document could stand in for passports for travel
abroad provided that they did not bear the stamp “reserved for the interior”
(dahiliyeye mahsustur).571 Along with the mürur tezkeresi, an official certificate
known as the ilm-ü haber needed to be obtained, as well. Ultimately, an imperial
decree (firman) or an official document known as buyuruldu was sometimes
sufficient.572 Thus, evolving practices to document one's identity gradually became a
safeguard against uncontrolled mobility within the empire.
Meanwhile, domestic security policies underwent a systematic evolution in
the early nineteenth century. The police unit (zabtiye) was founded in 1840. Prior to
this, the chief of the Janissaries (Yeniçeri Ağası) was the head of local security,
particularly for the protection of Istanbul. The authority that the Janissaries assumed
as a quasi-police force suited its role as a prominent military branch that vigilantly
maintained safety in the empire.573 On the other hand, towns and villages were
mainly under the watch of the subaşıs, a traditional title given to what would evolve
into a modern chief of police.574
570 Herzog, “Migration and the state: On Ottoman regulations concerning migration since the age of
Mahmud II,” 119-120.
571 Karpat, “The Ottoman Emigration to America, 1860-1914,” 187; and for the 1867 Passport
Regulation see, Düstur, Tertip I, Cilt 5, 861-865.
572 Yılmaz, Serseri, Anarşist ve Fesadın Peşinde, 180.
573 Swanson, “Ottoman Police,” 246.
574 İlgürel, “Subaşı,” 447-448.
208
Inspired by the French model, the first Ottoman police institution, established
in 1840, was paramilitary force stationed in crucial locations throughout the cities
that maintained public order with the support of provincial leaders and local army
units. In this respect, the operations of the police force resembled those of the
Janissaries in practice. As Lévy-Aksu argues, however, the abolition of Janissary
corps should be taken as a major step for the formation of modern police
organization. Already by 1830s, the police stations known as karakul were built in
many places.575 In 1846, the establishment of the Police Marshall (Zabtiye
Müşiriyeti) brought about a notable transformation of the function of the police as a
modern state apparatus, reducing the administrative tasks of officers. The mission of
the police was redefined, and its official duties designated; executive functions were
disconnected from judicial operations and military command. This development
enabled police to concentrate on a singular mission. 576
Before the Tanzimat period, the operation of law concerning the security
measures targeted primarily the maintenance of public order, rather than seeking
after the reasons of crime or control the daily lives of the people.577 Previously,
police forces had directed the process of adjudication at the scene of the crime; this
gave way to close investigation of the scene of the crime, which was carried out to
uncover evidence. While the evolution of the police was most apparent in Istanbul,
other cities also incorporated new forms of organization which operated jointly with
traditional systems of surveillance.578
575 Lévy-Aksu, “The State and the City, the State in the City: Another look at Citadinite,” 150-152.
576 Sönmez, “Zaptiye Teşkilatı’nın Düzenlenmesi (1840-1869),” 202.
577 Ergut, Modern Devlet ve Polis, 101.
578 Schull, “Ottoman Criminal Justice and the Transformation of Islamic Criminal Law and
Punishment in the Age of Modernity, 1839-1922,” 23-24. In his travel accounts, the English politician
John Cam Hobhouse describes the Ottoman policing system in 1817, in the following words: “There
is no preventive police in the place; and, in the punishment of offenders, those who are caught suffer
for those who escape. A severe beating of bastinade is inflicted without any previous enquiries upon
the first person, whom, in any disturbance, the patrol happens to seize.” Hobhouse, A Journey
209
In time, the Police Marshall gradually developed into the Ministry of Police
(Zaptiye Nezareti). By 1879, Ottoman officials honed in on the problems still present
in its operations. In 1850, at the request of the Military Council (Dar-ı Şura-yı
Askeriye), the Council of Judicial Ordinances (Meclis-i Vala) drafted a regulation to
improve security conditions in the provinces. The military council had suggested
forming a commission composed of the district governor, the head of the provincial
treasury, and delegates from among the police in each village, but this official
request was not successful.579 Additional appeals for the organization of a special
commission were reiterated in 1857 to deal with security conditions in both the
provinces and the capital.580 A year later, it was decided that a meeting would be
organized at the headquarters of the Chief of Staff of the Military (Bab-ı Vala-yı
Seraskeriye) with the participation of delegates from that department, the Sublime
Porte, the leaders of military units, the Imperial Arsenal (Tersane-yi Amire), the
police, quarantine officers, and European embassies.581
The commission for the improvement of the police system (ıslahât-ı umur-ı
zabtiye komisyonu), which convened in December, discussed a number of concerns
including, among others, the issues of foreign nationals, particularly those in
Istanbul. One was police investigation – without consular assistance – of public
Through Albania and Other Provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia to Constantinople during the
years 1809-1810, Vol.II, 240.
579 BOA İ.MVL. 183/5481, Sep. 1850.
580 BOA A.) AMD. 70/5, Aug. 1856.
581 BOA HR.MKT. 191/80, and 192/28, Jun 1857. The ongoing problems in the operation of police
forces still attracted the attentions of travels as of earlier. In 1854, the English poet and historian Julia
Pardoe described the lack of security in Istanbul in a literary manner: “Constantinople, with a
population of six hundred thousand souls, has a police of one hundred and fifty men. No street-riots
rouse the quiet citizens from their evening cogitations – no gaming house vomits forth its throng of
despairing or of exulting votaries – no murders frighten slumber from the pillows of the timid, no
ruined speculator terminate his losses and his life at the same instant, and thus bequeaths a double
misery to his survivors, no inebriated mechanic reels homeward to wreak his drunken temper on his
trembling wife the police of the capital, are rather for show then use.” Pardoe, The City of the Sultan
and Domestic Manners of the Turks with a Steam Voyage to the Danube, 33.
210
places that were reportedly harboring foreign fugitives. If any protest or resistance
was encountered, police forces were obliged to take coercive measures. The
commission also proposed to deport foreign criminals whom the Ottoman police had
detained but who were not protected by their consular legations. They could be taken
out of the empire by their own legations provided that they would never return. The
same procedure was to be applied to foreigners with criminal records who had been
previously released but still posed a threat to security in the empire. Ultimately, a
few requests for minor modifications aside, all consular delegates accepted the
proposals. Each underscored that treatment of suspects in police custody should keep
the capitulatory principles in mind.582
The establishment of the Police Tribunal (Divan-ı Zaptiye) and Investigative
Tribunal (Meclis-i Tahkik) in 1858 influenced the commission’s decisions to an
extent. These courts started exercising jurisdiction in criminal cases of a varied
nature. While the Police Tribunal handled cases involving up to three months of
incarceration and expenses amounting to between 10 medjidie (mecidiye) and 100
piastres (kuruş), the Investigative Tribunal took care of criminal cases. The Meclis-i
Kebir, which was concerned with crimes of a more severe nature, had the authority
to transfer cases to the Court of Appeals when necessary.583 Thus, the Ottoman
police played not only a vital role in the domestic security in the empire. In the early
decades of the century, the institution became one of the realms of authority with
which the Ottoman state addressed criminal jurisdiction vis-à-vis its foreign politics.
The reports of the Police Marshall illustrate that the department heard cases against
582 BOA HR.MKT. 235/51, Dec. 1857. The delegates from the consulates of Netherlands, Greece,
Belgium, the Hanseatic States, Spain, Sweden, Norway, France, Napoli, Sardines, and Russia
participated in the commission. Only Russia and Napoli demanded some modifications.
583 Paz, “Documenting Justice: New Recording Practices and the Establishment of an Activist
Criminal Court System in the Ottoman Provinces (1840-late 1860s),” 99-100.
211
foreign and fugitive suspects. These foreigners accused of various offenses were first
taken into custody, then interrogated, and later tried by the Court of the Police
Marshall. In the end, those convicted were handed over to consular prisons where
they would complete their sentences, in conformance with the customary practice.
The Police Tribunal of Istanbul set out the jurisdictional regulations of these courts,
which were discussed in weekly meetings. Consular officers, local administrators,
and two court members attended these meetings.584
These were the procedures to which Russian criminal suspects were subject,
as the archives demonstrate.585 Between 1863 and 1875, many were surrendered to
their consular authorities by the Police Marshall without any serious issue. As Table
8 shows, the Police Marshall sent Russian convicts to their legations after they had
been tried and sentenced, whereas the Russian state deported Ottoman convicts on
the condition that they be delivered directly to the Ottoman empire. On some
occasions, Russia volunteered to ship criminals back without even an official request
from the Ottoman state; they only asked for the Ottomans to consent to receiving the
fugitives.586
The exchange of criminals between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, as Table
8 demonstrates, indicates the success of the policies formulated by the commission
and wielded by the courts under the Police Marshall. The Ottoman state and the
Russian legation closely oversaw the regulations regarding court jurisdictions. For
584 Testa, Recueil de Traités de la Porte Ottoman avec Les Puissance Etrangéres, Tome Cinqueme,
150-155.
585 BOA HR.MKT. 578/20, Jun. 1867: “Rusya devleti tebasından Hamparson İstepanof’un bir
töhmete mebni bab-ı zaptiyede istintak ve muhakemesi, cezası tayin olunmuş, emsali misüllü cezayı
mahkumun kançılaryası marifetiyle ceza olunmak üzere icrayı keyfiyeti…,”; and BOA HR.MKT.
561/52, Oct. 1866: “bir davadan dolayı zabtiyede mahbus Rusyalı Anadaryas Papof’un, kançılaryada
habs ve tevkif ettirilmek üzere teslimi…”
586 BOA MKT. 853/90, 29 Oc. 1874: “Pasaportu hasıl olduğu halde bir sirkat maddesinden dolayı
evvelce tutulmayıb nazar edilmiş olan Dimitri Hacı Brofirin bizim taraftan kabul olunup
olunmayacağı ve kabul olunduğu halde hududun kangi cihetinde teslim olunmak lazım geleceğinin
Rusya umur-ı hariciyesi nezaret-i canibinden ba-takrir …”
212
Ottoman criminals in Russia, the Russian government sought to maintain good
relations by taking heed of the reciprocity principle laid out in the terms of the Küçük
Kaynarca Treaty. Intended to ensure peace after the Russo-Turkish War (1768-
1774), this treaty included an article on the surrender of criminals. Article 2 stated
that if Ottoman or Russian subjects, whether Muslim or Christian, perpetrated an
offense and then sought refuge in the other state they would be immediately returned
if their home state so requested.587
This treaty also reflects the particular identity politics of the two states at the
time. Article 25, concerning prisoners of war, stated that all people in that category
imprint with the exception of Muslims who had converted to Christianity and
Christians who had converted to Islam, would be exchanged after the enactment of
the convention without any ransom or payment of redemption.588 In place of
subjecthood, the religious aspect of imperial identity was the primary criterion by
which to include or exclude prisoners of war. The article served this purpose for both
empires. The policy corresponded to the empire’s Hanafi School of Islamic law as
well as to the legitimization of Russian subjecthood in the doctrines of Orthodox
Christianity. In this respect, the article in question reflected the identity politics of
two distinctly different imperial systems simultaneously. Will Smiley argues that the
identity framework formulated by the two states diverged from the European
capitulatory tradition in the way in addressed the legal status of foreign nationals:
“where those agreements sought to fit outsiders into Ottoman society, the Russo-
Ottoman project aimed to pull them out.”589
587 Article 2: “Tarafeyn reayasından olub gerek ahaliyi İslam ve gerek Hristiyan zümresinden bir
kimse bir dürlü taksirat idüb her ne mülahaza ile bir devletten evvel bir devlete iltica ederse bu
misüllüler talep olundukça bittehir-i red olunulur.” See, HAT 1429/58503.
588 HAT 1429/58503.
589 Smiley, “The Burdens of Subjecthood: The Ottoman State, Russian Fugitives, and Interimperial
Law, 1774-1869,” 80 and 87. For the impact of religion on the Ottoman subjecthood and legal status:
213
Therefore, the 1774 treaty became an early model of criminal exchange that
was a reference point in similar situations in the early nineteenth century. While the
recent regulation of police institutions influenced the political course of exchange
practices, the reciprocity principle and the focus on religion in the Küçük Kaynarca
Treaty were equally determinant.590 Even though the nature of diplomatic
negotiations on the extradition of criminals drastically changed after the 1877-78
War – to counteract uncontrolled mobility and civil unrest – the reciprocity principle
and even religion remained a dominant discourse cited by both states.
Table 8. The Exchange of Criminals Between the Years 1863-1875591
Date Criminal Crime Result
6 Jul. 1863 Russian Vasiliki Political sedition
Expulsion to Russia
7 Jun. 1864 Ottoman subjects
(Names not identified)
Arms smuggling in Russia Expulsion to the Ottoman
Empire via the Russian ship
‘Alexander’
21 Apr. 1864 Russian Hacı Sava Theft Handed over to the Russian
Embassy
4 Aug. 1866 Ottoman Berskobra
Şenayan
Vagabondage Expulsion to the Ottoman
Empire via sea route
4. Aug. 1866 Ottoman Andre Demkin Fake passport Expulsion to the Ottoman
Empire
3 Sep. 1866 Aron Maisi, Abraham
Mikhailov, Gregoire
Karabeton
Theft and vagabondage Expulsion to the Ottoman
Empire
see Deringil, Conversion and Apostasy in the Late Ottoman Empire. For a comparative perspective on
Russian identity politics, the work of Eric Lohr analyses the state policies in the Russian Empire to
formulate ideal citizenship. Lohr discusses the intricate relation between the traditional subjecthood
notion and the emerging citizenship concept. Lohr, “The Ideal Citizen and Real Subject in Late
Imperial Russia,” 173-194.
590 BOA HR.MKT. 537/58, Jan. 1866; and 552/19, Jul. 1866; and 591/53, Oct. 1867; and 861/10, Jan.
1875: “Ahıskalı Petro Baliçe nam kimesnenin kabul-ü islamiyet eylediği halde erbab-ı cinayetden olsa
bile ber-muceb-i muahede tarafa red ve teslimi olunmamak lazım geleceğinden burasının tahkiki
halinde konsolosa cevab itası iktiza edeceği bu babda cevaben emr-ü ferman buyurulmuş olmakdan
naşi merkuma telhid-i dini mübeyyen olunmak içün meclis kararıyla keyfiyet havale ile suret-i irade
Rusya devletinin Trabzon makamı konsolosluğuna ba-tezkere-yi resmiye bildirilmişdi.”
591 This data demonstrates the exchange of criminals by Istanbul. The data enlisted here follows the
sequence of the list illustrated in Table 8: BOA HR.MKT. 443/56, 6 Jul. 1863: 484/28, 7 Jun.1864;
478/24, 21 Apr. 1864; 458/34, 26 Jan. 1864; 552/19, 10 May. 1866; 553/17, 4 Aug. 1866 ; 553/25, 4
Aug. 1866; 559/42, 2 Oc. 1866; 561/52, 24 Oct. 1866; 565/47, 3 Sep. 1866, 29 Nov. 1866, 24 Oct.
1866; 578/20, 15 Jun. 1867; 592/81, 24 Oct. 1867; 592/94, 27 Oct. 1867; 603/84, 25 Feb. 1868;
650/48, 14 Ap. 1869; 694/43, 16 Aug. 1870; 814/41, 22 Dec. 1873; 824/17, 16 Mar. 1874; 853/90, 29
Oct. 1874; 859/9, 14 Dec. 1874; 858/30, 9 Dec. 1874; 872/66, 10 Apr. 1875; 859/27, 15 Dec. 1874;
890/51, 10 Sep. 1875; 900/21, 7 Dec. 1875.
214
2 Oc. 1866 Ibrahim Efendi Embezzlement Expulsion to the Ottoman
Empire
24 Oct. 1866 Jacob Leisner, Jacob
Weisberry, Adolphe
Leckrone
Vagabondage Expulsion to the Ottoman
Empire
24 Oc. 1866 Russian Anadaryas Popoff Crime unspecified Handed over to Russian
Embassy
29 Nov. 1866 Yorgi Costandi Vagabondage Expulsion to the Ottoman
Empire
15 Jun. 1867 Russian Hamparson
Istepanof
Crime unspecified Delivered to Russian
Embassy
24 Oc. 1867 Ottoman Efram Zapor and
Kirkor
Theft Expulsion to the Ottoman
Empire
22 Oc. 1867 Ottoman David Aglar Theft Expulsion request of Russia
made to the Ottoman
Empire
25 Feb. 1868 Ottoman Emin Abdullah Crime unspecified Expulsion to the Ottoman
Empire
30 Dec. 1868592 Hacı Haçador Agopyan
(Dubious nationality)
Theft Russia refused to extradite
him
14 Apr. 1869 Ottoman Vasil Manayof Theft Expulsion to the Ottoman
Empire via a Russian ship
16 Aug. 1870 Ottoman Aleksandri Misdemeanor and vagrancy Expulsion to the Ottoman
Empire via a Russian ship
22 Dec. 1873 Russian Açıkgözoğlu Crime unspecified Delivered to Russian
Embassy
16 Mar. 1874 Ottoman Şakir Saraç Ali Theft Expulsion to the Ottoman
Empire
29 Oc. 1874 Russian Dimitri Hacı Brofir Theft Expulsion request of Russia
to the Ottoman Empire
9 Dec. 1874 Ottoman Mamed Ahmetov Murder and no passport Handed over to the Ottoman
Empire
15 Dec. 1874 Russian doctor
Karakonofski
Involvement of anarchic
activities
Handed over to Russian
Embassy
10 Sep. 1875 Ottoman Isak Rozen Theft Expulsion to the Ottoman
Empire
7 Dec. 1875 Ottoman Abraham
Hristofobski
Crime Unspecified Expulsion to the Ottoman
Empire
5.4.2 The Aftermath of 1877-78 War: New Borders and New Security Concerns
After the 1870 Russo-Ottoman War, the Ottoman Empire conceded the eastern
provinces of Kars, Batumi, and Ardahan (elviye-yi selâse) to Russia as declared in
592 BOA HR.H. 155/14, 30 Dec. 1868.
215
Article 58 of the Treaty of Berlin.593 The decision was part of the agreement on
indemnity for the war, but the new map soon wrought havoc on geopolitical
conditions in the frontier zones. As consequence of the developments, the region
witnessed massive, erratic movements of diverse ethnic groups and tribes, mainly but
not limited to Circassians, Kurds, Tatars, and Armenians.594
The border commission delegated with demarcate the new borders gathered
twice – in Istanbul and in Karakilise, located in the Alashkerd Valley – in May and
August 1880. Even though Article 58 of the Treaty of Berlin broadly described the
new borders, the committee was unable to make progress on drawing the borders
precisely. In time, most of the borders that were created fell out of use mainly due to
the destruction of the survey markers. Other meetings held to demarcate borders in
1908 and 1912 achieved little more than to revive earlier debates.595 Gözde Cörüt
comments that the failure of the joint efforts indicated the weakness of Ottoman
territorial sovereignty. She notes that the decisive factors underlying this failure were
human mobility and property disputes in frontier regions. 596 However, the lack of a
successful mapping system does not minimize the difficulties of overcoming the real
conditions and historical factors in the frontier zones. The Treaty of Constantinople,
signed by the Ottoman and Russian governments on 8 February 1879, was
formulated to resolve the problems regarding mobility and property issues.
593 The district Kağızman and the towns of Artvin and Oltu were also left for Russia. See, “Treaty
Between Great Britain, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Russia, and Turkey for the Settlement of
Affairs in the East: Signed at Berlin, July 13, 1878.”
594 Reynolds, Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires,
1908-1918, 14 and 46.
595 The commission convened at Karakilise, Alashkerd Valley was composed of Ottoman, Russian,
and British delegates. Cörüt, “Ambivalent Loyalties and Imperial Citizenship on the Russo-Ottoman
Border between 1878 and 1914: An Analysis of the Ottoman Perspective,” 57 and 77. The Russo-
Ottoman border was a political question since the 1812 Treaty of Bucharest. Similar debates were
revived by the 1826 Convention of Akkerman, the 1856 Paris Treaty, the 1878 San Stefano Treat and
the 1878 Berlin Treaty, and the 1880 Treaty of Constantinople. See Rahul, “Russia’s Other
Boundaries,” 23-26
596 Cörüt, “Ambivalent Loyalties and Imperial Citizenship on the Russo-Ottoman Border between
1878 and 1914: An Analysis of the Ottoman Perspective,” 67 and 85.
216
Figure 9. The borderlines described by Article 58 of the 1878 Treaty
of Berlin597
5.4.3 The 1879 Treaty of Constantinople and the Nationality Question
The twelve articles of the Treaty of Constantinople regulated the settlement of
emigrants and the status of their immoveable belongings; it also restored commercial
and legal relations and revisited the question of war indemnity.598 Article 7 of the
treaty stated that the residents from the ceded territories could resettle in the Ottoman
Empire by selling their homes and immovable properties within three years. If they
failed to do so, they would formally remain Russian subjects.599 As the regulations
597 BOA HR.SYS. 1248/1, Jul. 1878.
598 Muahedat Mecmuası, C.4, 202-205; and BOA HR.SYS. 1281/1, 22 Nov. 1881. For the French
version of the treaty, see “The Definitive Treaty of Peace between Russia and the Porte: Signed at
Constantinople on 8th February, 1879,” 424-426.
599 “Yedinci Madde: Rusya’ya terk olunan mahaller ahalisi bu ilkeler haricinde ikamet etmek
istedikleri halde emlaklarını satub çıkılmakda muhtardırlar. Bunun içün kendilerine muahede-yi
217
for resettlement were being clarified, the Ottoman Refugee Commission was
refashioned in 1878 into a general directorate (İdare-yi Umumiye-yi Muhacirin
Komisyonu) to control the massive flow of people from territories lost in the
aftermath of the war.600
The Refugee Commission had initially been established in 1860 to administer
the migration and settlement of Crimean, Caucasian, and Noyan populations that left
territories under Russian control after the Crimean War out of fear of being exiled to
Siberia. 601 While Russia was creating obstacles for emigrants, the Ottoman state was
easing the bureaucracy for the newly arrived immigrants to obtain Ottoman
subjecthood and a tezkere-yi osmaniye (identity document). They were excluded
from military service and given arable land. As James Meyer explains, this situation
fomented a political conflict around double citizenship; Muslim immigrants still
profited from the consular privileges granted to Russia.602 The Russian government,
initially satisfied with the emigration policy, started to resettle the abandoned lands
with people who best benefited the state, thereby guaranteeing border security.
However, the emigration continued for a few years, exceeding the numbers
envisioned. Thus, Russian officials reversed their policy and sought to prevent the
hazıranın tasdiki tarihinden itibaren üç sene mühlet verilmişdir. Mühleti mezkurenin inkızasında
emlâklarını satub memleketden çıkılmış bulunanlar Rusya tabiiyetinde kalacaklardır.” Muahedat
Mecmuası, C.4, 203, and Noradunghian, Recueil d’Actes Internationaux de l’Empire Ottoman, 207.
600 See the following work on the Muhacirun Komisyonu; Cuthell, “The Muhacirun Komisyonu: An
agent in the transformation of Ottoman Anatolia, 1860-1866.”
601 On 1 January 1860, the Refugee Commission was established, and it was refashioned in 1878. In
1893, the commission was renamed as the Islamic Refugee Commission (Muhacirin-i Islamiye
Komisyonu) in 1893. See Saydam, “Muhacir,” 286-288; and for an exhaustive study on the Muslim
refugees from Russia, Hamed-Troyansky, “Imperial Refuge: Resettlement of Muslims from Russia in
the Ottoman Empire, 1860-1914.”
602 Meyer, “Migration, Return, and the Politics of Citizenship: Russian Muslims in the Ottoman
Empire, 1860-1914,” 16.
218
increasing human flows. They established legal barriers to prevent the Muslim
population from switching to Ottoman subjecthood.603
Little changed in the attitudes of the two empires towards the refugee
question after the 1877-78 War. Article 7 of the Treaty of Constantinople was not
effectively implemented as each side instituted arbitrary policies regarding the issue
of subjecthood. Even if refugees strictly followed the procedures to leave for the
Ottoman Empire, Russia sometimes created bureaucratic obstacles. For example, in
1882, the General Directorate of the Refugee Commission reported that the
Trebizond Government had welcomed a group of refugees who had arrived from
Russia by sea. The refugees were taken directly to the Russian consulate upon their
arrival where they were kept waiting until the Russian embassy in Istanbul confirmed
and approved their journey.604
On the one hand, the Ottoman Empire continued to accept people even after
the three-year period had expired so long as they had no criminal record.605 The
Office of Legal Counsel had emphasized the question of crime in 1881. Gabriel
Noradunghian noted that it was unacceptable to cover up crimes and leave criminals
unpunished just because they took refuge in Ottoman territories in the three-year
window. According to international law, these people were to be extradited only if
they were Russian subjects, otherwise, the Ottoman government was obliged to
prosecute their crimes.606 The Ottoman state subsequently reined in the resettlement
procedures and amended the passport regulations in the Ottoman Nationality Law on
13 February 1884. Accordingly, any foreigner who came to the empire had to have a
603 Fisher estimates the number changing between 50.000 and 90.000. Fisher, “Emigration of
Muslims from the Russian Empire in the Years After the Crimean War,” 356 and 364.
604 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 165/59, 7 Jan. 1882
605 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 218/16, 31 Dec. 1886.
606 HR.SYS. 1281/1, Feb. 1881.
219
passport approved by an Ottoman consulate abroad. Within six months of their
arrival, they had to report to the Turkish police to inform them of the duration and
place of their stay in return for which they would receive an official residence permit.
The new regulation aggravated the foreign consuls; nevertheless, the procedures
were strictly observed with no regard for rank or title. In March 1884, for example,
Olga Dmitrievna Nelidov, the wife of Alexander Nelidov,607 the councilor of the
Russian embassy, was humiliated on a return trip to the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman
customs officers encircled her boat and prevented the crew from unloading her
luggage before verifying her official documents – despite the fact that the Russian
flag was flying from the mast. In the face of the protests of crew members, the
customs officers ultimately yielded. However, the incident resulted in a stern
response from the Russian Embassy to the Sublime Porte demanding an apology and
even reparations for the insult to Lady Nelidov.608
Apart from these developments, the ambiguous legal status of Ottomans who
chose not to leave their homes in the territories conceded to Russia caused another
debate. In 1886, Gabriel Noradunghian complained that Russia had still not
authorized the registration of the population of Kars to Russian nationality, which
contradicted the international norm. The procedures required that these populations
receive identity certificates in exchange for their original passports.609 In response to
repeated Ottoman protests, Russia issued a new passport regulation in 1893 obliging
607 Aleksandr Nelidov was an important diplomatic figure who was active during the Russo-Turkish
War and the formulation of the Treaty of Berlin.
608 “La Guerre Aux Capitulations,” Les Nouvelles D’Orient, 4 May 1895. By considering the incident,
this newspaper comments that the Ottoman bureaucracy should heed capitulations to safeguard
Europeans' security in the empire.
609 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 158/96, Nov. 1886.
220
Ottoman subjects settled in newly Russian territories to obtain residence
certificates.610
Considered state policies resulted from the daily practice of politics. The legal
and procedural barriers erected on both sides notwithstanding, the controversies over
nationality sparked by Article 7 of the Treaty of Constantinople were reoriented by
diplomacy conducted over the specific issue of criminal mobility in frontier regions.
5.4.4 Reciprocal Extradition of Criminals
The human flow across the borders after the 1877-78 War fomented an agitated state
of affairs on the Russian frontier which precipitated the security crisis. The absence
of official borders due to long-lasting controversy over their exact locations further
contributed to the turmoil. Shortly after the Treaty of Constantinople, Istanbul and
Moscow corresponded about the revival of the old principle of the Küçük Kaynarca
Treaty to reciprocally (mükabele-i bil-misl) extradite criminals. First, on 16
December 1879, Russian officials in Kars requested that the Governor of Erzurum
surrender fugitives charged with fraud and murder. Though the governor was
initially reluctant, the offer was accepted to avoid impunity with the condition that
full reciprocity be respected in the future. In a response on 8 May 1880, the Russian
state assured that it would conform to this principle in its extradition practices.611
For years, however, the issue of reciprocity remained up in the air. Both
governments reproached the other for violating the amity expected from the Küçük
Kaynarca Treaty.612 Russia often portrayed the populations living in border regions
as undisciplined if not dangerous criminals who posed a menace to public order and
610 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 235/40, Mar. 1894
611 BOA HR.SYS. 1282/1; and Noradunghian, Recueil d’Actes Internationaux de l’Empire Ottoman,
Tome 4, 254-255.
612 BOA HR.SYS. 1281/1, 20 Feb. 1882, 10 Aug. 1887, 2. Jun. 1890, 9 Jul. 1891; and 6 Jul. 1892.
221
peace.613 Thus, they held the Ottomans accountable for not taking the necessary
precautions to punish them. They claimed that Ottoman authorities deviated from the
friendly line vis-à-vis extradition and criticized that the arbitrary governance of local
rulers exacerbated criminal impunity. In 1881, for example, the Russian Embassy
complained about Ali and Osman Pashas, the directors of the refugee commission,
who whitewashed criminal activities near Batum.614 A similar complaint was issued
in 1894 against the Governor of Erzurum, Hakkı Pasha, for the obstacles he created
to the extradition of criminals sought for brigandage and pillage.615
The unpredictable nature of the eastern frontiers, particularly in the late
nineteenth century, exposed the vulnerability of the empire. Elke Hartmann argues
that “a constantly widening gap opened between the postulated ideal of a modern
central state exercising exclusive control over its provinces and guaranteeing public
order on the one hand, and the real political desiderata and the applied practice on the
other.”616 Thus, provincial administrations in border regions relied on the ad-hoc
policies of the governors, which in turn were subject to local politics, complicating
the execution of directives from the center. Governors sometimes resorted to locally
flavored provisory agreements. This was an option first negotiated in 1883 by the
Batumi and Trebizond governorships.617
In most cases, extradition was overshadowed by the conflict over the issue of
subjecthood among the authorities. When Hakkı Pasha, the Governor of Erzurum,
613 BOA HR.SYS. 1282/1, 13 Jun. 1891, 7 Jun. 1897, and 24 Jan. 1907.
614 BOA HR.SYS. 1281/1,16 Dec. 1881.
615 BOA HR.SYS. 1281/1, 2 Sep. 1894.
616 Hartmann, “The Central State in the Borderlands: Ottoman Eastern Anatolia in the Late Nineteenth
Century,” 172.
617 HR.SYS. 1281/1, Ap. And 4 Jun. 1883. Forestier-Peyrat, « Une autre histoire des relations russoottomans
: Trois moments de la frontière caucasienne (1900-1918),” 6-7. The author further adds that
that cooperation was not restricted to criminal cases but also covered the civil affairs such as going
after the spouses that left their wives and children on the other side of the borders.
222
ignored the advice of the Foreign Ministry and refused to extradite a criminal in
1894, it was not about conceit or hostility towards Russian authorities. On the
contrary, it was a reasoned stance. The person being sought had been a resident of
Erzurum since the 1877-78 War and was being treated as an Ottoman subject. In
response, Russian authorities claimed that the offender had been in the cadaster
register since 1882 and the family register since 1886. They added that people living
in the Caucasian village of Nijniy-Peneskert (?), where he supposedly lived, knew
him well. Up to then, the Russian police had not pursued him since they knew neither
his location nor his current identity.618 As it is clear, the absence of systematic,
coordinated system of registering identity as well as the inability to control mobility
on both sides of the borders turned these regions into promised lands for those
exploiting these legal loopholes and the ability to freely move across borders.
The reason the Ottoman and Russian empires preferred not to close these
loopholes directly concerned state politics. Individual cases usually reveal that the
Ottoman Empire exercised a form of political patronage over former subjects. In
1881, the Russian embassy demanded the extradition of individuals who were
accused of murdering someone in Batum but then escaped to Istanbul. They claimed
that these suspects were Russian; they had not resettled in the Ottoman Empire after
the war but rather arrived later as criminal fugitives. Nevertheless, Carl Gerscher and
Parnis Efendi upheld Article 7 of the Treaty of Constantinople in their arguments.
Since the right of emigration was absolute and legitimate, they considered these
criminals to be Ottomans so long as they did not renounce that original identity.619 In
other words, the legal advisors contradicted the earlier Ottoman stance concerning
618 BOA HR.SYS. 1281/1, Sep. 1894.
619 BOA HR.SYS. 1281/1, Jan.1881.
223
fugitive criminals, and their arguments could only be explained as politically
motivated.
Religion was another strong motive for the Ottomans to retain fugitives.
Deserters from the Russian military, for instance, were protected by the legally
legitimate basis of having converted to Islam.620 In 1899, the Governor of Erzurum
urged caution in the case of a Russian demand for the extradition of three criminals.
Even if the Ottoman state accepted signing a treaty, the treaty should neither cover
deserters from the Russian Islamic army nor newly converted fugitives as this would
upend long-established custom. Moreover, almost 250 runaways had come to the
empire since 1883 compared to almost no escapees to Russia in the same category;
thus, they could not be evaluated on equivalent terms as extradition practice
necessitated.621 As noted, disputes over ambiguous identities were often politically
motivated, and these disputes variously affected the surveillance of criminal mobility
along the borders. This confrontation came to a head with regard to the legal
belonging of Armenian populations following the 1894 Sasun rebellion.
5.4.5 Persona Non-Grata: The Legal Belonging of Armenians After the Sasun
Rebellion
To be governed is to be kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, lawdriven,
numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated,
valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right, nor
the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so…622
620 BOA HR.SYS. 1281/1, 17 Jun. 1892, 6 Jul. 1892, 2 Dec. 1892, 18 Oct. 1893, 23 Dec. 1893, 17 Jul.
1895.
621 BOA Y.PRK.UM. 48/59, Oct. 1899: “kayda düşülmüş olan 3 kişinin iadesi ve teslim edilmiş
olduğu yazılmış ise de bundan istidlal olunan mezkure eğer hükümet-i müşarünileyhaca iade-i
mücrimin hakkında bir mukavele akdi arzu olunursa öyle bir mukavele akdinden beis olmayub ancak
Rusya asker-i İslamiyesinden firarla iltica veya ihtida edenlerin dahi iadesi gibi ahiren mevcud olan
bir hukukun ihlaline tasaddi olunursa şimdiye kadar bir ferdin Rusya’ya firar ve ilticası mesbuk
olmadığı halde 300 tarihinden berü kaydı bulunabilinen iki yüz elli mikdarı Müslim ve gayrimüslim
Rusyalının iltica ve ihtida tarikiyle hükümet-i seniyyeye dahalet etmiş ve peyderpey gelmekte
bulunmuş olmalarına karşu bu cihetle ehl-i islamiye muceb-i tesir olacağını arz-ı cüret eylerim.”
622 Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, 294.
224
After the 1877-78 War, the numerous Armenian settlements in Eastern
Anatolia became a pretext for European’s to challenge Ottoman sovereignty and
criticize the imperial line with respect to the Armenian population. Article 61 of the
Treaty of Berlin prescribed reforms in the eastern regions of the empire to protect
Armenians from Kurdish tribes living there. European states indicated that they
would otherwise meddle in the reform issue directly. Escalating tensions would
occupy Ottoman politics for years.623
Atrocities committed in the 1890s, to which Armenian populations in Eastern
Anatolia were systematically exposed, ultimately ended in the mass migration of
some 30 thousand Armenians to the Russian border after the 1894 Sasun rebellion.624
The incident earned Abdulhamid II the notorious title of Red Sultan (Kızıl Sultan),
and the context of the violence in the region has been revisited by many historians
taking many different perspectives. Stringent state measures taken in the region and
the establishment of the Hamidian Light Cavalry, composed of Kurdish irregulars,
were deemed by the Ottomans to be a precaution against the activities of Armenian
revolutionaries and the possibility of a future conflict with Russia. Stephen Duguid
argues that the required reforms and the Russian negotiation with Britain to bolster
control in the region by establishing an independent Armenian state became the
legitimatization for direct Ottoman action in the region.625
Apart from grand foreign politics, however, local tensions were equally
determinant in the upcoming violence. The rape and kidnapping of the Armenian
623 Reynolds, Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires,
1908-1918, 15.
624 The archival document İlkay Yılmaz used in her work, which dated the year1899 gives the number
30.000 whereas another document states that 40.000 Armenians escaped to Caucasia by 1901. They
went to Tiflis, Erivan, Kars, Batum and Bakü. BOA Y.PRK. HR. 27/38, 1899; and BOA HR.SYS.
2774/29, Dec. 1901.
625 Duguid, “The Politics of Unity: Hamidian Policy in Eastern Anatolia,” 144-145.
225
Gülizar by Musa Bey, the Kurdish tribe leader in Muş, in 1889 was considered the
trigger of the rebellion. Though Musa Bey was summoned to trial in Istanbul, his full
acquittal provoked the reactions of Armenian population. Beyond strife between
Musa Bey's tribe and local Armenian residents in Muş, protesters and activists
organized a demonstration at Kum Kapı in Istanbul in 1890. Around the same time,
the newly appointed governor-general of Bitlis, Tahsin Pasha, commenced
organizing Kurdish tribes in the region. Owen Miller revisits the 1894 events in a
critical comparative analysis of various sources and claims that there is little
evidence that the agitations were the result of Armenian revolts. He states that the
revolutionary Hunchakian party had few supporters in the Sasun mountains.
Acknowledging the diverse allegations in the sources, he points out that all
underscore one common point: Tahsin Pasha escalated the violence by portraying the
situation differently to Istanbul in order to legitimize state action.626
In this respect, Miller’s arguments are in line with those of Janet Klein, who
similarly implicates the active role of the state in acts of violence. She notes that Zeki
Pasha, the founder of the Hamidiye Cavalry, played a large part in what happened.627
On the other side, the recent article by Toygun Altıntaş, who offered a new light on
the issue with meticulous archival analysis, argues that the Sasun region was the first
location where the revolutionaries planned their counteractions. In that respect, he
underlines the importance of Sasun massacres “in the articulation of Ottoman
policies of ethnic exclusion and hierarchization” targeted against the Armenians.628
626 Miller, “Rethinking the violence in the Sasun Mountains (1893-1894),” 98 and 107. Miller also
argues that the work, Sasun:
627 Klein, The Margins of the Empire: Kurdish Militias in the Ottoman Tribal Zone, 80.
628 Altıntaş, “The Abode of Sedition: Resistance, Repression and Revolution in Sasun, 1891-1904,” 180
and 183.
226
These analyses diverge from the arguments of Duguid who claims that
Kurdish agitation was provoked by Muslim feelings against the Armenian residence
in the region. He adds that Zeki Pasha successfully applied state directives, as
confirmed in consular reports, through which state control and governance was
gradually exerted via delegation of power to local administrators.629 The co-authored
work, Sasun: The History of an 1890s Armenian Revolt likewise states that Armenian
witnesses testified to the role of Zeki Pasha in reinstating public order in the region.
At the same time, this work attributes the events to Armenian attacks targeting
Kurdish tribes.630
The history of the 1894 Sasun rebellion is a controversial topic of debate.
Reports by missionaries, allegations in the foreign press at the time, and the
testimony of local inhabitants reveal clashing viewpoints among the state, the Kurds,
and the Armenians. The reasons for the agitations in Eastern Anatolia aside, one
point is crucial for the subject at hand: developments in the 1890s compelled the
Ottoman state to reregulate security measures on the Russian border once again. An
official decree dated in the year of the rebellion stated that all Armenians arriving
from Russia to visit had to surrender their guns, if they had any, to police stationed at
the borders; otherwise they would be seized by force.631 Meanwhile, they tightened
passport and visa controls for Ottomans traveling to Russia and Iran.632 The Russian
consulate complained about plunder and brigandage committed by the Hamidiye
forces against both Muslim and Christian populations as well as about the fact that
they sometimes disregarded the borders.633 On the other hand, Ottoman officials
629 Duguid, “The Politics of Unity: Hamidian Policy in Eastern Anatolia,” 146 and 149.
630 Mccarty, Turan, Taşkıran, Sasun: The History of an 1890s Armenian Revolt, 32 and 37.
631 BOA DH.MKT. 1756/12, Aug. 1890.
632 BOA DH.MKT. 1620/104, Apr. 1889; and 1834/87 May 1891.
633 BOA HR.SYS. 1951/100, Aug. 1893; and HR.SYS. 1359/6, Sep. 1894.
227
blamed the Russian state for supplying Armenian rebels settled in villages on the
Russian side of the border with weapons and guns.634 In 1894, the Ottoman state
ordered the construction of buildings along the frontier zone for the deployment of
auxiliary military units and employment of passport officers.635 Ottoman police were
relocated close to Erivan to prevent violations by Russian officers when tracing
Armenian criminals.636 A year later, the Russian Tsar issued a provisional imperial
decree authorizing officers in police stations near the Ottoman and Iranian borders to
discharge their weapons in emergency situations.637
The unrest between 1890 and 1895 lingered in the collective memory of the
states and sporadic disturbances would continue to occupy the time and efforts of the
states in the following years. In 1900, the Ottoman Empire once more revised the
border regime, appointing the general commander of the brigades, Tevfik Pasha, as
the commissariat. Tevfik Pasha was charged with maintaining public order on the
Russian and Iranian borders from the Black Sea to Bayezid.638 Watch towers were
built and attached with telegraph wires that spanned the border and connected to
those of the Russians for efficient communication.639
Given their political and social aspects, the incidents of the 1890s positioned
the Armenian populations as persona non-grata in the eyes of both governments.
Russia neither wanted to control such a large population in the Caucasian border
zone nor could it risk the threat of future sedition by the Armenians. As the next
chapter demonstrates, increasing anarchic activities by Armenian revolutionaries also
contributed to these feelings of unease. Thus, the Tsarist government resorted to
634 BOA HR.SYS. 1342/92, Jan. 1894; and HR.SYS. 1342/94, Mar. 1894.
635 BOA HR.ID. 40/8 Jul. 1894; and HR.ID. 40/14, Aug. 1894.
636 BOA HR.SYS. 1359/2, Apr. 1894.
637 BOA HR.SYS. 1359/9, Mar. 1895.
638 BOA HR.SYS. 1274/2, Sep. 1900, and HR.TH. 246/61, Sep. 1900.
639 BOA HR.TH. 244/60, Jul. 1900, and YPRK. BŞK. 63/2, Sep.1900.
228
several measures for their deportation, even though the Ottoman state was reluctant
to accept them given recent events. The legal belonging of Armenians remained in
abeyance until Russia consented to grant Armenian refugees subjecthood in 1902. As
İlkay Yılmaz argues, Russia accepted welcoming the Armenians from Anatolia by
using the concession of railway construction in the Black Sea region as a trump
card.640 However, this Russian policy did not facilitate the negotiation of
collaboration in judicial issues with respect to the Armenians, even in cases of
sundry crimes. In 1903, an exchange of Armenian criminals was proposed, to which
the Ottoman Council of Ministers delivered the opinion that the standard regulations
for ordinary crimes should be applied to the cases of Armenians, as well.641 Neither
side’s proposals were actually candid. In 1905, the Ottoman government declared
that they would accept no Armenians, criminal or not, who were deported from
Russia, which ultimately drove the Russian government to follow suit.642
The surveillance of criminal mobility across the Russo-Ottoman borders, like
in the Balkan frontier regions, was never definitively addressed in bilateral treaties as
most European states did. Instead, it was subject to many factors. Notwithstanding
unequal relations due to the capitulatory system, frontier security produced its own
geopolitical conditions. Both Istanbul and Moscow positioned their arguments
concerning the extradition of criminals on the principle of reciprocity. In practice,
however, they rarely applied it. The political crisis that erupted from the Armenian
640 In her article, İlkay Yılmaz analyses the Armenian question in Eastern Anatolia through passport
regulations; see Yılmaz, “Governing the Armenian question through passports in the late Ottoman
empire (1876-1908),” 10; also see Badem, “Güney Kafkasya’da Rus Politikaları ve Ermeniler 1828-
1918,” 409.
641 BOA HR.SYS. 2775-76, May 1903.
642 BOA HR.SYS. 2775/75, 23 Sep. 1905: “Rusya'da îkâ etdikleri cerâimden dolayı tardları karargîr
olan ve tebaa-i Devlet-i Aliyye'den bulunan Ermenilerin Memâlik-i Şahane'ye kabul olunmaları
hakkında Petersburg Sefâret-i Seniyyesi nezdinde edilen teşebbüsât semeredâr olamadığından
memurîn-i Osmaniyye tarafından iade kılınan Ermenilerin dahi Rusyaca kabul edilemeyeceği
bildirilmesi üzerine…”
229
question, especially after the 1894 Sasun rebellion, illustrated an extreme
complication in the practice of extradition. As Table 9 illustrates, the exchange of
criminals convicted of sundry offenses was already nonuniform by 1879. Most
extradition requests came from Russia, as criminals were usually manipulating the
loopholes caused by conflicts over nationality. Some extradition cases were
dismissed due to a lack of official documentation or because the whereabouts of the
convicts was ambiguous. Others were rejected as the criminals were considered the
subjects of the empire in which they were already being held. For the few criminals
that the states agreed to extradite, the crux was whether the offense did or did not
constitute an ordinary crime. In such circumstances, the genuine concern – in
keeping with the norms of international law – was to prevent impunity for the
offenses that directly threatened public order. Sometimes people sought their own
justice by appealing to the Ottoman state for the extradition of relatives.643
The question of conflicting subjecthood formed the core of the controversies
in other ways, as well. After the 1877-78 War, the new border regime created a
problem of ambiguous legal belonging in both countries, impeding the operation of
justice in many cases. However, at the outset of the twentieth century, debates over
extradition were reformulated in the context of a solid legal framework. While
archival materials do not expand on this rapid shift in the discourse, recent political
tensions experienced at the borders and the influence of legal advisors who stressed
643 Ali Agha, who set off to travel Batum for his nephew imprisoned there, was arrested at the Russian
frontier, and his animals were seized. He applied to the Ottoman state for himself and for the release
of his nephew, BOA HR.H. 159/11, Feb. 1881. Dellal Ismail appealed to the Ottoman state for the
extradition of his brother, whom the Russian state incarcerated in Sevastopol. His brother Ibrahim was
a naturalized Ottoman, but he was arrested because of allegedly escaping from the Russian military;
BOA HR.H. 300/71, Oct. 1886. Armağan Hatun, the mother of Bedros, who was convicted at Baku,
wrote a petition to the Ottoman state requesting the extradition according to the treaty principles;
BOA HR.SYS. 2776/58, May 1909. In the same year, the mother of Ardaş, who was similarly arrested
in Baku, wrote a petition for his extradition; BOA HR.SYS. 2776/57, May 1909.
230
the need for an official extradition treaty to replace the principle of reciprocity,
formed the main reasons that reframed the diplomatic arguments.644
5.4.6 Negotiations of an Official Extradition Treaty
In 1904, the Russian ambassador Ivan Zivoniev asked the Ottoman Foreign Ministry
for Ottoman courts to try a fugitive Ottoman convicted of robbery in the Russian
territory of Karakilise.645 The 1880 Russian Penal Code included a particular
regulation addressing this issue, which prompted Russia to expect the same from the
Ottomans. Article 184 stated that Russian subjects accused of crimes against either
Russian or foreign subjects, if they were handed over or returned to Russia on their
own consent, would be tried in Russia according to the punitive regulations of both
countries.646
The case remained in abeyance until 1907. Ultimately, the Ottoman court
dismissed the lawsuit asserting that the 1879 Code of Criminal Procedure had no
provisions for crimes committed by Ottomans abroad. The only clause related to the
issue was Article 7, which upheld the right of Ottoman courts to try Ottomans
644 BOA HR.SYS. 1281/2, 1904: “Vakıa 1188 tarihli Küçük Kaynarca muahedenamesinin 2. Maddesi
fıkra-yı saniyesi mücrimin talep vukuatında red ve iadesi esasını dahi hudud üzerinde bazı erbab-ı
ceraimden firarilerin mütekabilen iadesi içün 1879 ve 1880 senelerinde nezaret-i hariciye ile sefaret
arasında taalluk edilmiş olduğu halde memalik-i şahaneden Rusya’ya firar eden mücrimin bizzat
hükümet-i müşarünileyhaca iadesi vechine gidilmemesine ve Rusyadan memalik-i mahrusa-yı
şahaneye iltica ve tebaa-yı osmaniyeye ihraz eden ve ancak devlet-i müşarünileyha nezaretinde
Rusyada kalan müslim ve gayri müslim eşhasın dahi hükümet-i mezkurece taleb ve iadesinde
tereddüd edilerek bu gibi bazı mütaalebenin neticesiz kalınmasından dolayı…’
645 BOA HR. SYS. 1282/1, 29 Jun. 1907, from Ivan Zivoniev, the Russian Ambassador, to Tevfik
Pasha, the Ottoman Foreign Minister. In his report, Zivoniev added that this attitude was against the
1899 Iğdır Protocol signed for the security of borders.
646 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 6/24, 30 Nov. 1909; “Madde 184: Rusya tebaasından olub memâlik-i
ecnebiyede bulunan ve bulundukları memleketin hükümetiyle tebaasından birini veya bir kaçına
veyahut o memlekette bulunan diğer bir ecnebiye karşı bir cürmü ika etdiklerinden dolayı
mahkemeleri icra edilmek üzere ikâ-yı cürm edilmesi memleket hükümet meclisinin emriyle birine
terfiken Rusya’ya sevk ve izam olunan veyahut kendi hüsn-ü rızalarıyla vatanlarına avdet eden
mücrimler iş bu ceza kanunnamesi ahkamına tevfiken Rusya’da taht-ı mahkemeye alınırlar, yalnız bu
gibi mücrimin irtikab-ı cürm etmiş oldukları memleketin kavanin-i cezaiyesinde muayyen
cezaiyesinde daha şedid ceza ile mahkum edildikleri takdirde cezaları memleketleri kavaininde
muayyen nisbetinde tahfif edilecektir.”
231
charged with an offense in a foreign territory against another Ottoman. Article 7
further explained that such cases could be brought to the court only on the condition
that the host state had not already tried the accused.647 Zivoniev, displeased with the
response, warned that the Ottoman stance would result in impunity for the crime and
flagrantly contradicted diplomatic customs that regulated interstate relations between
neighboring states. 648 For the first time, both governments were reckoning with their
penal codes in an extradition case. Nevertheless, the resort to the legislation was
unsuccessful as the two penal codes were incompatible and a reciprocal extradition
was no longer an option. Thus, the two sides eventually opted for an official
extradition treaty.
By 1905, the vizierate had already assigned a committee to work on an
extradition treaty in accordance with the request of the Russian Embassy. After a
series of exchanges, the committee resolved that criminals would no longer be
extradited out of reciprocity. The Ottoman Office of Legal Counsel claimed that the
1879 treaty on the reciprocal exchange of criminals had never been applied on equal
terms and was no longer valid due to the passage of time (mürur-u zaman ile
meriyetten sakıt eylemiş olan). For this reason, they recommended an official
bilateral treaty be signed. The office further noted, with reference to local,
provisional agreements such as between the governors of Batumi and Trebizond, that
provincial authorities had no mandate to order the extradition of criminals or veto the
request of another state. Instead, this process would be carried out using diplomatic
647 “Tebea-yı Devlet-i Aliyye’den biri memâlik-i Osmaniye haricinde tebea-yı Devlet-i Aliyye’den
diğeri aleyhinde bir cinayete mütecasir olduğu halde Memalik-i Osmaniye’ye avdet eder ve mürtekip
olduğu cinayetten dolayı memâlik-i ecnebiyede mücazat-ı kanuniyesini görmediği tahakkuk eyler ise
hakkında muamele-yi kanuniye icra olunur.” See, Düstur, C.4, 136-137. For the French version,
Young, Corps de Droit Ottoman, Vol. VII, 227-228, and Gökçen, “1296 (1879) Tarihli Usul-ü
Muhakemât-ı Cezaiyye Kanun-ı Muvakkatı,” 204.
648 BOA HR. SYS. 1282/1, Jul. 1907.
232
channels as was practiced by European states in accordance with international law.649
That same year, the Council of Ministers issued an official statement to conclusively
resolve the subjecthood issue and stop criminals still manipulating the Treaty of
Constantinople and Article 7 of the procedural code to evade punishment. The
council declared that the Ottoman state would treat such people as Ottomans if they
spent a year in the empire or if an official document from the Russian government
could be obtained renouncing their nationality.650
In the meantime, the Office of Legal Counsel advised the amendment of
Article 7 of the Ottoman Code of Procedural Crimes to address the jurisdiction of
Ottoman subjects accused of crimes against foreigners abroad. For this reason,
extraditable violations classified as ordinary crimes needed to be carefully identified,
and the new regulation had to conform to the stipulations of the official extradition
treaty. The supplement to Article 7 of the Ottoman Code of Procedural Crime was
introduced to the Council of Ministers and the Ministry of Justice in 1910. It stated
that jurisdictional rights would be resolved according to the writ of summons and
orders received from the Ministry of Justice.651 Additionally, legal advisors offered a
solution in Article 5 of a 1905 draft penal code, which was still under preparation. If
enacted, Article 5 would allow Ottoman courts to try Ottomans convicted abroad.652
However, neither the draft penal code nor the amended Article 7 was approved. The
Ottoman state thus redirected its attention to a bilateral extradition treaty.
649 BOA HR.SYS. 1281/1, Aug. 1905.
650 BOA HR.SYS. 1282/1, 1905.
651 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 6/34, 26 May 1908; and BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 6/24, 30 Nov. 1909. 7.
Maddeye Zeyl: “Tebea-yı Devleti Aliyye’den biri tebea-yı ecnebiyyeden bir diğeri hakkında memaliki
ecnebiyede bir cürm-ü şahsi irtikâb eylediği halde bunlar hakkında takibat-ı kanuniye icrası tazarrik
şikayetine ve adliye nezaretinin emr-i tahririne mütevafıkdır.”
652 1910 Ceza Kanunname-yi lahiyası, Madde 5: “Memalik-i ecnebiyede bir ecnebi aleyhine ika
olunan ceraimden dolayı hakkında mahkeme-yi Osmaniye tarafından icra-yı takibat ve muhakemata
müsaid olunur.” BOA HR.SYS. 1282/1, 21 Jun. 1910. The report of Ahmed Bey and Hrand Bey, the
Office of Legal Counsel.
233
In 1911, the legal advisor Hrand Abro Bey presented the final draft of the
treaty project to the grand vizierate and the Council of Ministers. Composed of 6
articles, the project resembled the standard format of extradition treaties except for a
few distinct points arising from Russo-Ottoman interstate relations. Article 5
articulated that fugitives who had obtained a host state's nationality or religion could
not be extradited, underscoring the importance attached to the principles of the
Küçük Kaynarca Treaty on religion. Article 6 touched on the question of a third
state. If a third state demanded the extradition of an Ottoman from Russian territories
or a Russian from Ottoman territories for a crime committed in the third state, the
extradition could proceed.653 Though this clause seems irrelevant, Hrand Abro Bey
explained that it safeguards Ottoman subjects from arbitrary jurisdiction. If the
Russian state reacted to its inclusion, the draft could be revisited. He reiterated earlier
agreements concerning Ottoman subjects who took refuge in the empire after
committing a crime against a Russian in Russia, suggesting that the additional clause
was complementary in practice.654
The Grand Vizierate, the Council of Ministers, and the Ministries of Justice
and of Interior Affairs approved the general framework, but the Council of Ministers
also voted to reinstate the principle of reciprocity. Unlike the Office of Legal
Counsel, they remained cautious about relying on a treaty and wished to maintain
older methods of diplomatic reconciliation. They further suggested wrapping up two
treaties, as Hrand Abro Bey had also suggested, into one. The proposal concerning
the jurisdiction of the Ottomans convicted abroad was not urgent in their eyes, but it
could be inserted into the main extradition treaty.655
653 BOA HR.SYS.1282/1, 28 May 1911. For the Ottoman-Turkish of the draft treaty see Appendix D.
654 BOA HR.SYS.1282/1, May 1911.
655 BOA MV. 154/4, Jul. 1911 and BOA BEO 3914/293519, Jul. 1911. “Tezkere-yi mütaalânâmeye
ithafen tezkere-yi mezkûrede dahi dermeyan olunduğu vechle mukabele-yi bilmisil kaidesi olunmak
234
Unfortunately, the archival documents fall silent at this point. In 1913, the
Ambassador to St. Petersburg, Fahreddin Bey, wrote to Grand Vizier Said Halim
Pasha that Prince Troubetzkoy,656 the director of the Oriental Department of the
Russian Foreign Ministry, had asked in passing about progress on the extradition
project. Fahreddin Bey submitted the draft documents, which he said found favor
with the prince who then transferred them to the Ministry of Justice.657 There is no
record of what happened next; war was at the doorstep and efforts to approve such a
treaty probably fell by the wayside. During the war, after all, it was not diplomacy
but a political state of emergency that determined security policies.
The inconclusiveness of the project notwithstanding, the measures undertaken
by both empires to secure the borders and limit criminal mobility after the 1877-78
War provides a new, broader perspective on Russo-Ottoman diplomacy. The border
regime had to accommodate day-to-day local politics alongside stringent state
measures and sometimes violent clashes. On the other hand, the Ottoman Empire
availed itself of its recent legal reforms to undermine the hold of the capitulations;
meanwhile, Russia was undergoing its own legal restructuring in line with
international law. Their dialogues on extradition demonstrate that both empires
merged the diplomacy of reciprocity and its two-centuries-long history with the new
legal discourse and new recourse to legislated penal codes.
şartıyla iade-i mücrimin hakkında tecdid-i itilaf münasib olub ancak gerek Memalik-i Omaniye’de bir
Osmanlı gerek Rusya’da bir Rusyalı aleyhinde irtikâb-ı cinayet ile kendi memleketlerine firar eden ve
tarafeyn tebalarından bulunan canilerin cezasız kalmamalarını temin içün dahi bir ittilâf vücuda
getirilmesi kaideden hali değil ise de iki meselenin bir itilâfnâmeye derci müzakeratı tasyir
edeceğinden evvel emirde iade-i mücrimin hakkındaki ittilâfın tecdidi için salif’ül-zikr
mütaalanâmede muharres ita dairesinde müzekkerâta ibtidar olunması hakkında nezareti
müşarünileyhaya mezuniyet verilmesi kararlaştırıldı.”
656 I am not sure which prince he was from this family as they were many and most of them lived in
different countries of Europe. I think he was Evgenii Nikolayevich Troubetzkoy (1863-1920), a
lawyer who lived in Russia.
657 BOA HR.SYS. 1282/1, Mar. 1914. BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 6/20, Nov. 1914.
235
Table 9. Extradition Negotiations After the 1877-78 War 658
Date Criminal Crime Escaped to Request from Result
Oct. 1879 A couple of
individuals
Murder and theft in
Kars
Erzurum The Russian
Embassy to the Vali
of Erzurum
Not extradited
Jan. 1881 A couple of
individuals
Murder of Russian
Bassi Sanadje in
Batum
Istanbul The Russian
Embassy to the
Ottoman Foreign
Ministry
Not extradited,
identity
question
Sep. 1882 Kamil and his brigands Theft of livestock in
Oltu
Hod The Russian
Embassy to the
Ottoman Foreign
Ministry
Arrested, not
extradited
Apr.1883 Brigand Baltaoğlu
Mehmed Ali
Brigandage in Oltu Trebizond The Governor of
Batum to the
Governor of
Trebizond
Not extradited
May 1883 Kurd Mantouri
Hussein
Murder of two
Ottomans in Sivas
Batum The Sivas Province
to the Batum
Governorate
Arrested but
not extradited
Sep. 1889659 Russian Gezki
Zekeriya
Crime, unspecified,
in Russia
Canik (he
also
committed
murder there)
The Russian
Embassy
Not extradited
Nov. 1889660 Kalfayan Mardiros Murder of Huseyin
in Van
Batum The Ottoman
Embassy of St.
Petersburg to the
Russian
Government
_________
July 1890 Aibedzaroğlu Deli
Hasan and brigand
Kerim
Brigandage and
other crimes in
Tiflis
Erzurum The Russian
Consulate of
Erzurum to the Vali
of Erzurum
Judged and
released by the
Ottomans
Dec. 1890 Seven Ottoman
subjects
Attack to a postilion
on railway station in
Kars
Ottoman side
of the frontier
The Russian
Embassy to the
Ottoman Foreign
Ministry
Local Ottoman
police arrested
them, not
extradited
Nov. 1890 Russian Tevfik
Atabekon
Incitation of a crime
in Artvin
___
The Russian
Embassy to the
Ottoman Foreign
Ministry
He changed his
subjecthood,
not extradited
June 1891 Russian subjects No Ottoman visa on
their passports,
Erzurum
___
The Russian
Embassy to the
Governor General
of Erzurum
Not extradited
Nov. 1891 Russian Nariman
Kurbanoglu
Deported to Siberia
because of murder
in 1887
Istanbul The Russian
Embassy to the
Ottoman Foreign
Ministry
They decided to
extradite but
could not find
her
Dec. 1891 Seven Kurds Banditry in
Caucasia
Bayazıd Russian Embassy to
the Ottoman
Foreign Ministry
Not extradited
658 BOA HR.SYS. 1281/1. Most of the correspondences on extradition, as illustrated in Table 9, are
stored in this catalogue.
659 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 173/2, 14 Sep. 1889.
660 BOA HR.H. 161/11, 8 Nov.1889.
236
Jan. 1892 Six Ottoman subjects Injuring Hasan and
his daughter
Cadidje, looting
their goods in
Lazistan
Tiflis
The Ottoman
Foreign Ministry to
the Russian
Embassy
Not extradited
Mar. 1892 Russian Stefan
Papazow
Murder of Lietunant
Thomas Davidow in
Tiflis
Çürüksu
The Russian
Embassy to the
Ottoman Foreign
Ministry
They decided to
extradite him
Mar. 1892 Aslan Mamioğlu Attack to Aaron
Halvassy in
Caucasia
Izmid The Russian
Embassy to the
Ottoman Foreign
Ministry
They decided to
extradite him
Jan. 1893 Ottoman Kurdoglu
Hamid
Death penalty for a
crime not identified
Lazistan The Ottoman
Foreign Ministry to
the Russian
Embassy
They accepted
to extradite but
could not find
him
Feb. 1893 Russian Taimassan
Atacheff
Theft of 3.000 ruble Istanbul The Russian
Embassy to the
Ottoman Foreign
Ministry
They accepted
to extradite him
Mar. 1893 Mustafa Ali and
Mehmed
Assassination and
smuggling in Rize
Batum The Ottoman
Consulate of Batum
to the Governor of
Batum
They accepted
to extradite
them
Jan. 1895 Mehmed bin Dursun Crime not identified Batum The Ottoman
Consulate of Batum
demanded him for
three years
They extradited
him in the end
Apr. 1895 Küçük Islamoğlu
Mehmed
Murder in
Trebizond
Yalta The Consul General
of Trebizond to the
Ottoman Consulate
of Sevastopol
They could not
find him
Apr. 1895 Ottoman subject Ali Murder Kars The Ottoman
Foreign Ministry to
the Ottoman
Embassy of St.
Petersburg
They could not
find him
Sept. 1895 Mehmed and Tefdji Murder of nine
Ottomans
Not specified The Ottoman
Foreign Ministry to
the Ottoman
Embassy of St.
Petersburg
Lack of
documents, not
extradited
Jan. 1897 Ali Sultan Kobliansky Brigandage and
looting in Ardahan
Bursa The Russian
Embassy to the
Ottoman Foreign
Ministry
______
Mar. 1898 Ismail bin Eminağa Murder in Batum Izmid The Russian
Embassy to the
Ottoman Foreign
Ministry
______
Mar. 1898 Russian Ismail
Karabayraktaroğlu
Murder in Batum Sinop The Russian
Embassy to the
Ottoman Foreign
Ministry
They arrested
and accepted to
extradite him
Mar. 1899 Russian Emrullah and
Köse Mehmed
Brigandage in
Trebizond and
Sivas
Çürüksu The Ottoman
Foreign Ministry to
the Batum
Governorate
Not extradited
Aug. 1899 Russian Molla
Muhammad Loman
Murder Bursa The Russian
Embassy to the
Ottoman Foreign
Ministry
_________
237
Sep. 1899 Ottoman Şakir Crime in Sürmene Kertch The Ottoman
Foreign Ministry to
the Ottoman
Consulate of St.
Petersburg
Extradited
Apr. 1901 Mehmed Memişoğlu Murder Sinop The Russian
Embassy to the
Ottoman Foreign
Ministry
Arrested but
not extradited
Oct. 1902 Russian Osman,
Cabbar, Merdan and
Selim
Brigandage Bayazıd The Russian
Embassy to the
Ottoman Foreign
Ministry
Not extradited
Jan. 1905 Russian Mustafa
Hamitoff
Crime unspecified
in Kazan
Istanbul The Russian
Embassy to the
Ottoman Foreign
Ministry
Identity
question, lack
of documents,
not extradited
Oct. 1906 Russian Şevket bin
Demicioğlu
Murder in Batum Adapazarı The Consulate
General of Batum
to the Ottoman
Foreign Ministry
________
Mar. 1908 Şahinzade Tahsin Brigandage in
Lazistan
Batum The Ottoman
Consulate of Batum
Extradited
Dec. 1908661 Imamoğlu Şaban Murder in Erzurum Novorossik The Ottoman
Consulate of
Novorossik to the
local authorities
They accepted
to extradite him
Feb. 1910662 Russian Krigor
Kaprilof
Crime unspecified In prison in
Erzurum
_______ His extradition
would depend
on his
punishment in
the Ottoman
Empire
Feb. 1910663 Henkamoğlu Ali Crime unspecified In prison in
Sohumkale
The Governor of
Trebizond
His extradition
would depend
on his
punishment in
Russia
May 1910664 Tekbıyıkoglu Bodos
and his son
Murder of Kirkor in
Konya
Kars The Ottoman
Embassy of St.
Petersburg
Not extradited
Jun. 1913665 Ahmed and his
accomplices
Murder of three
Ottomans in Rize
Batum The Ottoman
Consulate of Batum
Extradited
Oct. 1913666 Çakı Topaloğlu Edhem
ibni Mustafa
Crime unspecified
in Rize
Rostow The Ottoman
Embassy of St.
Petersburg
_________
661 BOA HR.SYS. 1282/2, Dec. 1908.
662 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 6/22, Jan. 1910.
663 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 6/25, Feb. 1910.
664 BOA HR.SYS. 1282/2, May 1910.
665 BOA HR.H. 163/8, Jun. 1913.
666 BOA HR.SYS. 1282/3, Oc. 1913
238
5.4.7 The Ottoman Empire and Russia: The Adoption of Legal Formalism in Two
States
Like the Ottoman Empire, Russia undertook a wide range of legal reforms in the
nineteenth century, reshaping its judicial system. Since 1812, state officials with
diverse political visions had labored on codification projects that reflect the empire’s
legal trajectory.667 The 1864 reforms, like the 1856 Tanzimat Edict, was the
milestone that established the equality of all subjects before the law. These reforms
instituted a motto of law as being “the spirit of people.”668
Most of the attempts at reform, however, remained on paper, even as they
awakened public awareness of law and justice in time. Western legal systems
inspired the Russian judicial system in many respects. The Russian state reasoned
that the participation of lawyers in court tribunals, a jury system, and delegation to
local courts, as were the practices in Europe, would elevate the competency of
jurisprudence throughout the empire. Accordingly, officials endeavored to create
solidarity among judicial organs by ensuring effective communication between
plaintiffs and defendants. Nevertheless, these goals were not fully realized, the new
judicial system was not so easily implemented in every corner of the empire.
Furthermore, the peasant population had difficulties availing itself of the new judicial
procedures. Most insisted on preserving customary practices in court operations, so
the state was compelled to seek a compromise with local people for a long time.669
667 Adrian Brisku vividly narrates the political frictions in the state for those codification attempts. The
power struggle Michael Speransky, the advisor to Emperor Alexander I, had with opponents shows
the tension between the rule of law and the power of the autocratic regime. This work of Brisku is a
comparative study focusing on the reform process of both the Russian and Ottoman Empires.Brisku,
Political Reform in the Ottoman and Russian Empires: A Comparative Approach, 17-61.
668 Baberowski, “Law, the judicial system and the legal profession,” 346.
669 Baberowski argues that the incomprehensible legal discourse at the court vis-a-vis the conventional
definition of crime that the peasants were used to set a barrier among the state officials and local
populations. While local elders and the people insisted on their customary laws, the new enforcements
by the reforms created a plurality of law. See Baberowski, “Law, the judicial system and the legal
profession,” 349-351; and Dussel, “Russian Judicial Reforms and Counter Reforms (1864-1914).”
239
It was not so great a sacrifice. After all, for the imperial autocracy, the
primary concern was neither justice for Russian subjects nor the promotion of the
rule of law. Instead, they desired that new legislation prioritize the privileges of
bureaucratic elites and state administrators.670 Thus, the legal digest, Fundamental
Laws of the Russian Empire, which entered into official use in 1832 and remained in
force until 1906, largely reinforced the monarchy.671
This state of affairs was closely tied to the imperial vision projected onto
Russian subjects. The notion of citizenship in Russia was, to an extent, similar to
Ottoman subjecthood: a framework of obligation prevailed over the civic rights and
duties common in Europe. Legal belonging of Russian subjects was regulated by
social categories rather than race, ethnicity, or confession.672 Jane Burbank explains
what she calls as an imperial rights as follows: "the state kept for itself the authority
to assign, reassign, and take away rights, duties, and privileges from the groups that
comprised the empire's population."673 Eric Lohr similarly attributes Russia's success
and longevity to this imperial system that offered Russian society limited rights and
made them dependent on the institutions that the state gradually dominated.674
Notwithstanding its autocratic regime, the Russian government transformed
the empire’s legal framework from the 1870s up until 1917. In his analysis of this
paradox, Peter Holquist points to the role of international law. After the 1877-78
War, international law opened a path for Russians to restore diplomatic relations in
foreign politics.675 Friedrich Martens, the director of the international law department
670 Borisova, “Russian National Legal Tradition: Svod versus Ulozhenie in Nineteenth-century
Russia,”. 297-298; and Borisova, “Legislation as a Source of Law in late Imperial Russia,” 304.
671 Holquist, “The Russian Empire as a ‘Civilized State’: International Law as Principle and Practice in
Imperial Russia, 174-1878,” 1-37.
672 Lohr, “The Ideal Citizen and Real Subject in Late Imperial Russia,” 176.
673 Burbank, “An Imperial Right’s Regime: Law and Citizenship in the Russian Empire,” 403.
674 Lohr, “The Ideal Citizen and Real Subject in Late Imperial Russia,” 180-181.
675 Holquist, “The Russian Empire as a ‘Civilized State’: International Law as Principle and Practice
in Imperial Russia, 174-1878,” 15.
240
at St. Petersburg University, was a leading figure that introduced international law
into the Russian legal system. Having worked for the Russian Foreign Ministry since
1868, Martens’ arguments on international law earned him worldwide fame.676 On
his account, Russia appeared more frequently at international forums such as the
1868 Petersburg Declaration and 1874 Brussels Declaration, two critical conventions
at which delegates regulated the methods of war and the employment of weapons in
the state of war. In 1899, Russia was the most influential state in the organization of
the first Hague Conference that addressed armaments and military expansionism.677
The Ottoman Empire, which similarly started employing international law
after the Crimean War, closely monitored Martens’ work. In 1887, the legal advisors
Carl Gerscher and Gabriel Noradunghian appealed to Grand Vizier Said Pasha to buy
the collection of Martens’ works on the law of nations. They wished to print an
edited translation of his published works as excerpts that had occasionally appeared
in the newspapers were full of errors. Describing his works as the most important
publications of the epoch, the legal advisors stated that their publication would
greatly assist politicians and legal scholars; all European states and the United States
were taking heed of these valuable volumes. Said Pasha requested that the Ottoman
Embassy in Berlin buy the whole collection,678 and it eventually acquired the last of
Martens’ thirty-five volumes in 1912.679
Martens, an expert on international law, did not uphold the universal notion
of internal law for countries identified as oriental. He was an ardent supporter of the
676 Holquist, “The Russian Empire as a ‘Civilized State’: International Law as Principle and Practice
in Imperial Russia, 174-1878,” 8 and 15.
677 Holquist, “The Russian Empire as a ‘Civilized State’: International Law as Principle and Practice
in Imperial Russia, 174-1878,” 1-3.
678 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 156/22, Jul. 1887; and BOA HR.ID. 1902/36, Jan. 1888.
679 BOA HR.ID. 1902/37, Sep. 1890; HR.ID. 1902/43, Sep. 1893; and BOA HR.ID. 1902/58, Mar.
1912.
241
capitulatory system. His protégé, Andre Mandelstam, who was another important
figure in Russian foreign politics, had also worked as the expert on the Ottoman
Empire.680 In the words of Andreas Müller:
Martens insists that consular officers should have the most extensive powers
in relation to the unequal oriental states and derives from this the presumed
existence of a casual nexus between the scope of the consular powers and the
cultural level of a state, but in an inversely proportional sense.681
Given this point of view, the scale of the Russian reaction to the 1879
Ottoman reforms was predictable. The dialectic between the importance attached to
the principles of international law and the favor strongly towards the capitulatory
system is also reflected in the 1880 Russian Penal Code. Article 185 of the code
guaranteed consular jurisdiction in the Ottoman Empire and Iran. The article stated
that the crimes Russians committed against a Russian or foreign subject in these
countries would be tried and punished by the Russian consul or Russian political
authorities.682 Thus, new court regulations regarding the presence and signature of
consular representatives as well as preventive confinement became a source of
ongoing remonstrance from Russian legations, just as for other consuls. The Russian
Embassy frequently reacted to the practice of preventive confinement by quoting
Article 6 of the 1783 capitulations. The Ottoman state, in return, responded that the
680 Holquist, “The Russian Empire as a ‘Civilized State’: International Law as Principle and Practice
in Imperial Russia, 174-1878,” 9.
681 Müller, “Friedrich F. Martens on ‘The Office of Consul and Consular Jurisdiction in the
East,’”877.
682 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 6/24, Nov. 1909 : “Madde 185: Gerek Memalik-i Osmaniye’de ve gerek İran
toprağında bulunan Rusya tebaasından biri o memleketlerde mukim Rusya tebaasından birinin
hukukuna taarruz etdiği veyahut hükümet-i Osmaniye ile İran hükümetine ve mezkur memleketlerde
bulunan tebaa-yı ecnebiyeden birine karşı bir cürm irtikab eylediği ve cürm-ü mezkûr kanunnamesinin
(madde 30 kısım 5) de gösterildiği vechle habs ve tevkifi muceb olacak dereceden revan olduğu
takdirde şahs-ı merkumun icra-yı muhakemesi rusya süferasıyla siyasi memurlarının veyahut
konsoloslarına aid olacakdır. Cürmü vaki maddeyi sabıkada beyan olunduğu üzere habs ve tevkif gibi
ağır bir ceza ile icabet edebildiği takdirde cürme aid mazbata-yı istintakiye tanzim olundukdan sonra
mütehhem iş bu nizamnamede münderic mevad-ı kanuniyenin mahkemece tatbiki icrası zımmında
evrak-ı deva-i ile maaen mahall-i hadiseye yakin olan Rusya hududu dahilindeki merkez eyalet
riyasetine sevk ve izâm olunur.”
242
recently enacted judicial procedures and the improved conditions of prisons aptly
provided the safety of foreign subjects. The capitulations, which had been revoked
during the 1877-78 War, were reinstated. Although they did not include the phrase
“most favored nation” before or afterward, established practices were observed.683
Therefore, the reliance of the new Ottoman legal stance on the procedural
codes stood in firm opposition to earlier practices that were shielded by the
capitulatory system. As such, protest regarding preventive confinement was ignored
with the excuse that custom did not constitute a rule.684 In such cases, Russian
legations responded by refusing to send dragomans trials, nullifying the decisions of
the tribunal.685 However, the absence of dragomans did not hamper the courts. They
assigned deputies of their own choosing who were considered sufficient for the
prosecution to proceed.686 These regulations initiated another round of conflict
regarding consular representation in the courts. This, in turn, contributed to the
increasing backlash against capitulatory authority.687 In brief, Ottoman extradition
practices and measures to limit criminal mobility cannot be evaluated on the
international stage without observing the evolving legal discourse and stronger legal
683 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 218/49, Mar. 1887; and 156/17, Jan. 1889.
684 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 174/20, Sep. 1889 and Apr. 1890: “Bab-ı Ali işbu mezkurede Andon isimli
Rus tebaasının Osmanlı habishanelerinde kabl’el-hükm habs ve tevkifi meselesini bittekrar ortaya
koymuş ve bunun ne muahedat-ı atike ne de ecnebiler hakkında mer’i olan usül ve adata mugayir
olmadığı atikadan da bulunmuşdur. Bab-ı Ali’nin tahdidat-ı düveliyesine ve teamülü kadime muhalif
olarak ahiren faaliyatca tervice çalışdığı “usül ve adat” ı mezkure asla bir hak vücuda getirmez…”
685 Russian Kolozof, who was previously imprisoned by the Ottoman state but given to his consulate
due to the increasing protests, was not brought to the court. The interpreter did not attend the trial,
either: BOA HR.TH. 77/40, Dec. 1878.
686 In September 1908, a dispute between an Ottoman and a Russian subject was heard by an
Ottomantribunal in Jerusalem without the consular authorities. The judicial authorities reproached the
ongoing Russian protests as they suspended the operation of justice: BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 182/5,
Sep.1908; and 182/7, Oct. 1908. In January 1910, Russians complained again in Jerusalem about
another judicial case heard without a consular authority: BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO.,15/28, Jan. 1910. A
year later, the investigating magistrate of Pera refused the consular dragoman during a Russian
witness's testimony in one of the court hearings: BOA HR. SYS. 2953/59, Jun. 1911.
687 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 182/41 Dec. 1911; and 182/47, Jan. 1912; 182/55, Mar. 1912; 182/60, Jan.
1913; and 182/52; Mar. 1912.
243
structures in the empire, which butt against the capitulatory system in general and
consular jurisdiction in particular.
5.5 Conclusion
This chapter presented Ottoman surveillance and security policies along the Balkan
and Russian borders after the 1877-78 Russo-Ottoman War. The shifting political
maps of each region compelled novel geopolitical questions that mandated a set of
specific security measures for frontier zones.
The first section of the chapter described daily tensions in the Balkan frontier
zones. Many Balkan states gained either independence or limited autonomy via the
1878 Treaty of Berlin, and the subsequent wave of emigration prompted questions
over legal belonging and property transfer. The history of violence in the Balkan
regions means that diplomatic negotiations after the 1877-1878 War cannot be
evaluated independent of a still fresh, collective memory. For that reason, the course
of day-to-day security politics vis-à-vis Balkan states was erratic. There was
predictable tension between states that had only recently had suzerainty relations and
were now striving to establish a diplomatic dialogue on equal terms. The process was
never smooth as the Ottoman and Balkan states frequently questioned whether to
pursue diplomatic solutions or adopt tit-for-tat policies for border security. This
chapter showed the various strategies employed to preserve order and negotiate
extraditions in the meantime. It also showed how the power politics articulated in the
conversations was shaped by a legal discourse that relied on territorial sovereignty
and legislated penal codes.
Secondly, this chapter introduced the 1879 judicial reforms in the Ottoman
Empire and demonstrated its impact on the changing state discourse of diplomacy.
244
New procedural regulations comprised a second phase of the Tanzimat reforms in the
legal arena and equally broad in scope. The Ottoman Procedural Code restructured
the operations of the courts, eliminating the customary privileges of the consular
system. Public prosecutors and investigating magistrates – legal professions
theretofore unknown in the Ottoman system of justice – were to administer
prosecutions from beginning to end. The presence and signature of consular
representatives were no longer considered necessary; meanwhile, the preventive
confinement of suspects in Ottoman prisons was a further blow to consular oversight
over the trials of their nationals. Though it encountered criticism from capitulatory
states, the evolution of legal formalism in the empire demonstrated growing Ottoman
confidence in the rule of law. Therefore, this chapter also cited discussions among
the state departments of the Sublime Porte. The clashing views among such officials
is the best evidence of the painfulness of the transformation from an empire into a
legalist state.
The last section of this chapter discussed the Ottoman border regime with
Russia after the 1877-78 War. The account of the evolution of Ottoman security
measures and policing in the nineteenth century provided a comparative analysis of
criminal exchange with Russia before and after the war. Interstate collaboration
relied on the reciprocity principle, which was referenced in the 1774 Küçük
Kaynarca Treaty. Under the capitulatory system, Russian subjects were heard and
tried by the court of the Ottoman Police Marshall; they were later surrendered to
consular authorities to serve their sentences. In return, Russia usually extradited
Ottoman subjects. However, the nature of security politics drastically changed after
the war. Istanbul and Moscow were still eager to cite the principle of reciprocity, but
novel border crises stemming from the nationality question impeded efforts to
245
formalize extradition. The populations of territories that had been conceded to Russia
manipulated the lax control of mobility and the failure of both states to establish an
effective identity registration system. Thus, they enjoyed double citizenship, a
situation that the two states variously used to support their own political purposes.
The escalation of violence among Kurdish tribes and Armenian rebels, which
provoked the 1894 Sasun rebellion, expanded the security vacuum at the borders by
labeling Armenians as persona non-grata. Taken altogether, these developments
contributed to an overall failure to suppress criminal mobility and develop a smooth
process of extradition.
Even as the Ottoman Empire and Russia worked on an official extradition
treaty, their incompatible penal codes posed an obstacle. Thus, the 1879 procedural
regulations were another implicit reason for the failure to reconcile on diplomatic
terms. Russian consular authorities frequently objected to the new judicial measures
that restricted their influence in Ottoman tribunals. However, the determined stance
of the Ottomans brushed the Russian (and European) protests off, indicating that
Ottoman-Russian interstate relations were no longer subject to the capitulatory
system but rather to diplomacy on equal footing. Extradition practices cannot be
understood without considering all these backstage social, political, and legal
developments.
246
CHAPTER 6
POLITICAL CRIME AND EXTRADITION IN THE AGE OF REVOLUTION
This chapter analyzes political crime and how it relates to extradition practices in the
international arena. It adopts a comparative lens by providing an overview of
political crime as a concept, and act, in and throughout history. The chapter shows
that the nationalist upsurge and rise of anarchism in the Ottoman Empire cannot be
read as independent to similar happenings in other parts of the world, especially in
Europe.
The fervor inspired by the French Revolution marked a century that
transformed state politics and instigated the active participation of citizens in
political matters. This chapter shows that the concept of political crime was revisited
following various new codifications of law and political ideology. It was then further
reconsidered in the light of the rise of anarchism and violence. In particular, the
obsession with security called the very matter of extradition into question.
Extradition practices had formerly excluded political crime, which was otherwise
addressed under asylum rights.
This chapter further reveals that political crime was distinct from ordinary
crime, chiefly because it was motivated by a desire for social change and was fed by
antagonists’ antipathies towards existing regimes. Thus, the legal and diplomatic
regulations formed amidst this context included a range of measures—among which
the matter of extradition practices was arguably the most polemical and futile.
247
6.1 Historical Overview of Political Crime
Oedipus, who killed his father without knowing it, cannot be accused of
parricide. The ancient penal codes, however, attached less weight to the
subjective side of action, to imputability, than we do nowadays. That is why
sanctuaries were instituted in ancient times for harboring and protecting the
fugitive from vengeance.688
Political crime, which mainly denotes defiance against authority, institutions,
and their rulers, has a history as old as that of human civilization itself. However, it
has undergone many transformations as a legal concept and practice, similar to how
other concepts of crime and penal regulations have been revisited in different forms
and under different guises over time. The Italian diplomat Gustavo Tosti defines
political crime as “actions against persons or things representative of collective
authority, with the aim of bringing about, directly or indirectly, violent change in the
framework of social institutions according to a certain plan of reform, in opposition
to the opinions of the community’s ruling majority.”689 This definition perfectly fits
the nature of political crime. Moreover, though, it is emblematic of nineteenthcentury
culture of public protest, which foregrounded the very notion of civil society.
Tosti accepts political crime as a violent act, save for the claim that it was instigated
by a strong desire for social change.690
Tosti’s words could not readily be applied to earlier periods. Political crime in
the age of revolution was typically linked to lèse-majesté, which referred above all to
attempts against the lives of the monarch, of members of the monarch’s family, or of
well-known state officials that were motivated by a desire for personal vengeance.
Lèse-majesté had long been portrayed as a legitimate and honorable act against
688 Hegel, Outlines of the Philosophy of Right, 508.
689 Tosti, “Anarchic Crimes,” 405-406. Tosti was a prominent Italian diplomat who was employed as
the Consul-General in New York and also participated as a delegate to the 1919 Paris Peace
Conference.
690 Tosti, “Anarchic Crimes,” 407.
248
tyranny, wielded and invoked by and against the competing factions of the ruling
regimes.691
Paradoxically, given its popularity, lèse-majesté equally entailed inflicting
draconian punishments on its perpetrators. Not only those convicted of the crime but
also their descendants received their share of retribution, largely enacted through
enforced exile and property seizures. Principally, this was because authorities viewed
state security and public order as one and the same before the late eighteenth century.
In this respect, political crime was not considered to be distinct from ordinary crime.
Roman law was applied unwaveringly; it prescribed the harshest measures against
such offenses, despite the gradual overhaul of penal systems over the course of the
nineteenth century in favor of more moderate castigation. The French Revolution,
along with the ensuing socio-political upheavals that endured until the 1850s,
especially in Europe, drastically transformed the attitudes of states towards political
crime and how to penalize perpetrators, who engaged in a range of violent acts under
the guise of political motives.692
The 1789 French Revolution, a watershed event that lasted a decade yet
began a period longer than a century, ushered in an age of evolution on ideological
grounds. Eric Hobsbawm argued that while the United Kingdom shaped the
nineteenth-century economy, it was France that fashioned the world of ideologies
and politics:
France made its revolutions and gave them their ideas, to the point where a
tricolor of some kind became the emblem of virtually every emerging nation,
and European (or indeed world) politics between 1789 and 1917 were largely
the struggle for and against the principles of 1789, or the even more
incendiary ones of 1793. France provided the vocabulary and the issues of
691 Proal, Political Crime, 29-30 and 36.
692 Szabo, “Political Crimes: A Historical Perspective,” 10-13. The Romans sometimes opted for
extradition as well. For example, the Roman justice once deported a domestic worker to Greece who
planned to poison the Greek king Pyrrhus of Epirus. See Angell, Curtis, and Cooley, “The Extradition
of Dynamite Criminals,” 49.
249
liberal and radical-democratic politics for most of the world. France provided
the first great example, the concept and the vocabulary of nationalism…
The ideology of the modern world first penetrated the ancient civilizations
which had hitherto resisted European ideas through French influence. This
was the work of the French Revolution.693
The Age of Revolution, which Hobsbawm analyzes as comprising three main waves
over the course of the period 1815-1848, championed the rise of the bourgeoisie and
toppled the ruins of feudalism and the nobility. Working-class movements were
likewise a long-term product of this socio-political context. Furthermore, the Age of
Revolution was not only a time of shifting power and new class identities but also of
populations’ growing demands for democracy, increased participation in active
politics, and what we might term a “liberal air”, with widespread protests and
nationalist movements springing up throughout the nineteenth century. In particular,
the last phase of these uprisings, culminating in the 1848, known as “the springtime
of peoples”, altered the character of the age forever.694
The momentous events of the Age of Revolution became a turning point in
the history of political crime as a concept and its treatment by states. While regicide
and similar acts were strictly punished up until that point, the right to asylum, or the
right of sanctuary, as it was once called, had previously been accorded only to
criminals who committed offenses against the state on religious grounds. In the
aftermath of the French Revolution, however, the right of asylum was extended to
include political criminals as well. The development of liberal political thought
reinforced the notion that these people needed shelter and protection, lest any
693 Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, 53.
694 The first wave of revolutions, as Hobsbawm categorized, took place in the Mediterranean countries
of Greece, Naples, and Spain between the years 1820-1824. The second wave was the 1830
Revolution that affected Russia, Belgium, Holland, Poland, and the United States. The last phase was
the 1848 Revolution which wrought havoc on Europe. Hobsbawm argues that the whole European
continent that stood at the west edge of Russia and Turkey and the south of Scandinavia felt the
repercussions of French Revolution that spread everywhere by the succeeding uprisings. Hobsbawm,
The Age of Revolution, 90 and 109-112.
250
injustice be inflicted upon them by their enemies. Ordinary and political crimes were
then reframed more clearly due to the formulation of public law in modern penal
codes.695
In 1815, and for the first time, England declared that it would not extradite
political criminals. France and Belgium followed suit in the 1830s, arguing that
political crime should be punished differently from other crimes. On the other hand,
Austria, Russia, and Prussia, who persisted in extraditing political criminals, favored
a non-extradition policy from the 1860s onwards. The bilateral treaties, formulated
around the same period and gradually employed in extradition negotiations,
ultimately created consensus and codified political crime as a non-extraditable
offense.696
Most European states, including the monarchic regimes, adopted the bilateral
treaty principles on political crime. Nevertheless, these protective measures around
the issue of asylum did not endure. It should be emphasized that the French
Revolution did not end with the “Declaration of the Rights of Man”; its legacy was
its long-term ramifications for, and contributions to, world political culture. The
Third Estate of the ancien régime, composed of everyone other than the clergy,
gentry, and aristocracy, owed their revolutionary spirit as much to the Enlightenment
ideas of philosophers as to the power of armed revolts, which frequently were
accompanied by ensuing upsurges of violent crime.697 Thus, the historical legacy of
the Revolution remained ever-present throughout subsequent decades and the
695 Szabo, “Political Crimes: A Historical Perspective,” 14 and 17.
696 Soldan, L’extradition des criminels politiques, 7; Daly, “Political Crime in Late Imperial Russia,”
66; Fiore, Traite Droit Pénal International et de L’Extradition, Vol. II, 585.
697 Both Georges Lefebvre and Robert Darnton laid stress on the daily reality of the French Revolution
in their writings, pointing out the fact that this reality was mainly shaped by violence, which had a
significant impact paving the way for the legislative actions and, ultimately, the enactment of the
“Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.” See Lefebvre, The Coming of the French
Revolution, 47-48 and 208; and Darnton, “What Was Revolutionary about the French Revolution.”
251
revolutionary spirit was frequently revived under similar forms, though for diverse
motives, which would eventually go on to breed anarchism in the nineteenth century.
Anarchism entered political terminology via the writings of the French
economist and politician Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who coined the term “anarchist” in
reference to himself. The ideas of other prominent figures, like Russians Mikhail
Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin or the Italians Errico Malatesta and Carlo Pisacane, all
of whom actively participated in revolutionary struggles in different parts of Europe,
influenced the anarchist movement and accounted for a large part of its advancement.
The intellectual developments behind the uprisings ushered in a new political culture,
empowered by the discourse of its precursors. In the meantime, more and more
violent forms of anarchism emerged over time, becoming a pressing issue for states
and their rulers.698
With the rise of anarchism, what did or did not constitute a political crime
was once more called into consideration. At that point, the involvement of states in
the evolution and implications of these movements require analysis, so as to
understand the lodestar of revolutions and their cost to state security. As Theda
Skocpol argues, states endorsed a “Janus faced” policy in their handling of the crises
caused by revolutionary waves, or otherwise occasioned the outbreak of such events
by their own doings. She states that:
If our aim is to understand the breakdown and building-up of state
organizations in revolutions, we must look not only at the activities of social
698 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) supported the idea that the revolution could be achieved only
by the actions of the people, whereas Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) and Errico Malatesta (1853-1932)
encouraged the rise of collective action behind international anarchism. On the other hand, Carlo
Pisacane (1818-1857) was known for his ideas that formulated propaganda by deed for the anarchist
activities. However, the influence of these people could not be reduced to a few words as the form of
their actions and thoughts also transformed in time. On the other side, the difference in opinions with
many of their contemporaries generated heated controversies on the ideas of revolution, anarchism,
socialism, and working-class movements. For a general survey on anarchism through the works of the
reputed activists behind the anarchic movement see, Anarchism: A Documentary History of
Libertarian Ideas. For the historical evolution of anarchism see Jensen, the Battle Against Anarchist-
Terrorism: An International History, 1878-1934.
252
groups. We must also focus upon the points of intersection between
international conditions and pressures, on the one hand, and class-structured
economies and politically organized interests, on the other hand. State
executives and their followers will be found maneuvering to extract resources
and build administrative and coercive organizations precisely at this
intersection.699
In that respect, an “infernal machine”, uncovered on a railway track between
Lille and Calais in 1854, became a crucial milestone that reoriented state politics and
the international policing of anarchism. The machine was placed there to blow up the
train that transported Napoleon III and his convoy to Tournai. The infernal machine
was a multi-barreled weapon first built by Joseph Fieschi, who employed it to
assassinate Louis Phillippe I on 28 July 1835. Fieschi was a Corsican national and he
planned this attacked as part of the nationalist uprisings to get rid of the French rule.
That day was the anniversary day of the revolution, celebrated for the king's
achievements overseeing the Paris National Guard. The occasion was symbolized by
him parading the streets of Paris, escorted by the Paris National Guard. The
machinery set up on the Boulevard du Temple on his way resulted in a death toll of
eighteen people with twenty-two wounded, while the king escaped the incident with
a severe injury to his head. After a lengthy trial process that interrogated other
accomplices, Fieschi was executed by guillotine.700
Considering the scale of punishment Fieschi suffered, the two conspirators in
the 1854 incident, Jules and Celestin Jacquin, who were French, might have expected
to meet the same fate. Nevertheless, the same punishment could not so easily be
applied in their case as it had been for the Belgian citizens, whose extradition the
699 Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China, 32.
700 Jill Harsin argues that there was a feeling for vendetta and the sense of honor in his actions, which
was unique to Mediterranean culture. This was one of the common theme characteristics to anarchic
actions. For the comprehensive analysis of this assassination attempt and the ensuing court
prosecution, see Harsin, Barricades: The War of the Streets in Revolutionary Paris, 1830-1848, 147-
167.
253
Belgian government initially refused. However, the insistence of France drove
Belgium ultimately to sign the 1856 extradition treaty. It inserted the famous clause
attentat, which would act as a model for subsequent dialogues on the extradition
issue. Accordingly, "attacks against the personage of a foreign monarch or against
the members of his family shall not be deemed a political offense, nor an act
connected with a similar offense, when this attack is murder, assassination, or
poisoning."701
Violent plots such as these served as models for later assassination attempts
using more modern technologies and weapons. Along with the rise of collective
violence, such as the case of the 1871 Paris Commune, the successive murder of
political figures redirected some of these anarchist activities towards individual
actions in Europe. They now adopted the motto propaganda by deed. Articulated
first by the anarchist Cesare Pisacane so as to encourage direct action in civil
protests, propaganda by deed was soon characterized by violent conspiracies that
especially targeted state rulers.702
Therefore, the redefinition of political crime re-cast the question of
extradition in new light. Experts in the fields of criminology and law presented
diverse arguments regarding whether extradition should be invoked as a punishment
for political crime and under what circumstances it should not be applied. In the
world of criminology, the writings of criminologist Cesare Lombroso and of
sociologist Rodolfo Laschi are pre-eminent. Both argue that political crime, in its
purest incarnation, did not require harsh measures, but rather mandated the exclusion
701 Jensen, “The International Anti-Anarchist Conference of 1898 and the Origins of Interpol,” 330;
and Soldan, L’extradition des criminels politiques, 8.
702 This new anarchist wave of the propaganda by the deed accompanied the propaganda of the words
that came to life in the struggle and political cause of workers’ movements. For a historical sketch
over the propaganda by the deed see Fleming, “Propaganda by the deed: Terrorism and anarchist
theory in the late nineteenth-century Europe,” 1-23.
254
of its perpetrators from society through exile. This included a stipulation that
preventing them from returning to their homelands and forcing them to forsake their
social networks was considered sufficient punishment. Lombroso and Laschi only
singled out the insane and people they labeled “born criminals”, whose offenses,
disguised as political crimes, had no motive and as such constituted a threat to
society. Hence, they included the anthropology of criminals in their consideration of
cases, insisting on inspecting their motivations. For these scholars, it was essential to
ascertain whether such crimes formed part of collective action, initiated for the
purpose of for social transformation, or whether they were mere gratuitous acts,
committed by people bereft of reason and lacking any political motive. 703
On the other hand, Franz von Holtzendorff, the German jurist of criminal and
international law, addressed the issue with a new theory of law. He stressed the
importance of investigating a political crime in terms of how it was perceived by
each state. He argued that ordinary crime had a standard of meaning everywhere and
that, as such, it was likely that states cooperated to combat offenses in that category,
despite the nuances in their definitions of political crime per their respective penal
codes. However, the states’ political regimes and values informed how they treated
political crime. Thus, the right to asylum and the matter of extradition were seen as
pertinent in these debates.704
Beyond the scholarly arguments, which could be expanded upon from various
viewpoints, public opinion, judicial operations, and the states’ different attitudes to
703 Lombroso, Laschi, Il Delitto Politico e le Rivoluzioni in Rapporto al Diritto, all'Antropologia
Criminale ed alla Scienza di Governo, 465.
704 For the arguments of Holtzendorff, I relied on the analysis of Hansjörg Walther, who reviewed and
analyzed the work of the jurist published in German, Die Auslieferung der Verbrecher und das
Asylrecht (The Extradition of Criminals and the Right to Asylum). This work has no translation in
English. Walther, “The Right to Asylum in the 19th Century,” https://openborders.info/blog/asylum-
19th-century/
255
diplomacy and foreign politics were equally decisive in delineating political crime
and defining its place in national law. As we have established, France was the
pioneer that demarcated the limits between anarchism and softer political offenses by
crafting a legal base for it in that century. The 1810 Napoleonic Code established
harsh punishments for regicide long before propaganda by deed. It could not be
denied that the country's recent past contributed greatly towards these measures.705
However, France could not reach the same success when it came to be
encouraging international cooperation against anarchist conspirators, as the following
British case exemplifies. The Italian Felice Orsini, supported by a number of English
revolutionaries, plotted against Napoleon III in Paris in 1858. When France
discovered that the device had been designed in England, they registered a
diplomatic note of protest. The bitter resentment voiced in the letter of Alexandre
Colonna-Waleski, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, compelled the British government
to formulate the draft of “Conspiracy-to-Murder.” The draft redefined such activities
under common law, according to which they were punished as ordinary crimes.
However, the project scheduled by the cabinet of Prime Minister Lord Palmerstone
was viewed as a privilege too great for France and was consequently abandoned. The
project unleased a chain of events that led to the downfall of the Palmerston
cabinet.706
In fact, the British government did not generally tolerate violent crimes
against state rulers. In the Orsini case, they charged Orsini’s accomplice, Simon
Bernard, for murder in court. By virtue of a lack of evidence, Bernard saved himself
705 Daly, “Political Crime in Late Imperial Russia,” 65.
706 Waleski blamed the British attitude as follows: “it is assassination reduced to a doctrine, preached
openly, practiced in repeated attempts, the most recent of which has struck Europe with stupefaction.
Ought, then, the right of asylum to protect such a state of things? Shall English legislation serve to
favor designs and their maneuvers? And can it continue to protect persons who place themselves by
flagrant acts without the pale of the common law?” See Rogers, “Harboring Conspiracy,” 522-23.
256
from indictment. The country treated similar occurrences with court proceedings in
subsequent years as well.707 However, the general British policy was in favor of
political dissenters. They welcomed anyone, migrants and anarchists alike, until
1905, when the government issued the Aliens Act to control immigration.708
Especially, London was a hub for agitators and revolutionaries for decades. For
instance, the underground networks of the Italian anarchists in London that
developed in the late 1890s obliged the Italian authorities to deploy their own
surveillance systems in the city. The Secret Police of Scotland Yard was in close
touch with their Italian colleagues. However, the Italian government quibbled about
these efforts, as the British police acted in ways that in practice made detecting traces
of anarchism all the more challenging.709 Henry Wade Rogers argued that this state
policy was not merely confined to the need to provide shelter for political refugees
and tolerating their conspirations in England, but that it was also developed in order
to finance the political cause of revolt in other parts of Europe. The 1821 Greek
revolution against the Ottoman Empire and the uprisings against liberation led by
Garibaldi in Italy were among such occasions when the English government lent
their support backstage.710
707 In 1881, a German journalist was also sentenced in England for his writings that caused suspicion
about a possible complot against the Russian Emperor Alexander II. See Rogers, “Harboring
Conspiracy,” 526. In 1892, French Jean-Pierre François was extradited to France for his part in an
explosion in Paris. See Bantman, The French Anarchists in London, 1880-1914, 144.
708 Bantman, The French Anarchists in London, 1880-1914, 153.
709 Di Paola, “The Spies Who Came in From the Heat: The International Surveillance of the
Anarchists in London,” 190 and 196.
710 Rogers, “Harboring Conspiracy,” 523. However, the British financial support for the revolutionary
movements abroad could not be only confined to the sympathy felt for the nationalist insurgents. They
were sometimes heavily invested in economic policies. This was especially the case for the 1821
Greek Independence. The Greek government could not pay back the 1824-25 bonds they contracted
from London to finance their revolt against the Ottoman Empire, as the latter gradually held control
over the uprising. Realizing that the Greek progress was at hazard, and so were their contracts, the
British government leashed their military navy that led to the Battle of Navarino and doomed the
victorious independent Greek Republic to years-long debt. See Mazower, The Greek Revolution: 1821
and the Making of Modern Europe, 243-274.
257
In the case of the United States, on the other hand, public opinion was
arguably conservative when it came to the matter of political asylum. The US
Congress was the authority on legitimate crimes and their penalties, in view of its
legislative power. However, it did not formulate statutes to resolve the dilemma of
the crimes that propelled anarchist violence. Instead, judicial and executive forces
addressed the question without being able to resort to many legal sanctions.711 John
Westlake, a prominent legal scholar, concluded in his official statement concerning
the assassination of Abraham Lincoln that United States jurisprudence should feature
in the list of motives that could transmute ordinary crime into the category of
political crime. He drew attention to the importance of considering the nature of
crime when considering the option of extradition. The act of the murderer John
Wilkes Booth was purely political in motive, as he was frustrated by the abolition of
slavery. Notwithstanding, it was not reflected in the action itself. The way Lincoln
lost his life resulted from an act that was a premeditated murder and, as such, could
be punished by extradition.712
In its general policy, the United States did not set strict rules about the
extradition of political criminals, with the exception of its regulations regarding
diplomatic matters. An American ex-attaché, whose letter was published
anonymously in a newspaper in 1899, argues that the US should extradite political
criminals exclusively to “civilized” countries.713 This was already a tenet of the 1887
convention with Russia, which endured for years by virtue of one particular article
(Article 3). As with the 1856 French-Belgium treaty, Russia wanted to insert a
special clause regarding extradition for regicide; this was never ratified by the US
711 Rogers, “Harboring Conspiracy,” 529-530; and Clark, Coudert, and Mack, “The Nature Definition
of Political Offense in International Extradition,” 95.
712 Liverpool Mercury, 13 Oct. 1876.
713 “Refugees in Many Lands,” The Chicago Tribunal, 1899.
258
Senate officially as they were indeed reluctant to enter such an agreement with
Russia, an autocratic regime in the minds of the American people.714
As a matter of fact, Russia was known for having some of the lowest levels of
capital punishment, relative to many states in Europe, at the beginning of the
twentieth century. Torture for the purposes of interrogation was banned and penal
institutions underwent reform and innovations. In contrast to judicial reforms,
however, treason and anarchism still faced extreme punishment under the Russian
penal codes, despite the fact that they were not clearly framed as a “crime”.715 A civil
association of the era, calling itself “the Society of American Friends of Russian
Freedom”, reacted to the 1887 project with similar humanitarian concerns. As they
saw it, the absence of juridical prosecution against such cases in Russia risked the
lives of the people who had a commitment to a political cause. They blamed the US
government not being transparent in the discussions over Article 3, claiming that “it
is unworthy of the government and the people of the United States to aid in the
barbarous practices of the Russian autocracy, which we maintain to be morally
incompetent to try the revolutionists whom its own despotism has created.”716
Due to the continual plots against state leaders, which unfolded serially at this
time, political crime soon became a crucial topic in nineteenth-century political
debate. It was addressed not only on a national level but on international platforms,
at the same time. Most state delegates found common ground, treating regicide as
714 Bayard, Struve and Rosen, “Text of the Russian Extradition Treaty,” American Advocate of Peace
(1892-1893), 149. Art 3: … the murder and manslaughter comprising the willful or negligent killing
of the sovereign or the chief magistrate of the State or of any member of his family, as well as an
attempt to commit or participate in the said crimes, shall not be considered an offense of political
character.” (From the original Russian text inserted in this document). The Ottoman officials also
closely monitored the extradition negotiations between Russia and the United States. Especially,
Alexandros Mavroyeni followed the debates in the Senate and through the American press. See, BOA
HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 170/9, Apr. 1887; and 174/9, Jan. 1890.
715 Daly, “Political Crime in Late Imperial Russia,” 62 and 73.
716 Howe, Mead, Wyman, Dillingham, Garrison, Noble, Hobart, “Society of American Friends of
Russian Freedom. Protest Against the Russian Extradition Treaty,” 103.
259
ordinary crime; embezzlement and homicide were for them moot points that cast
doubt upon the “revolutionary causes” invoked by perpetrators of such offenses.717 In
1881, The Federal Tribunal of Switzerland came up with the two terms délit connexe
(related offense) and délit complexe (complex offense) to clarify matters. Hence,
embezzlement of the state treasury for the advancement of a political group, with the
aim of toppling the existing regime, became a mix of political and ordinary crimes;
thus, it could be termed a “related offense”. A “complex offense”, on the other hand,
referred to assassination attempts against state leaders; this, according to the Swiss
courts, could be presented as a political or an ordinary crime.718 In the same year, the
Institute of International Law held an annual meeting in Oxford. The distinguished
scholars of the field who gathered there voted by majority that political crime should
not punished by extradition. However, they acknowledged that the matter of intent
often complicated the decision-making process, trusting governments to decide on
the true nature of crime in such cases.719
Individual states’ efforts against anarchist violence and reciprocal
communications between states provided only limited answers to the problem. On
March 1881, the Russian Tsar was assassinated. In the meantime, as Mathieu Deflem
points out, sixty people died because of regicidal plots in the 1890s alone.720 Thus,
the International Anti-Anarchist Conference of 1898 was organized in November to
advocate for international collaboration in combatting the phenomenon of regicidal
assassination attempts. The conference was well-attended, with many states sending
representatives, and was most broad in terms of the scope of the discussions that took
717 Clark, Coudert and Mack, “The nature definition of political offense in international extradition”,
105; and Tosti, “Anarchic Crimes,” 414.
718 Deere, “Political Offenses in the Law and Practice of Extradition,” 248.
719Angell, Curtis, and Cooley, “The Extradition of Dynamite Criminals,” 49-50.
720 Deflem, “Wild Beasts Without Nationality,” 277-278.
260
place regarding the matter of anarchy. The conference was held in Rome; fifty-four
representatives from twenty-five countries were present during the meetings, one of
which was the Ottoman Empire. Debate centered on the character of political crime,
the definition of anarchism, and the matter extradition. The occasion was a landmark
in interstate judicial policing and the close collaboration of nations and states.
Controversies revolved primarily around a reevaluation of the attentat question, first
raised by Belgium in 1856, and around extradition practices. Each state agreed to
introduce the Bertillon method, portrait parlé, which was utilized to describe the
physical traits of a person in anthropometric terms. They promoted its widespread
use in the identification the criminals.721
Anarchism was the subject of lengthy analysis throughout the meeting. The
ideas of the lawyer Hector de Rolland, representing Monaco, were ultimately agreed
upon as a norm for defining anarchist activities. Therefore, anarchism was clarified
as any activity that intended harm to social institutions and state rulers through
violence. Anarchic activities under this definition were accepted as extraditable
crimes; the death penalty for regicide remained, but only on paper. The principles
established by the conference were accepted by most of the powers present, with a
little discordance over the detail. Only England was reluctant to vote in favor of the
representatives’ decisions on anarchism.722
Despite these strenuous efforts, the 1898 conference did not meet
expectations in the long run. For this reason, the murder of the US President William
McKinley in 1901 gave Russia a pretext to call for another international conference
to revisit the question. The Anti-Anarchist Protocol of St. Petersburg was signed in
721 Jensen, “The International Anti-Anarchist Conference of 1898 and the Origins of Interpol,” 324.
722 Jensen, “The International Anti-Anarchist Conference of 1898 and the Origins of Interpol,” 327-
330.
261
1904 by the participants, who were less in number compared to the conference of
1898.723 The agenda of the 1898 conference was once more addressed, with further
consideration given to the protocols it had established. Russia was determined to find
a collaborative venture against the anarchist wave. However, neither conference
succeeded in establishing definite standards for the deportation of anarchists to other
countries on demand, due to the differing political stance of each state. Therefore,
extradition practices remained largely in limbo, while anarchism went on to pose less
and less powerful threat to states and their rules over the ensuing years. This was
mainly because socialist movements and syndication efforts, had by the twentieth
century, gradually replaced earlier and more violent forms of anarchism.724
6.2 Political Crime, Anarchism and Extradition in the Ottoman Empire
The historical overview of political crime, revolutions, and their place in the debates
around extradition practices in Europe and the United States, as presented so far,
provide a helpful frame of reference for the Ottoman case. Similar incidents that took
place in the empire did not stem merely from domestic problems; rather, they were
informed by the circulation abroad of new political ideas and the anarchist wave. It
would be impossible to grasp this historical context, were the rise of anarchism and
the Ottoman struggle against it to be taken sui generis.
723 The Ottoman Empire, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Romania,
Serbia, and Bulgaria were the powers that signed the 1904 protocol. Deflem, "Wild Beasts Without
Nationality," 278-279. Likewise, the assassination of McKinley brought about a Pan-American
Conference. "The Committee on Extradition and Protection Against Anarchy" was signed among
Argentine, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela. The
United States, Haiti, Colombia, Chile, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, and Uruguay did
not approve the committee's proposals. This meeting held similar principles as discussed in the 1898
Conference of Rome. In brief, anarchism was declared an ordinary crime that could be subject to
extradition practice. See Maxey, "Extradition and Protection Against Anarchy," 376-389.
724 Jensen, “The International Anti-Anarchist Conference of 1898 and the Origins of Interpol,” 337-
340. The 1898 Conference of Rome and the 1904 St. Petersburg Protocol were both considered the
forerunners of Interpol (the International Criminal Police Organization), which was established in
1923.
262
Hungarian revolutionaries who found refuge in the Ottoman states after the
1848 revolutions caused the first major crisis and raised the question of political
crime in the Ottoman Empire. The international context dragged the Empire into
European political affairs. For the first time, the Ottoman Empire was forced to
question how to address political crime and asylum rights in its international
relations.
6.2.1 The 1848 Hungarian Refugee Crisis
The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 had important repercussions for Ottoman
transnational diplomacy. Under Austrian control since the sixteenth century,
Hungary proclaimed the establishment of parliamentary democracy during the 1848
revolutions, which would pave the way for the rise of a nation-state. Known as the
April Laws, the reforms aimed to transform the centuries-long feudal regime into a
modern constitutional system. The Hungarian nobleman and politician Lajos
Kossuth, the main protagonist of the refugee crisis in the Ottoman Empire, was the
leading figure behind the Hungarian liberation movement. The February Revolution
in Paris, which terminated the July Monarchy, was the fundamental source of
inspiration and encouragement for the uprisings in Hungary. The mass
demonstrations at Pest and the outbreak of a civil war waged against Austria towards
the last months of 1848 pressed the pace of that revolutionary wave.725
Even though the April Laws were initially embraced by the Austrian Emperor
Ferdinand I (r.1835-1848), the political environment soon reversed after Lajos
Kossuth declared himself Minister of Finance, which was considered unacceptable
by the imperial throne. When Francis Joseph I (r.1848-1916) acceded to the throne in
725 Gango, “1848-1849 in Hungary,” 39.
263
December, he set against the Hungarian revolutionaries as the first item in agenda for
state policy. With the help of the Russian Tsar Nicholas I, they suppressed the
Hungarian National Guard in a short while, thus compelling Lajos Kossuth and his
entourage in their exodus to the Ottoman Empire as political refugees.726
Hungarian and Polish refugees in the Ottoman Empire have already been
widely studied.727 In that respect, my focus is limited to revisiting the political crisis
the Ottoman state had to face while addressing the refugee crisis via diplomatic and
legal frameworks. I particularly rely on the reports of Foreign Office, as the existing
literature mostly refers to Ottoman and Hungarian sources.
The extradition question of these populations evolved into an international
problem, entangling not just the Ottoman Empire, Austria, and Russia, but England
and France as well. This period of diplomatic turmoil was typified by the Ottoman
struggle against the extradition demands of the Russo-Austrian coalition and by its
attempts to satisfy English pleas to provide asylum for refugees outside of these
nations. In these two core challenges, we can deduce the Ottoman attitude towards
political crime and asylum right.728
At the beginning, the Ottoman Empire was unwavering in providing shelter to
the refugees despite the threats and remonstrances from the Austrian and Russian
sides. An official record dating back to 1849 explicitly stated that “since these
soldiers have taken refuge under the noble wings of the exalted Sultan, their
extradition and surrender from here will not accord with established tradition (usulce
726 Gango, “1848-1849 in Hungary,” 41- 44.
727 For some of these works see Karpat, “Kossuth in Turkey: The Impact of Hungarian Refugees in the
Ottoman Empire, 1849-1851,” 169-184; Csorba, “Hungarian Emigrants of 1848-49 in the Ottoman
Empire,” 224-232.
728 See Nagy, “La Turcophilie en Hongrie au Temps des Crises d’Orient,” 22. The following work
gives a comprehensive chronology of the Hungarian refugee crisis by using the Ottoman archives. See
Saydam, “Osmanlıların Siyasi İlticacılara Bakışı ya da 1849 Macar-Leh Mültecileri Meselesi,” 339-
386.
264
münasip olmayacağından), but they shall be taken away from the frontier and kept in
a secure place.”729 According to the reports of the Foreign Office, 3.400 Hungarian,
630 Polish, and 429 Italian refugees had already settled in Vidin by the end of 1849.
These people would be gradually transported to Shumen in Bulgaria and then
Kütahya in Anatolia in the following months.730
Despite the firm Ottoman stance reflected in the earlier report, the Ottoman
state struck a careful balance in order to seek a lasting solution to the refugee
question. The issue became a serious concern, as they had to establish a diplomatic
equilibrium in foreign politics while also calculating the economic means required to
cater to such high numbers.731 They sought counsel from England and France to
guarantee the latter’s support, lest the threat of war come from the Russo-Austrian
coalition. England and France sided with the Ottomans, as the Russian advance
towards Moldovia and Wallachia sparked concern over the political balance in
Europe. However, the Ottoman state was careful not to break peace with Austria, too,
since the frontier of Ottoman Bosnia was in a similar state of chaos at the time.
Besides, the concerns of the English and French were not unfounded. Russian troops
quashed the mutiny in Wallachia amidst the Hungarian revolt; they could advance on
their way to the frontiers without any great impediment. Thus, the Ottoman state was
reluctant to adopt a harsh tone in their diplomatic dialogues regarding the matter of
Russia. On the other hand, the feeble settlement policies of the local governors and
the lack of supplies of food and lodging for refugees compelled the state to accept
only a limited number of emigrants and send the others back by persuasion. This
729 Karpat, “Kossuth in Turkey: The Impact of Hungarian Refugees in the Ottoman Empire, 1849-
1851,” 171.
730 FO 424/5, List of Refugees at Vidin, 1849.
731 As related to the balance of diplomacy in foreign politics, see the recent article: Morris, “Locating
the Wallachian Revolution of 1848,” 606-625.
265
behavior gave rise to various rumors that the Ottoman state was hesitant in protecting
refugees and that they threatened them with forced conversion to Islam. Furthermore,
the state could not expel refugees due to the Treaty of Belgrade (1739) and the
Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774).732
The ongoing political tensions and ambiguities regarding the legal status and
future of refugees meant that European nations and the international press retained a
negative impression of the Empire’s stance on the matter. The statements of Lajos
Kossuth played a large role in bolstering this negative image. Despite the official
orders forbidding the local rulers to impose conversion by force,733 Kossuth seemed
to be confirming these allegations. In response to his demands for protection, the
French and British embassies mandated that Kossuth should not be compelled to
convert to Islam in any situation. However, Kossuth replied that if extradition to
Austria was put forward as a last resort, he would have no option other than
becoming Muslim, despite his ardent Christian faith. The perturbation of Kossuth
stemmed from the empty promises of the Sultan, who initially promise to “sacrifice
fifty thousand men, before any harm come”. Kossuth complained that nothing
satisfactory had come out of these promises so far. Despite his uneasiness, he still did
not want to forsake the protection of the Sultan altogether. Otherwise, as he made
clear, he had a passport that could facilitate his transportation to another country.734
However, Kossuth changed his mind a few years later and opted for leaving. He
stated that the hospitality initially offered by the empire changed to detention
conditions after a time. 735
732 Saydam, “Osmanlıların Siyasi İlticalara Bakışı ya da 1849 Macar-Leh Mültecileri Meselesi,” 343,
349, and 351.
733 Karpat, “Kossuth in Turkey: The Impact of Hungarian Refugees in the Ottoman Empire, 1849-
1851,” 178.
734 FO 424/5, The Letter of Kossuth, 20 Sep. 1849.
735 New York Daily Times, 27 Oct. 1851
266
Similar remarks over Ottoman hospitality and the rumors about conversion
were also underlined by the political figures of the time. In a notice of October 1849,
the French diplomat Victor Fontanier (1796-1857) portrayed Ottoman hospitality as
unstable in administering the settlement of the refugees. He claimed that if someone
of prominence crossed the borders as a refugee, the local government in charge there
took them under his guardianship or sent them to Constantinople to assure that they
were in good hands. However, this protection was a purchased one, as was visible in
the case of the Pasha of Vidin. The Pasha got hold of wealthy Hungarians under the
pretext of security. Fontanier blamed the Ottoman governors for propelling the poor
Hungarians to convert to Islam, claiming that they had intimidated them by
threatening to sell them to French and English officials. As he considered the
Ottomans to be barbarians, his explicit criticism was against British policy, which
supported the Ottoman state over the Russo-Austrian coalition. He particularly
blamed the British diplomat Stratford Canning for hampering the power of
capitulations by overlooking the privileges granted to them, which otherwise
required that those people be handed over to the consulate.736
The remarks of Fontanier resonated with those of Stratford Canning, whom
Fontanier fervently criticized. Canning informed the Prime Ministry that famous
figures of the revolution were kept at Vidin, while the rest of the refugees were left
on their own. However, his account differed from Fontanier's in the insistence upon
non-extradition, which Fontanier had already confirmed in his words above. Canning
conveyed his views to the Porte as well, advising them to hold firm against the
unwavering Austrian and Russian protests for an Ottoman rejection of extradition.737
736 AMAE 50 – Memoires et documents (MD) 45, “Note sur l’Extradition en Turquie,” 04.10.1849. I
would like to thank my supervisor Edhem Eldem for providing me with that document.
737 FO 424/5, Stratford Canning to Viscount Palmerstone, 03.09.1849. The British press also rumored
for an upcoming war between the parties; Lancaster Intelligence, 1 Jan. 1850.
267
Extradition demands from Austria were grounded in fears that the Bosnian
insurgents, motivated by Ottoman protection over the Hungarians, might escape to
Austria in the future to evade punishment. They masked that fear under a diplomatic
cloak by maintaining Article 18 of the Treaty of Belgrade (1739) as a legitimate
motive, which stated that “from now on, we will no longer give asylum and
retirement to the wicked, to rebellious and discontented subjects, but each of the
contracting parties will be obliged to punish these kinds of people, as well as all
thieves and brigands, even if they are the nationals of other party.”738
In his conversation with the Minister-President Prince Schwarzenberg,
Musurus Kostaki Pasha, who was the Ottoman delegate present in Vienna at the
time, stressed the impossibility of extradition in terms of both politics and law.
Musurus Pasha had suspicions about how reasonable it was to apply the old treaties
to the present circumstances. His criticism of a policy that relied on customary
regulations was a warning to redirect attention towards the matters of conspiracy and
regicide, two novel threats they should seek to address. Questioning in his report
whether he himself would prefer internment or expulsion in the absence of
extradition, he underscored his choice of internment. Otherwise, it would be no time
before these refugees would enter into new conspiracies in Vienna. He further added
that if the Ottoman Empire were to expel the Hungarians, the reciprocity principle
between the two governments would be damaged. He expressed concern that a
similar situation might arise if the Ottomans were expelled. Accordingly, he argued,
they would go to Greece and hatch political schemes against the Empire at once.739
The concerns of Musurus Pasha in fact related to recent experiences he had endured.
It had not been long since Musurus Pasha had arrived in Vienna, as he was
738 FO 424/5, Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg to Count Barthelemy von Stürmer, 14 Aug. 1849.
739 BOA HR.TO. 570/20, 18.09.1849.
268
previously the ambassador to Greece between 1840 and 1848. His redeployment to
Austria was due to an assassination plot against him by one of his domestics, Nadir,
who was also called Rodin. Although there is not much information about that
tentative complot, we might well imagine Musurus’s fears were doubled after that
failed attempt.740
In a similar vein, Ali Pasha voiced his ideas to the Russian ambassador
Vladimir Pavlovic Titov on extradition by pointing to other issues. Russia was
targeting the few Russian subjects who had participated in the Hungarian uprising. In
his letter, Ali Pasha said that even if these people were bona fide Russian subjects,
the Ottoman state could not extradite them merely by invoking Article 2 of the
Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. This was because that treaty prescribed that in expulsion
matters, “no coldness or frivolous discussion should ensue between the two
governments on account of such evil-disposed persons.” He noted that they were not
preventing anyone from departing, but that if the refugees opted to stay then the
state’s duty was to host them, considering their amicable relations with Russia. They
trusted the efficacy of the Ottoman police force. At this point, Ali Pasha reminded
his colleague of their earlier admonition, against “the Turkish territory being made
the theatre of trouble in any way whatsoever by revolutionary partisans seeking
refuge within it.” They preferred a clear, firm stance, so as to secure control without
foreign interference. After sharing his considerations, Ali Pasha concluded his
remarks by underscoring the regulations adopted throughout Europe regarding
740 The Ottoman state demanded the extradition of Nadir regarding his nationality, the importance of
Musurus’ diplomatic agency, and the circumstances of the crime. Musurus was injured by him.
However, the Hellenic government initially refuted the demands with the fears that Nadir could be
sentenced to death penalty. At this point, the British government interfered as they did in the case of
Hungarian refugees. They advised Greece not to reject the demands by considering the future of
Greek subjects in the Ottoman Empire. They ensured that Nadir would be put under fair court trial,
and he would not be tortured and exposed to illegal procedures. Nadir was ultimately extradited to the
Ottoman Empire. See BOA HR.TO. 285/4, Jul. 1848; 569/2, Aug. 1848; 569/6, Sep. 1848; and 569/7,
Sep. 1848; The Illustrated London News, 24 Jun. 1848.
269
asylum rights. Rather than treating the Hungarian population as criminal fugitives, he
advocated addressing them as political refugees who should be protected, in line with
the principle of international duty. As a result, the Ottoman government refrained
from going against these established practices.741
The letter of Ali Pasha addressed to Titov was a well-versed assertion,
previously rehearsed with England and France. Even though Ali Pasha mentioned the
obligation of political asylum under international law, this part of his letter appeared
to be a rhetorical device inserted to empower his statements on the imminent political
concerns of the day, rather than a genuine diplomatic stance. In September 1849, Ali
Pasha prepared a questionnaire regarding resorting to the measures taken by England
and France on the extradition issue. He asked, in a nutshell, if it ought to be
mandatory to send back refugees in the wake of the treaties of Belgrade and Küçük
Kaynarca. He was anxious to be sure whether, were Russia to wage war in response
to the negative stance adopted by the Ottomans against Russian demands, these two
powers would support the Empire or else accept the role of diplomatic mediator. The
gist of his letter to Russia was in accord with England and France’s responses. Thus,
the Ottoman view towards asylum rights and political crime evident in this episode
provides us with little basis from which to understand to what extent the state
seriously evaluated such critical questions under the principles of international law,
or whether it merely improvised.742
Even after a year-long internment in the Ottoman Empire, nothing had
changed for these refugees. England was pressing the Porte to expel them, while the
latter wanted to make sure that Austria would not resent this, as already explained
741 FO 424/5, Draft Note of Ali Pasha to Titov, date not specified.
742 FO 424/5, “Queries put by Ali Pasha to the Representatives of England and France, and their
Answers”, September 1849.
270
above. The Ottoman state played for time and appointed Aarifi Efendi as the new
ambassador to Vienna in 1850 to deal with the issue personally. As the Ottoman state
was firm in its stance against extradition, Baron Klezl, Austrian ambassador to
Constantinople, gave a list of the refugees who should be released and the ones that
the Ottoman Empire should continue to detain. Lajos Kossuth and his companies
were among the latter group.743 However, England was not content with the list from
Austria and resumed its insistence on releasing all the refugees. Palmerston alerted
the Porte that the sovereignty of the empire was at stake. He stated that “it will
certainly not be consistent with his (the Sultan’s) dignity as an independent sovereign
to become the gaoler for a foreign power and to continue to act as such, as long as it
might please that foreign Power to require him to remain in that unbecoming
condition.” Canning encouraged France to formulate a similar message to the Porte
as well.744
The Ottoman Council of Ministers concluded in favor of releasing all the
refugees, thus leaving the last word to the Sultan who was still hesitating over his
decision. In a confidential memorandum sent to Stratford Canning in April 1851, the
Sultan stated that they gave careful consideration to reports from England and
France. However, the Sultan was still worried about the security conditions at the
borders of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Vidin. He also wanted peace to be restored in
Hungary. He asked Canning whether these ideals could be guaranteed and achieved
in the near future. In the meantime, they would consider hosting the refugees up to
the end of 1851.745
743 424/6, Canning to Palmerston, 18.11.1850; Baron Klezl to Ali Pasha, 09.02.1851; and Aliprantis,
“Transnational Policing After the 1848-1849 Revolutions: The Habsburg Empire in the
Mediterranean,” 420.
744 424/6, Palmerston to Canning, 15.03.1851.
745 FO 424/6, the Sultan’s confidential memorandum (date not identified, but it probably arrived in the
midst of April 1851).
271
Subsequent communications demonstrate that Canning and the Foreign
Office shared the opinions of the Sultan as voiced in his memorandum. The Ottoman
state expedited procedures and the refugees’ departures started in May, in contrary to
the previous plan. They also informed the Austrian embassy about Kossuth and his
companions, who would be released by September 1st. Despite the Austrian
remonstrances, they set off for liberty in an American steamship named
“Mississippi” that left the harbor of İzmir for England on September 1st, just as
promised.746 When Kossuth made a public speech in Southampton in October, Sultan
Abdülmecid I received many praises for having, according to the city's mayor, both
maintained his position and liberated the refugees, despite the threat of Austrian and
Russian despotism.747
The Hungarian refugee crisis was settled successfully, bringing fame and
glory to the Ottoman Empire in the international arena. However, it also
demonstrated that the Ottoman state was still devoid of a legal discourse to formulate
a stern diplomatic policy while addressing issues of international law and foreign
politics. In this episode, the Ottoman state instead leaned on the advice of England
and France and maintained its famous diplomatic balance. In that respect, the need
for the Office of Legal Counsel, not yet installed, come to the fore all the more
clearly.
The Kostza affair, which erupted two years later, further confirms the fact
that the Ottoman state favored an ad-hoc diplomatic approach in its day-to-day
political dealings. This was a diplomatic crisis between the United States of America
and Austria, originating from the ambiguous legal status of a Hungarian refugee
named Martin Koszta. Koszta was similar to Lajos Kossuth, who had fled from the
746 FO 426/6, Baron Klezl to Ali Pasha 18.08.1851; and Canning to Palmerston, 10.09.1851.
747 BOA İ. DUİT. 150/14, Nov. 1851.
272
Empire never to return. He sought refuge in the United States and became a
naturalized American in July 1852. Nevertheless, Koszta returned to İzmir as an
American to conduct private business under an official license (tezkere) in 1853,
where he was abducted by Greek ruffians hired by the Austrian consulate. The
consulate accepted Koszta as Austrian subject and took him by force to the Austrian
brig, “Hussar”, which would soon depart for Austria. He would soon be put under
trial for his part in the 1848 Revolution and would go on to receive a harsh sentence.
US consuls strongly criticized the incident, as they also claimed Koszta as their own
citizen and threatened Austria with a confrontation at sea, anchoring the American
ship USS St. Louis at İzmir.748
After long-lasting tensions between the two governments and a series of
diplomatic negotiations, Austria freed Koszta. What is striking in this affair, though,
is the neutral Ottoman stance throughout, despite the crisis having taken place within
its territories and having involved a person who was amongst the numbers of the
political refugees they endeavored so laboriously to safeguard just a few years
before. The Ottoman state did nothing other than view the affair from an outsider’s
perspective at this time. The US Legation at Pera appealed for Ottoman help to
negotiate with Austria. Otherwise, they stated, the Sultan would lose the glory
previously gained from his achievements in the refugee crisis. Austria had attacked
the empire’s sovereignty by kidnapping a person at will on foreign soil, and only the
Ottoman Empire had the right to arrest this person and expel him out from the
country. He added that it was a duty to interfere in person so as to maintain the
territorial integrity of the empire.749 Even though Şekib Efendi had been appointed to
748 Howell, “The Effect of the Martin Koszta Affair on American Foreign Policy,” 40-50; and New
York Daily Times, 09.30.1853; and Martin Koszta – Correspondence; and Aliprantis, “Transnational
Policing After the 1848-1849 Revolutions: The Habsburg Empire in the Mediterranean,” 430-431.
749 BOA HR.TO. 146/12, 27.06.1853.
273
İzmir as a commissioner to keep abreast of developments, the Grand Vizier Mehmed
Ali Pasha (1852-1853) had warned him not to interfere in the matter under any
circumstances. He stated that they had to avoid interfering, as the Ottoman state had
no stake in the crisis which concerned only those two European powers. He believed
that the Ottomans’ meddling with the Koszta affair would create more problems than
it would remedy.750
The US Legation blamed the Ottoman Empire for having “abdicated her
sovereign right to determine the question of the legality or illegality of the seizure,
and even neglected to insist on the ordinary powers and privileges of a neutral
territory.”751 Nevertheless, the words of Mehmed Ali Pasha hint at a poised state
policy that aimed to obviate another crisis of international character at the expense of
the sovereignty rights at stake. They might have thought that the crisis did not have
any direct relevance to Ottoman politics as Martin Koszta was no longer a refugee or
political criminal, but an officially titled American citizen affiliated with a business
enterprise. Even if he was an Austrian subject, regulations regarding different foreign
nationals were to be left to consular authorities to decide. Further to that, the clamor
surrounding the humanitarian issue of the Hungarian refugees had calmed somewhat,
and the expulsion of any returning refugees could cause diplomatic complications
because of Koszta’s ambiguous nationality.752
In summary, the 1848 Hungarian crisis clearly shows that the Ottoman state
tried to find a middle way throughout the refugee crisis, and even after it was no
750“Bizim daireden çıkarak iki devlet-i ecnebiye meyanına girmiş iken buna müdahâle suretinde
bulunmamız dağdağaya davet etmek olacağından bu meseleye müdahâleden ictinab olunması
hususu…,” BOA A.MKT.UM. 139/43, 20. 07. 1853.
751 BOA HR.TO. 146/12.
752 The Ottoman state ordered that the Hungarian and Polis refugees be prevented from turning back
the empire and be sent to other countries. The state warned the police forces and the Admiral in
Constantinople to arrest the refugees. BOA HR.SYS. 1798/29, 25.03.1852; and HR.SYS. 1798/40,
18.03.1853.
274
longer a hot topic for political debate. The law regarding the refugee question and the
matter of their extradition was haphazardly set out and applied. It would take a
decade or so before the Ottoman state adopted an elaborate, legally based diplomacy
to handle a similar crisis of international dimension. As a matter of fact, Lajos
Kossuth and his entourage constitute one of the rare occasions in Ottoman history
where political asylum was granted under international law.753
6.2.2 Revolutionary Fervor in the Ottoman Empire
In the decades following the 1848 crisis, revolutionary fervor was all the more
intense and wide-ranging throughout the states comprising Ottoman Empire and
Europe alike. By the second half of the nineteenth century, this fervor was visible in
different forms and was led by various actors. Besides, it was a transnational wave
that could not be treated independently from events taking place in other
geographies.754 Nationalism was one important facet of that wave. Since the Greek
War of Independence (1821), the nationalist uprisings in the Balkans had a domino
effect in the region that came to a climax with the 1877-78 Russo-Ottoman War.
Many resistance movements, known as comitadjis, emerged, such as secret societies
and underground networks that frequently resorted to violence in the guerilla warfare
753Another exception was Jamaladdin Afghani, whom Abdulhamid II protected as a guest for many
years and resisted his extradition. However, his asylum turned into long-term confinement as the
Sultan developed a trust issue with him and did not allow Afghani to leave Istanbul. See Özcan,
“Jamaladdin Afghani’s honorable confinement in Istanbul and Iran’s demands for his extradition,”
285-291.
754 Recently, there is a rise in the scholarship that focused on the connected histories of the revolutions
in different geographies that affected each other one way or another. In a similar vein, the history of
anarchism and revolutionary movements in the Ottoman Empire were analyzed under this
comparative framework. See Sohrabi, “Global Waves, Local Actors: What the Young Turks Knew
about Other Revolutions and Why It Mattered,” 45-79; Çorlu, “Anarchist and Anarchism in the
Ottoman Empire,”553-583; Zürcher, “The Young Turk Revolution: Comparisons and Connections,”
481-498. Berberian, Roving Revolutionaries. For a comparative study, see Skocpol, States and Social
Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. There were also some others
which cautions us not to forget the local dynamics and the push factors that framed the evolution of
revolutionary events beyond the shared ideologies of revolutionary spirit. See Hill, “How Global Was
the Age of Revolutions? The Case of Mount Lebanon, 1821,” 65-84.
275
against the Ottoman empire. These revolutionary figures were influenced by their
European counterparts in many respects. One dimension of that interplay manifested
itself in easy access to more technologically advanced weaponry used throughout
Europe, which Ramazan Hakkı Öztan defines as “the global marketplace of the
revolution.” 755
On the other hand, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaksutyun)
(1890) and Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (1887) were two newly formed
groups representing anarchist and intellectual cliques of political exiles in Europe,
who played leading roles in the many armed insurrections across the empire. As
initially small factions, the two parties primarily gathered around political
aspirations, most of which chimed with the general objectives of the Balkan and
European revolutionaries. From the 1890s onwards, they established themselves
more firmly and more formally, and armed resistance became more frequent and
prominent. Their actions soon sparked the course of state violence led by the
Hamidian regime against the Armenian population in Eastern Anatolia and
culminated in the 1915 forced deportation by the Committee of Union and Progress
(CUP).756
There were other groups of political dissenters whose impact relied on the
mightiness of the pen, rather than that of the sword. Indeed, they were not confined
755 Öztan, “Tools of Revolution: Global Military Surplus, Arms Dealers and Smugglers in the Late
Ottoman Balkans, 1878-1908,” 170.
756 The Armenian Revolutionary Federation was founded in Tiflis and had an active role in the
insurrections in Eastern Anatolia, particularly those in Sasun and Van. They were also behind the
occupation of the Ottoman Bank in August 1896 and the 1905 assassination attempt against
Abdulhamid II. The Social Democrat Hunchakian Party was founded in Geneva, and similar to ARF,
they participated in the 1895-96 Zeytun events in the Eastern Anatolia and the 1890 Kumkapı incident
in Istanbul. For more detail on these two organizations, their political aspirations and allegiances, see
Moumdijian, “From Millet-i Sadıka to Millet-i Asiya: Abdulhamid II and Armenians 1878-1909,” 24-
29; Eldem, “’Banka Vakası’ ve 1896 İstanbul Katliamı,” 172; Deringil, “Abdülhamid Döneminde
Ermeni Meselesi,” 103; Dündar, “Savaş ve Ermeni Nüfus Meselesinin Halli, 1915-1923,” 419; and
Berberian, Roving Revolutionaries, 8.
276
to a few journalists and intellectuals, but rather constituted a large range of people
from across the spectrum of Ottoman society. From former state and military
officials, students, to Ottoman intellectuals, members of these opposition groups
lived in exile, mostly in Paris and Geneva. They stood up against the Hamidian
regime through different channels and expressed their concern about the absence of a
constitutional parliamentary system and representative democracy. The CUP (1889),
which was founded in Salonica, but which had branches in Macedonia and Paris,
provided a common ground for most of these groups who united under it and shared
common interests. The conferences that the CUP held in 1902 and 1905 in Paris
equally hosted members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.757
All of these groups symbolize the collective violence and civic protest that
manifested itself in various forms against the Ottoman political regime, while
regicidal attempts formed another facet of anarchism in the Empire. The 1905 Yıldız
Attack against Abdulhamid II was one such notorious occasion, given the scale of its
organization and the various actors behind it, as well as the furor it created
throughout the international arena.758
However, there had been other failed attempts long before that incident. In
1868, for example, thirty conspirators, led by Konduri, a Russsian, and Altuncu, a
citizen of Greece, were arrested while preparing for the conspiracy against
Abdülaziz. Details of the investigations were kept confidential by the state, despite
the news received by the Havas Agency that was immediately published by the press
in England and France. The news came to the attention of Ottoman public via the
“Young Ottomans”, who wrote reams of remonstrances about it in Hürriyet for
757 Until the 1909 Adana Massacre against the Armenian populations, the CUP and the revolutionary
parties were on good terms. Berberian, Roving Revolutionaries, 29-32.
758 See, Alloul, Eldem, Smaele, eds., To Kill a Sultan.
277
weeks on end, as they had been accused of taking part in the plot.759 After refuting
such claims, their harshest criticisms targeted the state itself, mainly, since Konduri
and Altuncu were handed over to their consulates without any serious charges.
The Young Ottomans were surprised to see the case laid to rest in that way,
because killing the sultan equated to destroying the state, in their opinion. 760 The
confusion regarding how to address complot attempts under the legal framework, in
the absence of solid evidence confirming their crime, seemed an apparent excuse for
their release. Over the course of the next two decades, similar plots went on to pass,
almost unnoticed, as ordinary crimes, since they too lacked any apparent political
motive that might qualify them as enactments of anarchism.761
6.2.2.1 Vigilance Against Political Crime and Anarchism in the Late 19th Century
With the rising insurrections and increase in anarchism, which was typified by
violence, Ottoman state policies changed accordingly in the second half of the
century. The Hamidian regime was compelled to adopt a wide array of strategies and
security measures to monitor and prevent the anarchist threats. A vast team of
759 Hürriyet, N.16, 12 Oct. 1868; N.17, 19 Oct. 1868; N.18, 26 Oct. 1868. I would like to thank
Alperen Topal for calling my attention to these documents.
760 “Biz derdik ki böyle şeyler hazmolunabilir lakin hiç me’mûl etmezdik ki padişaha suikast etti
denilenler de hakkın, ahdin hilafında olarak kendi sefaretlerine teslim olunabilsin. Babıali’nin sâye-i
dirayetinde padişahı öldürmek, ki devleti bitirmekle beraberdir, pek kolaylaştı.” Hürriyet, N.18
761 Another group of many nationalities underwent a similar organization in Egypt by the instigation
of Russia. Their traces were discovered at Pera and the leader of the organization, Giroux de
Beaumount, was a member of a secret society active in France and Italy. Nevertheless, the clear
motives behind their actions were never found out: BOA HR.SYS. 1822/3, 12.05.1870. There were
also individual attempts that were usually absolved from the charges because of the excuse that the
perpetrators had mental health issues. The Greek Constantin Carayanopoulo attempted entering the
Yıldız Palace while the sultan was on his way to the Yıldız Mosque for bairam occasion. He injured
four officers while he was also shot and died later on. They blanketed the case by pointing out that he
was insane: BOA 1825/15, 20.09.1879. Similarly, John Papadopoulo, the Greek subject under British
protection, organized a bombed attack against Abdulhamid in 1880 and was sent to exile to Konya.
The British legation repeatedly complained about his penalty, underscoring that he was mentally
unstable: BOA HR.SYS. 1822/7, 1825/16, and 1825/17.
278
people, comprising informal agents, Ottoman diplomats, private detectives abroad,
and police corps and gendarmeries at home, united to combat the anarchist wave.762
The strict surveillance measures were partially the outcome of a changing
policing system, and at the same time reflected the strain and fears of Abdulhamid II.
The police forces that emerged from the 1845 Police Marshall were restructured in
1879. The newly founded Ministry of Police, which acted independently of the
Ministry of the Interior, was more elaborate in structure, as it achieved a modern
state apparatus by augmenting the number of employed officers and expanding its
force of influence spatially into different parts of the empire. However, that
institution was equally characterized by overbearing state policies aimed at hunting
down political foes of the regime. The 1907 Police regulations, which refashioned
the operational design of the ministry, delegated its functions to the police forces that
performed administrative and judicial policing, separating them into two units from
that point on. While the administrative branch was responsible for preventative
measures and for the management of order and security empire-wide, its main
objective was to spy on political dissenters, which far outweighed the tasks of the
judicial branch that usually handled ordinary crimes that occurred daily. As Noémi
Lévy-Aksu underlines, the deployment of political police (siyasi polis) along with
private detectives (hafiye) from the Yıldız Palace further confirms the emblematic
significance the regime attached to increasing police surveillance.763
Given the security measures operating in the Empire, an accelerating number
of legal scholars who graduated from the recently founded schools of law advanced a
legal framework for state discourse while addressing similar issues in the
762 Çorlu, “Anarchist and Anarchism in the Ottoman Empire,” 555.
763 Lévy-Aksu, “Institutional Cooperation and Substitution: The Ottoman Police and Justice System at
the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries,” 149 and 152.
279
international arena. Their opinions, deducible from scholarly works or else directly
conveyed to the state through official notes, gradually formed a large corpus of legal
opinion and direct sources of reference. As one of the crucial questions of the age,
political crime was addressed by these scholars at length. Were political criminals
acting out of socio-economic concern, or were they just ordinary criminals affiliated
with anarchist activities that aimed to topple down the existing regimes?
Accordingly, the Ottoman legal scholars sought to find a legitimate answer
concerning the correct course of action for Ottoman jurisdiction and extradition
practices.
Servet Bey, an expert in criminal law, argued that the reasons as well as the
outcomes of ordinary crime became highly crucial if it was committed for affairs of a
political character such as an insurrection or civil revolution, or if it evolved as
natural part of these incidents. If the ordinary crimes of plunder, massacre, arson
arose out of an outcry for political change, they were addressed under the category of
political crime, but with the only difference that their perpetrators could be subjected
to extradition. This is because these crimes were treated as ordinary offenses.764 On
the other hand, Kirkor Zohrab maintained that it was vital to start by defining the
character of crimes as political or ordinary, since only after that categorization could
the possibility of extradition be considered. As an Armenian scholar all too familiar
with the political stigma attached to his community at the time, Zohrab did not forget
to underscore the importance of clemency, occasionally issued by states to pardon
764 Servet, Hukuk-u Ceza, 35: “Cürm-ü adi isyan ve ihtilâl-i dahili gibi hadisât-ı siyasiye esnasında
vuku bulub o hadisâta merbut olunursa tayin-i fiilde bu esbâb ve muesserâtın ehemmiyeti vardır.
Şöyle ki, yağma, katl, ihrâk gibi hukuk-u adiyye cerâim-i siyasinin mukteziyât ve avarızından ise
onları cürm-ü siyasi ad eder, yani cürm-ü siyasi gerek iade-i mücrimin ve gerek Fransa’da olduğu gibi
idam cezasının tatbik-i nokta-yı nazarından cerâim-i adiye-yi mezkure üretir.”
280
political criminals. In his view, political crime in the Ottoman context should be reevaluated
to include the option of clemency.765
The 1898 report by the legal advisor Hakkı Bey (the future grand vizier Hakkı
Pasha) addressed the subject in a detailed way that mirrored the state policies already
in application. Hakkı Bey commenced his work with a reproach of those in the
official cadres of the state who were on the lam. According to him, they took for
granted the value of their services to the Empire and the honor they held as being
Ottoman subjects (nâil oldukları şeref-i tabiyyet ve hıdmet-i seniyyenin kadr- ü
kıymet-i uzmasını takdir edemeyerek Avrupa’ya firâr eden eşhas). For their
extradition, he first called attention to the places where these people refuged: to the
consulates in the Empire, to the European ships that were close to the Ottoman
harbors, and abroad. If they were on board at a foreign ship anchored away from the
Ottoman harbor, and if the judicial procedures for extradition were still in progress,
expulsion could not be a solution. On the contrary, if the fugitives who were under
judicial proceedings hid at their consulates, the consular authorities were obliged to
surrender them to Ottoman justice.
Hakkı Bey emphasized that it was imperative not to use force if consular
authorities resisted handing them over in such situations; instead, they should
mutually resort to political dialogue. At this point, the nature of crime, political or
ordinary, was decisive in determining whether these dialogues would be maintained
with ease or with difficulty (suhulet ve suubet irae eder). If they were political
criminals and escaped to Europe, the art of diplomacy, the principle of reciprocity,
and further attempts for reconciliation could be at stake as the extradition of political
765 Zohrab, Hukuk-u Ceza, 70: “Bizde bir cürmün adi yahud siyasi olmasının bilinmesi evvela iade-yi
mücrimin olub olmadığının saniyen ara sıra ceraim-i siyasi hakkında afvlar sadır olduğundan bu
afvların o cürme şümulu bulunup bulunmadığının tayin edilmesi için iktiza eder.
281
criminals was usually not a given option. Admonition and expulsion (tedib ve tard)
were last resorts adopted to prevent these people from going after evil pursuits.
However, some of them were fit under no circumstances for judicial charges despite
the visible criminal motives behind their actions, which clearly risked public order
and state security. For those, punitive measures could be taken by either leaving them
bereft of official ranks or by garnisheeing the salaries of the ones who still held
official posts.766
It emerges, then, that Hakkı Bey established a determinant state policy while
also addressing political crime and anarchic activities. Even so, the deliberation was
not over whether or not to quarrel with consular powers; rather, it concerned whether
they should negotiate in such affairs. Above all, the shift away from diplomacy,
which the Ottoman Empire adopted during the 1849 refugee crisis, leaves no doubt
about the legal advancement of Ottoman state policies.
6.2.2.2 General Amnesty (Umumi Afv)
Abdulhamid II occasionally granted full pardon (afv-ı umumî, afv-ı alî) to the people
accused of a wide spectrum of crimes that were considered political in nature. The
first one of these decrees was issued in 1889, which approved the release of all
political criminals with his mercy and grace (bil-cümle politika müttehimleri zat-ı
hazret-i şehriyârinin eser-i lütf ve atıfeti ile), even though the existing archival
documents were silent about how effectively it was in force.767 The 1903 general
amnesty, on the other hand, was more specific in terms of its application. The official
statement explicitly argued in favor of the political criminals who were already
766 BOA Y.EE. 10/9, 1898.
767 BOA Y.PRK.AZN. 3/65, Jun. 1889: “Zat-ı hazret-i şehriyarinin eser-i lütf ve atıfeti ve Halil
Paşa’nın vesâteti ile bil-cümle politika müttehimleri bu gün tahliye edilmiş …”
282
convicted but were still undergoing court prosecution. The regulations covered all
Muslim and non-Muslim subjects of the Empire, while Bulgarian conspirators
became the focal point for discussion. It was particularly emphasized that they
should be remitted, except for those who had European connections and might plot
against the Sultan.768
The political trajectories apparently determined the formulation of amnesty
policies at large, though they were never totally exempt from external factors. The
request of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) for a general amnesty from
the Sultan specifically addressing political criminals is a good example of this. The
petition was dated July 23rd, 1908, the onset of the Second Constitutional Era, and
the CUP commenced their petition with expressions of their joy upon receiving the
news that parliament had been reestablished and that the constitution had once again
come into force. The petition underscored the position that these developments
symbolized advances in the welfare and prosperity of the homeland and the people
living in it. This was by virtue of the equality accorded to each ethnic group and
religious denomination.769 After the long oratory in the preamble, elaborating upon
their gratitude for the developments in progress, the CUP demanded forgiveness in
the name of all loyal people (millet-i sadıka) for the political criminals who were
already convicted or under interrogation.770
Thanks to the 1908 amnesty, numerous criminals who were in prisons were
acquitted and the state officers previously dismissed from their official posts and
768 BOA BEO 2012/150895, Mar. 1903; BEO 2014/150992, Mar. 1903; and TFR.I.SL. 5/466, Mar.
1903.
769 BOA Y.PRK.AZJ. 54/36, 23 Jul. 1908: “Kanun-u esasi suret-i teşkili beyân olunan meclis-i
mebusanın ictimâ’-i ru’un olunması hususuna irade-i seniyye-yi cenab-i şehriyarileri şeref müteallik
buyrulduğu kemâl-i meserret ile istibşâr eyledi. Aksâ-yı maksad haber-i mersad bit-tefrîk cins ve
mezâhib-i millet ve vatanın selâmet ve saadetini te’minden ibâret bulunduğuna bir delil teşkil eder.”
770 BOA Y.PRK. AZJ. 54/36, 23 Jul. 1908: “Cerâim-i siyasiyeden dolayı mahkumen mahbus ve
maznunen mevkûf olanlar ile mevcûd-u müsellem ve gayr-ı müsellem mücrimin-i siyasiyenin afv ve
ıtlakı…”
283
exiled to other provinces of the empire were called back to resume their former
occupations. The Ministry of Justice proclaimed that only the Armenians suspected
of anarchic activities could be subject to different treatment, depending on the nature
of crime they were accused of.771 The violence in Eastern Anatolia, along with the
events that were largely incited by Armenian revolutionary groups in the capital, had
already positioned them as persona non-grata by 1908. Even though the Sultan had
issued a general amnesty in 1895 for all Armenians accused of, or charged with,
political crime or sedition, amidst the atrocities committed, the decision was an
unintentional one that largely stemmed from European pressures. The violence
echoing throughout the international press propelled European states to push the
Empire for reform, already envisaged by the Treaty of Berlin. The imperial
ordinance primarily applied to specific groups, chiefly the Armenian clergy. Even
though approximately three thousand Armenians were pardoned in the first instance,
the state acted selectively by overlooking international calls for clemency. Seven
hundred of the Armenians liberated were rearrested after a just short while.
Notwithstanding, the objections of European consulates to this development
transformed the decision into a general amnesty by the end of the year. The amnesty
excluded only those who partook in the insurrections abroad.772
To summarize, state policies on amnesty were internal regulations that aimed
to safeguard domestic peace and order. Thus, none of those regulations were
effective for dealing with the matter of political fugitives in Europe. The latter were
sometimes pardoned only if they personally petitioned to the Sultan, expressing their
771 BOA DH.MKT. 1272/82, Jul. 1908.
772 On August, the English Embassy insisted for the release of the Armenian revolutionaries that
engaged in the Sasun Events, while the similar demands were made by the German consulate for
Zeytun perpetrators in 1896. See, BOA HR.SYS. 2755/34, Mar.1895; 2836/15, Aug. 1895; 2858/16,
Dec. 1895; Y. EE.KP. 7/612, Dec. 1895; I.HUS. 45/143, Feb. 1896.
284
remorse and asking for clemency. In such cases, a thorough investigation was carried
out by diplomatic agents before an ultimate decision was declared.773
6.2.2.3 Monitoring the Ottoman Intellectuals in Exile
Official extradition was rarely an option, or else was only the last resort, for political
criminals. In the late nineteenth century, the Ottoman state usually tried to track
down political fugitives by its own means. The Foreign Ministry sent missives
everywhere to locate their whereabouts. A detailed description of the suspect was
usually attached to the search warrant. The officers employed in these missions
monitored the arriving ships in the harbors of many foreign cities, to see if the
suspects were on board. For example, the prominent intellectuals, those with a strong
pen such as Ali Kemal Bey (Ali Kemali Efendi) and Mizancı Murad (Murad Bey),
were sought after almost in every region of Europe, and their activities were closely
monitored if their locations were detected. The primary objective of the Ottoman
state was not to persecute but to persuade (ikna) or admonish (nasihat) these figures,
in order to win them back. The diplomatic agents engaged in dialogues with them in
person so as to smooth the negotiation process. However, this Hamidian state
strategy was not a soft defense policy; rather, it was grounded in a retribution system
by which everlasting fidelity to the Sultan was required in exchange for a full
pardoning from, and repatriation to, the Empire.774
773 BOA Y.A.HUS. 384/55,1896; Y.MTV. 243/71, 1903; HR.TH. 313/92, 1905.
774 The Ottoman diplomats and detectives traced Ali Kemali Efendi (the famous journalist and
politician Ali Kemal Bey), a student of Mekteb-i Mülkiye, in Vienna, Antwerp, Berlin, Rome,
Petersburg, Athens, Bucharest, Belgrade, Brussels, Washington, London, Paris. When they found him
in Paris, the Ottoman consulate made a couple of efforts to convince him to return to the empire. To
be more persuasive, they sought ways to cut off his communication with his wife. BOA HR.MKT.
439/3, 1895; HR.SYS. 1809/79; 1809/80; 1809/81; and 1809/88, Sept./Oct. 1895; and HR.H. 754/10,
1895. Likewise, they tried to persuade Murad Bey (Mizancı Murad) to give up publishing to the
detriment of the empire and return back; thus, he would be fully pardoned. However, these attempts
were mostly of no avail in the cases of Ottoman intelligentsia abroad. BOA HR. SYS. 1809/85, 1895;
1809/94, 1895; 1810/39, 1898; and Y.PRK. HR. 21/51, 1894.
285
The writings of these intellectuals were a thorny issue for the Ottoman
government. This era of public opinion gauged public opinion via the press. “Image
management”, as Selim Deringil terms it, had been a highly influential Ottoman
diplomatic policy ever since Tanzimat, but it became all the more prominent during
the Hamidian reign. This policy was achieved primarily by collecting news articles
from the foreign press and manipulating public image abroad in favor of the Empire,
through enticing journalists or paying them off.775 It was a painstaking process that
required time, effort, and resources, which usually beguiled the foreign agents; but
alas, not so for the Ottoman intellectuals. The state responded with even stricter
punitive measures. In 1901, the official note sent to the Ottoman embassies in
London, Paris, and Rome instructed that the publications of figures such as Ahmed
Rıza, Çerkes İsmail Kemal, and many others would either be censured or else the
journals they were working for would be banned altogether. Their wages would be
garnisheed, and they would be punished under the strictest iterations of the law if
arrested. In the worst-case scenario, expatriation was also suggested as part of the
negotiation process.776
These stringent measures were not much of a success. Thus, the Ottoman
Empire had frequent cause to seek assistance from European governments. They
often asked for the expulsion of these political figures, before resorting to the
extradition option. Expulsion was an international practice systematically applied by
many states in Europe. It had been deployed since the early modern period to
eliminate security threats, via police forces and the administrative apparatuses of
states. The Ottoman Empire had been known for this practice ever since the
eighteenth century; it was mainly used to leverage mobility across the country. In
775 Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains, 137.
776 BOA Y.MRZ. D. 9317, Feb. 1901.
286
1792, one of the earliest examples, the state sent instructions to the provinces that
unwanted individuals, unemployed migrants, and vagabonds who were heretofore
sent to Anatolia and Rumelia were to be either banished to other regions in the
Empire or else expelled out of the country, if they attempted to flood into the big
cities, especially Istanbul; in these cases, further strict measures were imposed.777
Similar regulations were enacted in the ensuing decades, but sedition and
revolutionary insurrection gradually became one major premise for expulsion and
forced exiles, which was applied empire-wide throughout the early nineteenth
century. In the Ottoman context, Greek suspects who were labeled as infidels
because they had taken part in the 1821 Greek War of Independence and because
they allegedly provoked the Greek community in Istanbul, formed a well-known
pretext for this, as they were banished from Istanbul for Anatolia.778
The state officials were in fact cautious to choose whom to expel and whom
to retain when it came to major capitulatory powers. A report of the Ministry of
Police, addressed to the Grand Vizierate in 1891, clearly stated that they could expel
Greek or Iranian nationals, or even Italians who violated public order and peace,
without resorting to the opinions of their respective consulates. However, they had to
be in possession of concrete evidence when it came to charges against other
European nationals, in which cases the consent of the consulates was of primary
importance. If consular authorities did not accept an accusation, diplomatic
negotiations were the only option to resolve the case amicably, albeit with the weight
of capitulations.779
777 BOA AE. SSLM. III 186/11219, 1792; and C.ZB. 19/941, 1792.
778 Ilıcak, “Those Infidel Greeks”: The Greek War of Independence Through Ottoman Archival
Documents, 31 and 53.
779 BOA Y.PRK. ZB. 9/61, 1891.
287
At the beginning of the century, however, it appears that expulsion was more
systematically applied as a state practice. European journalists, in particular, whose
publications were considered detrimental to the Ottoman public, along with many
others, were expelled from the empire under allegations of misconduct or anarchic
plots.780 Especially during the Balkan Wars and WWI, expulsion was considered a
legitimate practice for a sovereign state in order to deport anyone whom they did not
trust under a state of emergency. As supported by the opinions of Ottoman legal
scholars, it was claimed that expulsion was a natural right ascribed by international
law to each state and that there was no established rule in customary laws restricting
their ability to enact this policy.781
Therefore, unlike in earlier periods, throughout the second half of the
nineteenth century expulsion was largely preferred to extradition as a means of
expelling undesirable foreigners. This was not unique to the Ottoman Empire but was
a widespread practice all over Europe at the time. This was mainly because it saved
states from great expenditure and lengthy extradition proceedings. The practice also
provided a feasible and swift solution to cope with the anarchist wave, because the
extradition of political criminals was not a popular option. On the other hand,
whether anarchism was part of political crime or not was still a hotly debated
780 Constantin Spadarian, who attempted against the life of a Russian ex-governor of Caucasia and
escaped to the Ottoman Empire, was expulsed due the security threats his anarchic action created;
BOA HR.SYS. 2775/38, 1904. the Argentinian journalist Carlos Guzman was expulsed as he was
publishing a journal in Italian in Tripoli which was anti-religious and immoral in content. Even though
the government attempted to expulse him according to vagabondage law, the lack of a legal arrest
warrant redirected the blames on his seditious writings. BOA HR.SYS. 1547/5, 1910 and HR.ID.
183/35, 1910.
781 “Her devletin kendi memleketinde haiz olduğu hakimiyete icabet olmağla salim olmayan ecanibi
hudud haricine tard ve tebid hak ve salahiyetine müsellemdir. Hükümet-i seniyyede hukuk-u
umumiye-yi düvelin tececddüd eylediği bu hak ve salahiyete istinaden osmaniyede ikameti menafi-i
hayatiyesine ve huzur ve asayiş-i dahiliyesine mazarri-i kurundan olan eşhası tebid eder. Uhud-u
kadimede hükümet-i seniyyenin bu hakkını tahdid etdiği bir fıkra mevcud değildir.” BOA HR.
HMŞ.İŞO. 6/17, 1912. For the expulsion of journalists during the Balkan Wars; see BOA HR. ID.
175/45, 1912; and 175/46, 1912. During WWI, many Europeans were expulsed without any clear
statement officially made; see, BOA HR.ID. 175/89, and 175/92, 1917.
288
international question, upon which there was still no consensus. Extradition and
expulsion practices as interrelated matters were taken quite seriously for judicial
cooperation globally. In that respect, Tianna Hannappel sees expulsion as a sort of
‘state of exception’, by which nations detached from the formal definitions
designated in the field of international law, practicing expulsion via the international
collaboration of police forces.782
The Institut de Droit International reframed expulsion as a new security
policy, and one that should receive treatment under international law. The institute
was established in September 1873 in Ghent, under the initiative of the Belgian legal
scholar Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns; it brought together various scholars of law, state
officials, and political figures, all of whom with expertise in the field of international
law. Their mission was to advance the deployment of international law in the field of
foreign politics, chiefly in order to respond to urgent problems that were treated on
humanitarian grounds and addressed via the rule of law and the application of the
principle of equal treatment.783 During the meetings that were held successively in
Hamburg in 1891 and Geneva in 1892, the question of expulsion was discussed at
length and in relation to extradition. While the anarchists were another matter for
them, they reserved the right of political asylum for criminals who could be
categorized as political and thus be exempted from expulsion.784
782 Hannappel, “Extradition and Expulsion as Instruments of Transnational Security Regimes against
Anarchism in the Late Nineteenth Century,” 72-73 and 94-95.
783 However, the super-secular, intellectual and egalitarian stance of these people should be addressed
in caution, by taking together their support for the colonization of Africa and advocating Leopold’s
mission civilisatrice in Kongo. Most of their ideals and projections expressed for the advanvement of
international law were deliberately confined to the countries they esteemed as civilized. See, Rygiel,
“Does International Law Matter? The Institute de Droit International and the Regulation of Migrations
before the First World War,” 9-11; and Calvo, Le Droit International Théorique et Pratique, 506.
784 Hannappel, “Extradition and Expulsion as Instruments of Transnational Security Regimes against
Anarchism in the Late Nineteenth Century,” 75-77.
289
However, the policy of expulsion, which was usually free of bureaucratic
impediment and relied upon states consenting, placed the lives of those expelled in
jeopardy. The political criminals who were expelled could be easily tracked
anywhere, arrested and punished by the government in search of them without any
protective measurements as in the case of extradition treaties. Therefore, it became a
common practice in some European countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands,
to banish political criminals only to their homelands, in return they accepted citizens
seeking asylum.785 Others, as in the case of Belgium, France, and Switzerland,
allowed people who were banished to go to the countries they preferred. On rare
occasions, bilateral treaties were signed among the states to regulate the conditions of
expulsion process.786
These were the countries that most of the Ottoman intellectual refugees
chose, and the Ottoman state frequently called for their expulsion. Publications
criticizing the Ottoman state was the primary motive in this. Amongst other powers,
such as France and Belgium, they issued official requests, mostly to the Swiss
government, asking them to expel such figures, who were numerous. Switzerland
was one of the European countries that was amenable, as it considered that disruptive
actions against any state could cause similar problems for peace and order anywhere
in Europe.787 For example, the leading figures of the Young Turks, Ali Fahri and
Abdullah Cevdet, were expelled from the country under similar pretexts. The Swiss
public prosecutor, the court of law, and the police forces worked closely during the
785 Rygiel, “Does International Law Matter? The Institute de Droit International and the Regulation of
Migrations before the First World War,” 18-19.
786 Hannappel, “Extradition and Expulsion as Instruments of Transnational Security Regimes against
Anarchism in the Late Nineteenth Century,” 72.
787 Pro Armenia, 25 July 1901. The newspaper condemned the Swiss government for dishonoring itself
by granting the expulsion of the Young Turks under not well-grounded justifications.
290
whole expulsion process, which proceeded largely under police escort.788 Even
though the Ottoman state had for a long time pursued Mahmud Pasha (Mahmud
Celaleddin Asaf or Damad Mahmud Pasha), following him from Cairo to Marseille,
from Italy to England, before asking them to send him back to the Empire, it was the
Swiss government that warned Mahmud Pasha to reform or else face expulsion from
Switzerland.789
6.3 Armenian Anarchists and the Extradition Question
Like the exiled Ottoman intelligentsia, an expanding communication network
between Ottoman state agents and other states was established to keep an eye on
anarchist suspects. In the 1890s, the Ottoman stance on anarchism became harsher in
tone, lest political rage and violence break out during an already turbulent epoch. The
emergence of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (1890) and the Internal
Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (1893) were two well-known organizations
engaged in anarchic actions and violence. State officials amassed information and
frequently contrived to exert diplomatic influence on other states to encourage them
to expel revolutionists belonging to such organizations or else to advocate for their
extradition to the Empire.790 The Ottoman consulates received notification that
Armenian suspects on the checklist should not be given subjecthood certificates
(tabiiyet şehadetnamesi) to grant them free passage and mobility from one country to
another, by availing themselves of double citizenship (as Ottoman subjects and
788 BOA HR.SYS. 1763/24, 1901; 1802/26, 1901; and Y.A.HUS. 482/27, 1904.
789 Damad Mahmud Pasha was the son-in-law of the Sultan Abdülmecid and the father of princes
Sabahattin and Lütfullah. Together with his sons he first escaped to Europe and Egypt because of their
opposition to the Hamidian rule. During their long stay there, he became an influential figure among
the Young Turks opposition groups. BOA Y.EE. 87/59, 1901; Y.EE. 87/62, 1901; Y.A.HUS. 431/43,
1902; İ.HUS. 94/54, 1902; HR.SFR. 3 513/1, 1902.
790 For some of the examples see: BOA HR.SYS. 2764/20, 1890; 2785/3, 1894; 2856/80, 1895 and
2858/21, 1895.
291
naturalized Europeans).791 The state employed Swiss officers who would physically
hold positions in Ottoman train routes in order to track down Armenian anarchists. 792
They dispatched official notes to each consulate seeking help and consent for
research warrants in the European ships docked at Ottoman harbors. Even though the
consulates did not condone taking responsibility in that matter, they reasoned that the
Ottoman police had the right to search their ships and apprehend suspects if they
could detect their location.793
However, the absence of extradition treaties and the difficulty of extraditing
political criminals, even if you had an official treaty, blocked the empire from
retaining control of anarchism and making legal accusations against anarchists. The
case of Serkis Mosesyan is illustrative in understanding the Ottoman state’s
difficulties in this matter. A native of Trebizond, Serkis Mosesyan was an Armenian
agitator (Ermeni müfsidlerinden) and a revolutionary, as a series of official notes
portrayed him. Accused of being entangled in an Armenian secret society (Ermeni
cemiyet-i hafiyesi), he was running a hotel in Batum, where other Armenian
revolutionaries frequently gathered for seditious plans. Mosesyan was usually
continually travelling between Caucasia to Nahcivan, in order to meet his
companions in those provinces. He had an authorized Ottoman nationality certificate
and received a permit to travel to Russia from the Ottoman Consulate General of
Tiflis. The authorities had been in pursuit of him ever since 1892.794 Repeated
extradition requests from the Ottoman Consulate General of Batum Subhi Bey made
were refused by Count Tatischtcheff, the Governor of Caucasia, due to the absence
of any treaty. The Ottoman officials protested the reply in vain, putting forth the
791 BOA HR.SYS. 2764/19, 1890; 2770/43, and 1894; 2829/23, 1894.
792 BOA HR.TO. 355/94, 1898.
793 BOA HR.SYS. 2801/1, 1896.
794 BOA HR.SYS. 2769/33, 1892; Y.PRK.TKM. 31/3, Mar. 1894, and HR.SYS. 2769/67, Feb. 1894.
292
assertion that they had previously sent back several Russian political suspects to their
homeland. Meanwhile, Mosesyan had already penned a petition to the Caucasian
Governorate to obtain Russian naturalization, further complicating the diplomatic
process.795
As the previous chapter has indicated, diplomatic negotiations with Russia to
deport criminals were always a matter of debate, due to enduring tension at the
borders. Thus, the case of Mosesyan can be easily read in that light too. However,
setting forth a justification for political crime was the burning question that thwarted
all attempts to resolve anarchism. This view usually obscures power politics,
however. Russia offered similar excuses as explanations, even though they were
enthusiastic supporters of the extradition of political criminals. The Russian
government argued that the practice of reciprocity (mükabele-i bil-misl), unique to
their diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire, had no validity in the case of
Mosesyan, as the Russian authorities treated him as a political criminal, and there
was a lack of official proof for the accusation. Thus, the Ottoman proposition to
exchange Mosesyan with Şimavend, a Russian criminal under custody in Merzifon,
became out of the question, what with the procedural difficulties generated by Russia
in order to prove Mosesyan’s guilt.796
This decision was in fact the outcome of pure state politics. On the other
hand, though, political crime also presented many groups who could serve as
scapegoats. In the case of Mosesyan, these were the ecclesiastical community and
renowned Armenians whom Subhi Bey condemned for cultivating such ventures. He
claimed that their interventions and venal attempts to guard the Armenian population
795 BOA Y.PRK. HR.19/14, Apr. 1894; and Y.PR.TKM. 30/68, Mar. 1894.
796 BOA HR.SYS. 2770/13, May 1894; HR.TH. 146/97, Sep. 1894, and 139/40, Mar. 1894; and A.)
MKTM.MHM.718/5, Sep. 1894.
293
exacerbated the endeavors to seize and extradite them.797 The implications of Suphi
Bey reveal a general concern of the Ottoman state, which signaled mistrust against
the high echelons of Armenian clergy at the time. Matthew II İzmirliyan (Mateos
Izmirliyan), who was recently elected as the Patriarch in 1894, was reproached for
his part in the major Armenian incidents. İzmirliyan held that position until 1896,
when he was exiled to Jerusalem due to growing anger and resentment towards his
policies.798 Thus, the selection of his successor, Malachia Ormanian (Mağatya
Ormanyan), seemed to be an aforethought, as Ormanian was considered a political
ally of the Hamidian regime, whose pro-state policies among the circles of the
Armenian community functioned to.799
The Patriarch Ormanian was instructed to bring down the economic power of
Armenian anarchists abroad. The report of a certain Zare Beşiryan, who called
himself the loyal servant of the Sultan, reported this mission of Ormanian in detail.
Ormanian would warn the well-off Armenian community in Russia and Europe not
to hand over their money to the committee members who claimed it on regular basis.
In this respect, he would closely oversee and prevent transfers of money to the
revolutionary parties under the guise of donations. He would likewise inspect the
accounts of Armenian schools, hospitals, and churches, and select personnel
according to their loyalty to the Ottoman state.800
These policies were piecemeal solutions for the problem of anarchism. It was
an international question that required international cooperation. The International
Anti-Anarchist Conference of 1898 was the first occasion when the Ottoman state
was part of the dialogue between states. Ivan Zinoviev, Russian ambassador to
797 Y.MTV. 96/109, Jun.1894.
798 Cankara, “Patrik Mateos İzmirliyan’a Göre II. Abdülhamid’in Politikaları,” 5.
799 Önal, The Tsar’s Armenians: A Minority in Late Imperial Russia, 93.
800 BOA Y.PRK.AZJ. 55/106.
294
Istanbul, conferred a special request to Abdülhamid II, asking to send Ottoman
delegates to the conference in Rome. In his letter, Zinoviev stressed the significance
of the conference in resolving the matter of anarchism. Legal advisors Reşid and
Nuri Hakkı Bey were sent to Rome to attend the meetings.801
As already stated, the conference was decisive in identifying the anarchism
that targeted state leaders and utilized explosive weapons; it established this as an
ordinary crime that should be redressed accordingly. Whereas talks over the
extradition of anarchists did not reach a common consensus, the Ottoman Empire
was among the states that supported Russian and German projects that favored the
extradition and expulsion of anarchists. Reşid and Nuri Hakkı Bey were tenacious in
their demands, to the extent that they further advocated the extradition of criminals
who did not attempt regicide but whose schemes of conspiration were unearthed
before they were put into action. Because the majority did not endorse those
proposals during the conference, the Ottoman Empire later crafted legislation against
anarchism in 1902. Although the Council of Ministers approved the project, the
Grand Vizierate renounced it, invoking the leitmotif that Ottoman criminal law
would be sufficient to sanction anarchism. The reasoning behind this was that they
did not encounter such a wide-scale wave of anarchism in comparison to other parts
of the world.802 In the same year the state refused to attend a similar conference that
was to be held in the United States, espousing similar views. Richard Sylvester, the
801 BOA BEO 1242/93092, Dec. 1898, 1245/93344, Dec.1898; and BOA İ.HUS. 71/4, Dec. 1898. The
tone of his letter revealed the hope of support from the Ottoman Empire on that particular issue: “
İade-i mücrimin komisyonunun içtima-yı ahirinde Rusya sefirinin hükümdaran-ı akdem ile azayı
hanedanlarının hayat ve serbestileri hakkındaki suikasdin cerayim-i siyasi gibi ad olunmaması ve
erbabının iadelerine müsaade olunmak içün işbu ceraimin anarşikliğe müteallik ceraime tatbik
edilmesini teklif eylediğinden bahisle bu babdaki talimat-ı luzumenin sürati itası lüzumuna havi
Roma’da münakıd konferansa memur Reşid ve Nuri Hakkı bey efendiler”
802 Yılmaz, “Conspiracy, International Police Cooperation and the Fight Against Anarchism in the Late
Ottoman Empire, 1878-1908,” 220-221. On the Ottoman participation to the 1898 conference see,
Baktıaya, “19. yy. Sonlarında Anarşist Terör, Toplumun Anarşistlere Karşı Korunması Konferansı
(1898) ve Osmanlı Devleti,” 43-55.
295
President of the National Association of the Chief Police, invited the Ottoman
Empire and many European states to the conference for international cooperation
against anarchism. The Ottoman Empire again stated that anarchism did not have an
international character in their eyes.803
The statement that anarchism was not an international issue in the case of the
Ottoman Empire did not reflect the reality; the Ottoman state was, indeed, well aware
of that fact. Otherwise, they could not have borne the pain of adopting various
measures, which we have seen, and of attending the Rome Conference. Alternatively,
the Consul of New York, Aziz Bey, would not have been given a special mission to
report on Armenian revolutionary groups and secret societies at around the same
time in 1902.804 Thus, there was an apparent contradiction in state discourse and the
policies adopted in practice. İlkay Yılmaz sees this attitude as a calculated move,
signaling a cautious intention to portray anarchism as a matter that was not of
concern to the Ottoman state, by defining it under the category of political crime.805
However, the reluctance shown by some factions to formulate anti-anarchist
legislation should not be overlooked, since the absence of bilateral extradition
treaties posed additional problems for the judicial treatment of anarchist crimes. The
murder case of Apik Uncuyan best sheds light on this.
6.3.1 The Murder of Apik Uncuyan
Apik Uncuyan’s murder by the Hunchakian Party gives us cause to reflect on some
crucial points. In the first place, it is another illustrative case, like the assassination
attempt against the Patriarch Khoren Ashakian, and that against Maksudzade Simon
803 Russia and Italy also did not accept the US invitation. BOA HR.SYS. 56/1, 1902.
804 BOA Y.MTV. 225/81, Jan. 1902.
805 Yılmaz, “Anti-Anarchism and Security Perceptions during the Hamidian Era.”
296
Bey (the president of the Armenian Political Assembly) by the Hunchakian Party in
1894. Like Apik Efendi, these two prominent Armenians became targets of the party
due to the diverging interests of the latter, which, as Varak Ketsemanian argues,
“provides a viable framework for deconstructing the notion of the “Armenian millet”
as a monolithic community.806 The Armenian revolutionary organizations were not
only the foes of the existing regime, but equally represented a faction among their
own people. In the second place, it shows the power of daily politics regarding the
extradition practice.
Apik Uncuyan was a rich Armenian artisan who owned a flour factory at
Göksu and supplied a large portion of Istanbul’s flour and bread production. He and
his brother Matheos were well-known figures who funded the construction of some
Armenian schools and churches in the empire. Apik Efendi was likewise
distinguished among the Armenian community, as he was a member of the
committee that gathered to discuss the affairs related to the Armenian Catholic
community. When he was murdered in 1905, Uncuyan was known for being a
member of the closest circle of Abdulhamid II’s entourage.807 On the other hand, he
was also a controversial character when it came to his political stance. In 1892,
Uncuyan advised the Ottoman state to lure Armenian revolutionaries and win their
loyalty. He suggested pacifying them with money and proposed a general amnesty
for Armenian criminals.808 However, Uncuyan was arrested immediately after the
occupation of the Ottoman Bank in 1896. According to rumors that circulated, he
806 As Ketsemanian shows, there was primarily the aversion the Hunchakian felt towards the Church
policies in this early assassination attempt. On the other hand, Simon Bey’s close relations with the
palace, as similar to Apikian, further motivated their action. Ketsemanian, “The Hunchakian
Revolutionary Party and The Assassination Attempts Against Patriarch Khoren Ashekian and
Maksudzade Simon Bey in 1894,” 736, 739, and
807 See, BOA Y.PRK.ZB. 15/56, 1895; İ.HUS. 16/80, 1893; and Dabağyan, Sultan Abdülhamit ve
Ermeniler, 2001.
808 BOA Y.PRK.ZB 11/75, 1892.
297
was affiliated with the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. Due to the indictments
brought against him for stashing weapons in a church and school under his
administration, in order to supply them during the raid, Uncuyan was condemned to
three years’ imprisonment. This judgment was soon to be abated, but only by dint of
his deteriorating state of health.809
The shifting alliance of Uncuyan to the Hamidian regime in the aftermath of
this incident gives the strong impression that his conviction following the events of
1896 obliged him to support Abdulhamid II for good. This was exactly the reason
why he was killed by the order of Hunchakian Party, for he was refusing to provide
the party with financial aid for their cause. Ohannes Avreyan spied upon the house of
Uncuyan at Kadıkoy for a couple of weeks; he eventually killed him at Galata. Soon
arrested by the Ottoman police, he was sentenced to death and summarily executed.
However, this was not a common crime case; rather, it was an organized conspiracy
in which Avreyan had acted as a hitman, fulfilling orders coming from above. There
were other accomplices, Karabet Vartanyan, Stepan Serope, and Levon Kirişciyan,
all of whom receiving the same penalty as Avreyan. As with the debates explored in
Chapter 4, the US legation claimed that they were all naturalized Americans. Since
there was no progress on this issue yet, both the US and Ottoman governments stuck
with their earlier position regarding the 1874 Treaty, which excluded political
criminals, remaining silent on the matter of anarchism.810
These are debates I will not delve into all over again. Suffice to say, the
agitation and fear palpable by dint of anarchic fervor drove the Ottoman state to
resort to every diplomatic means possible, in order to track down anarchists and
809 BOA Y.A.RES. 83/18, Sep. 1896; A.MKT.MHM. 630/5, Sep. 1896; and Y.PRK.AZN. 17/2, Nov.
1896.
810 BOA Y.MTV. 278/73, Sep. 1905; Y.A.HUS. 493/1, Sep. 1905; HR.SYS. 2841/35, Dec. 1905.
298
enact their deportation. Rumors abounded, namely that they were plotting an
assassination against the Sultan too. Karabet Vartanyan and Stepan Serope were soon
arrested, whereas the journalist Levon Kirişciyan was still on the lam; Ottoman
agents chased him from Egypt to New York and Paris until late 1908. Ottoman
diplomacy was such a success that the US authorities had to acknowledge the case as
a common threat on a global scale. The New York Police Department officially
assured the Ottoman consulate, stating that they had “set to work to blow the whole
community by extraditing them.”811 They intended to arrest and extradite Kirişçiyan,
as they ultimately found out his whereabouts. However, he somehow managed to
escape to Paris, and the case was soon dropped when the Ottoman justice acquitted
him of all charges due to lack of evidence.812
811 BOA HR.TH. 365/70, May 1908.
812 BOA HR. SYS. 2787/7, Nov. 1907; DH.MKT. 1251/59, May 1908; DH.TMIK.M. 269/7, May 1908;
and HR.TH. 364/99, Jun. 1908.
299
Figure 10. Levon Kirişçiyan (Leon Larents), left, and his brother, right.813
On the other hand, the efforts of the US Police Department were of no
surprise in that respect; the death of President McKinley in 1901 was still present in
popular memory, similar to the failed 1905 attempt at the Yıldız Palace. However,
this murder case testifies to Abdulhamid II’s deep fears of complots, which quickly
became a matter of international security. Despite the differences in opinion among
state authorities regarding how to develop a legislative base to deal with anarchism,
the Sultan’s obsession ultimately dragooned the Foreign Ministry into bilateral
treaties so as to find a more immediate remedy. In March 1908, the Office of Legal
Counsel, working on a tentative extradition project with the European states,
speculated on how to frame political crimes under that treaty. Mainly speaking of the
813 BOA HR. SYS. 2787/7, Nov. 1907.
300
Ottoman journalists accused of defamatory publications (neşriyât-ı muzırra çıkaran),
and of the others engaged in plot and treachery (ihânete cüret eden) abroad, legal
advisors reasoned that ad-hoc diplomacy based on mutual trust should be applied in
such cases. Otherwise, the matter would effectively lead to a dead end of sorts, since
political crime could not be included in bilateral extradition treaties.814
Under those principles, the Ottoman Empire and Russia drafted regulations
against anarchism and revolutionary action in the following month. What is most
striking about that project was that it manifested the shared fears of Abdulhamid II
and the Russian Emperor. Anarchism already characterized the political agenda of
the time, on a global scale. It was even more so in the case of Russia, which had
valid cause for concern, as the ARF (Armenian Revolutionary Federation) had its
origins there. Being composed of six articles, the gist of the draft was mainly about
preventing and punishing assassination attempts against the state leaders and
extraditing their perpetrators. In that respect, it differed from other extradition
treaties. That project planned to establish of special bureaus inside the Ministry of
Interior of each state, which would be responsible for the flow of communication
conducted in secrecy. This communication would be enacted directly and without
delay. The border authorities, military, police forces, and civilians would be all ready
to control these people and the transfer of explosives.815
As a final point, Uncuyan’s case once more proves that political crime,
whether anarchic and violent or purely political, if working against the detriment of
the state’s prestige in the international arena, was in essence an issue of friends
versus foes. The foes of the Hamidian regime became the allies of the CUP
administration, soon after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. Though already
814 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 7/40, Mar. 1908.
815 BOA Y.PRK. HR. 36/12, Apr. 1908.
301
absolved of all charges just a month previously, Levon Kirişciyan’s return to Istanbul
and his pursual of a journalistic career resulted from that policy.816 This was the
continuation of the Hamidian strategy, but under different motives. Abdulhamid II
set out to win its foes via system of rewards, essentially, whereas the CUP provided
them with the political environment they had longed for and inspired a sense of
belonging. However, it should not be forgotten that foes and friends can switch
places in a moment. Thus, the CUP regime did not hesitate to reconsider its
allegiance to the foes of the ancien régime.
816 Leon Kirişçiyan (1875-1915) was a graduate of the Robert College who went to the United States
for political reasons and became naturalized American there as Levon Larents. Active member of the
Hunchakian Party, he lived in Egypt and Athens for a while before returning to Istanbul. Kiriçiyan
was also known with his translation of Quran into Armenian from an English edition among other
translations on French Revolution. He worked as the editor of the journal Tsayn Hayreneats (Voice of
the Fatherland) in Istanbul until 1910. The friend of the new political stystem, he was soon labeled as
among its foes and killed during the 1915 deportation. See Matiossian, “Armenian Printing in
America (1857-1912), 26; and Koptaş, “1915’in Robert Kolejli Kurbanları,”
https://www.agos.com.tr/tr/yazi/4908/1915in-robert-kolejli-kurbanlari
302
Figure 11. The CUP cadre evaluating suitable candidates for the new regime:
“-Were you arrested, exiled, or executed under the ancien régime, my
child?
-No, sir.
-Did you escape to Europe, even if it was for travel?
-No, sir.
-Then, with what title I will promote you?”817
817 Kalem, 18 Mar. 1909: “-Vaktiyle tevkif, nefy filan edildiniz mi? Jurnal olundunuz mu idi yahud
Avrupa’ya gitmiş mi idiniz velev seyahat maksadıyla olsun? -Hayır efendim. -O halde ne sıfatla
nazıra tavsiye edeyim be adam?”
303
6.4 1919-1920 Istanbul Trials and the Extradition of the CUP Leaders
The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) was sanguine about their mission
when the party claimed its place on the Ottoman political stage during the 1908
Young Turk Revolution. Their message was clear and firm: assemble the parliament
and reintroduce the 1876 Constitution. In 1907, the party united with the Ottoman
Freedom Society (Osmanlı Hürriyet Cemiyeti) that was largely formed by the state
officials new in their careers and civil servants of middle rank. They worked in
cooperation and loudly proclaimed the party manifesto to their public, especially in
parts of Macedonia and Albania. They preached to Muslims, Christians, and to the
whole population in the Empire, with a discourse uniquely tailored to each.818 They
heralded a political system that uprooted anything reminiscent of the autocracy of
Abdulhamid II, instigating a representative democracy supported by the emblematic
slogans of the French Revolution. As Eric J. Zürcher recounts:
The popular reaction was euphoric. There was a strong feeling that something
quite fundamental had changed – that it was, in fact, a revolution. Masses of
people filled the streets in the towns and cities of European Turkey and
Western Anatolia. There was public fraternization between members of the
different religious communities and armed Bulgarian, Albanian and Serb
bands came down from the hills to take part in the celebrations. The main
Armenian organizations took an active part in the celebrations. The slogan
that was propagated by the CUP and that was visible everywhere in these
days, was ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and Justice’. 819
Nevertheless, the buoyant mood of the time would soon revert to a political
atmosphere no different to that under Hamidian rule, an authoritarian tendency
818 Hanioğlu argues that the messages they addressed to each audience were incompatible. Hanioğlu,
Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902-1908, 237 and 240-242; Çiçek, “Myth of the
Unionist triumvirate: the formation of the CUP factions and their impact in Syria during the Great
War,” 8-10. There is an entangled historical context of how the CUP rose in power. However, here is
not the place to introduce that background.
819 Zürcher, “The Young Turk revolution: comparisons and connections,” 484.
304
visible in the warring factions of leading party members and in the party policy,
which was gradually fed by ethnic nationalism. These factions were represented
mainly by a triumvirate of members of the party: namely, Enver, Cemal, and Talat
Pashas. After the 1913 coup d’état, also known as the “Raid on the Sublime Porte”
(Bab-ı Ali Baskını), the CUP took control over the government and clung to a more
militaristic line of vision in state policies. They never managed to separate party
politics from government administration fully; this emerged due to the ongoing war
campaigns in the Balkans, Italy, and lastly in the Great War. The difference was that
the CUP now united around shared ideals but opted for these at the cost of violent
repression.820
In this light, the 1915 Armenian genocide, marked by forced deportations and
the killings of many, was the climax of calculated state policies that had been
operating for quite some while.821 The Armenian revolutionaries who walked arm in
arm with the CUP celebrated their 1908 victory together and were welcomed back
from exile or underground, as in the case of Kirişçiyan. Nevertheless, they were now
the prime target of social engineering; the CUP’s actions were not limited to that,
either. They were blamed for causing unrest in different parts of the Empire and
faced various charges of corruption. When the Central Powers were defeated and the
CUP was held responsible for the cost of war, the party was abolished in November
1918 and the party leaders escaped from the country. The propaganda campaign
orchestrated by the Istanbul press put the party organization under scrutiny. The
820 Ahmad, The Young Turks, 160-163.
821 The CUP planned a similar deportation plan against the Greek population in late 1914 and partially
implemented it into action. Only the harsh criticism by the Europeans, especially France, forced them
to step back to pursue that policy. The death toll and deportation were/are a matter of speculation
among many people, ranging from 200.000 to 500.000. On the other hand, Akçam evaluates the
Armenian genocide as the offshoot of WWI in operation, whereas the seeds of those policies were
planted long before. See Akçam, From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism & the Armenian
Genocide, 144-147 and 150.
305
horrible face of systematic deportation and regional violence starkly came to light
with military court trials that started in December 1918 and lasted until the first
months of 1920.822
It was during the same period that the occupation of Istanbul by the allied
powers took place, after the Moundros Armistice was signed in October. The allied
powers were equally influential in determining the trials' direction. In the 1919 Paris
Peace Conference in January, the delegates described the 1915 events as a "crime
against humanity." Raymond Kévorkian indicates that this was the first time this
notion had entered judicial terminology. The accusation had a legitimate basis, as
was established by their arguments regarding the 1907 Hague Convention, which
inspected the armed conflicts from various vantage points.823 Although the major
European powers, particularly England, demanded a joint trial presided over by their
own officials, the Ottoman government remained firm in its demands for an
independent court proceeding. 824 However, the Ottoman military court likewise
adopted a particular discourse during the prosecutions and underlined the atrocities
committed, labeling the CUP’s actions as crimes against humanity.825
The CUP was condemned for carrying out massacres on Armenian and Greek
populations in the empire, undermining constitutional principles, and unjust profitmaking
during the war. In late 1919, many were penalized with imprisonment, while
822 More than 60 trials were held in Istanbul and lasted even during the first years of the Republican
period. See Turan, Öztan, “Mütareke Dönemi’nde İlk Tehcir Tartışmaları ve Divân-ı Harb-i Örfî
Yargılamaları,” 473-75 and 480; Kevorkian, The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History, 775-798.
For the court proceedings of the trials; see Dadrian and Akçam, Tehcir ve Taktil: Divan-ı Harb-i Örfi
Zabıtları.
823 Kevorkian, The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History, 775-798, 763-764.
824 England ultimately managed to transfer many accused whom the Ottoman courts released under
pending trial to Malta. They were afraid that those people would be acquitted of all charges. Thus,
their deportation to Malta would give the British court to try them as it should be. Kevorkian, The
Armenian Genocide: A Complete History, 770-771.
825 “Kanun-u insaniyete karşı ikâ edilen cerâim.” Dadrian, Akçam, “Techir ve Taktil”: Divan-ı Örf-i
Harbi Zabıtları, 5.
306
eighteen were sentenced to death. The Minister of War Enver Pasha, the Minister of
Marine Cemal Pasha, the Grand Vizier Talat Pasha, the Minister of Education Doctor
Nazım, the governors Cemal Azmi and Bedri Bey, and a prominent member of the
party, Doctor Bahaeddin Şakir, were among the last group for whom the court
judgment was proclaimed in absentia, as they had already fled to Germany. They
were denounced for misfeasance in public office and for forming a micropower in
the government that acted independently of the state administration. Further to that,
their property was confiscated, and they were expatriated from the Ottoman
nationality.826
Before these judgments were issued, the Ottoman state spent months calling
for the extradition of the CUP leaders from Germany. The two governments signed a
bilateral extradition treaty that entered into force on 10 July 1918. Composed of
thirty articles, the treaty was full of procedural details, mainly mirroring the 1879
Code of Criminal Procedure. This contract was the result of wartime alliances and
amities in both states’ diplomatic relations. Besides the extradition treaty, they also
signed nine other agreements covering the consular institutions, the colonies of both
powers, sea and border security regulations, and so on.827
In November 1918, the Ottoman state demanded the extradition of the CUP
leaders per Articles 10 and 12 of the treaty, which all concerned the procedural steps
regarding arrest warrants and the legal verdicts of the Ottoman penal codes, which
the judgments of Istanbul military court established. From the outset, Germany
agreed to their extradition, weighing the severity of their crimes, but stipulated that
826 “Hükümet içinde bir hükümet vaziyeti ihtisab ederek kuvve-i vasiasına istinaden fecai-yi azime
irtikabâtında bulunan İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyetinin Merkez-i Umumi azasından oldukları
iddiasıyla…” 4. Muhakeme, 12 Haziran 1335 (12 Jun. 1919). Dadrian, Akçam, “Techir ve Taktil”:
Divan-ı Örf-i Harbi Zabıtları, 530 and 596.
827 For the Ottoman and French version of the treaty, see BOA HR.HMŞ.İŞO. 155/10.
307
the crimes must be documented by solid evidence proving their guilt and supported
by testimonies from witnesses.828
However, Germany soon sidestepped the extradition issue with the case of
Talat Pasha. The Ottoman state condemned Talat Pasha as the main perpetrator
behind the deportation and abuse of power against Armenians and Greeks, whose
offenses were not limited to that but included exploitation and accumulation of state
wealth.829 They referred to Article 3 of the treaty which stated that the person who
was charged with crimes that dishonored their country and acted against moral
standards should be extradited under the penal regulations of the demanding country.
Nevertheless, the German government did not believe that Talat Pasha encouraged
“such brutal savagery.” Neither did they believe the accusations regarding the
embezzlement of treasury. Even if the last point had some truth in it, they would
consider it a political crime. This had no legal reasoning at all.830
On the other hand, Cemal Azmi Bey, the former government of Trebizond,
and Doctor Bahaeddin Shakir should, according to Article 5, be extradited, as it
underscored the extradition of the people who infringed on state security and
damaged the fiscal prestige of the Empire. Cemal Azmi Bey was further accused of
providing machine guns, pillaging the Armenian properties, and carrying out
deportation policies. On the other hand, Doctor Bahaeddin Shakir was similarly
charged for attacking the Armenian villages and organizing these raids with the aid
of the Kurdish population in the region. All those were serious crimes, clearly stated
in the Ottoman penal codes and corresponding to German criminal law at the same
828 BOA HR.SYS. 2320/7, Nov. 1918.
829 Akçam, A Shameful Act, 186-187.
830 BOA HR.SYS. 2321/1, Nov. 1918.
308
time. Similar accusations against Cemal Pasha, Bedri Bey, and Doctor Nazım were
also reported in the relevant extradition documents.831
Rıfat Bey, the diplomatic agent employed in Berlin Embassy of the Ottoman
Empire, regularly reported on the whereabouts of these fugitives. For instance,
Doctor Nazım and Bahaeddin Shakir occasionally frequented a restaurant near
Munich, while Cemal Pasha lived close to a place famous for its cherry gardens
under the pseudonym Halid. All of them carried fake passports, which allowed the
German police and authorities to claim that they could not trace the CUP leaders.
Rıfat Bey concluded that the fugitives met with sympathy among some German
authorities, who were not willing to betray their former allies.832 Thus, none of them
were extradited to the Ottoman government, diplomatic failure and hypocrisy
remaining ever prevalent in international relations. At a time when organized state
violence and massacres were articulated as crimes against humanity for the first time,
Germany, the war-ally of the Ottoman Empire, deviated from new norms of
international law under the implausible pretext of political crime. Whereas the
anarchist actions could be legitimated under the argument that they had a manifesto
and cause, essentially that of an ideal state system, the massacres of a population
could not be justified as crime instigated by political motives. Daily politics once
more overshadowed the extradition practice. In the meantime, England, as the rival
power, strived for the punishment of CUP organization at full force. These fugitives
who escaped the Ottoman justice in Berlin became targets of vengeance. They were
all assassinated by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation in the following years,
except for Enver Pasha.833 The latter was killed in August 1922 during the Basmachi
831 BOA HR.SYS. 2320/7, 12 March 1919.
832 BOA HR.SYS. 2320/7, Apr. 1919.
833 See Bogossian, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide.
309
Revolt that was organized by the Muslim populations to protest against Russian
rule.834
6.5 Conclusion
This chapter gave a brief synopsis of political crime and its place in the international
extradition practice. It adopted a comparative lens that focused chiefly on nineteenthcentury
Europe and the Ottoman Empire, so as to grasp the conceptual and historical
evolution of political crime. In that respect, the Ottoman context for this subject has
been placed within an analytical framework.
Before the nineteenth century, political crime was associated with lèsemajesté,
namely the murder of rulers, which was the method most commonly used by
factions within the ruling system in order to avenge their enemies. Back then,
political asylum was a right granted to people who escaped to other states for fear of
persecution on religious grounds. Political crime was not treated differently from
ordinary crimes in terms of punishment; harsh measures were taken against its
perpetrators. Extradition was among the practices deployed if the criminal escaped to
another state and was not put under trial there.
By the nineteenth century, political crime was revisited due to crucial
historical developments. The French Revolution was the milestone event that directly
raised the question of political crime and re-cast it into the arena of state politics. The
revolutionary spirit, which manifested itself in the rise of liberal political thought,
resulted in a culture of public protest and the pre-eminence of the notion of civil
society. The ensuing revolutionary waves encouraged states to provide political
asylum to those who participated in public protests and nationalist movements. The
834 Yılmaz, “An Ottoman Warrior Abroad: Enver Pasha as an expatriate,” 61.
310
idea behind that motive was that they were reacting against state authorities to
achieve social transformation. Thus, political crime was held as a non-extraditable
offense. European states gradually followed one another, signing bilateral extradition
treaties that excluded political crime.
Nevertheless, the tendency of anarchism towards violence as another longterm
facet of the French Revolution compelled the same powers to step back and
take coercive measures, conduct surveillance, and establish interstate judicial
policing against the anarchists. The explosives weapon that the anarchists employed
for their successive regicide attempts and their motto “propaganda by deed”
generated endless debates on how to distinguish between political crime and
anarchism. The motives behind the crime as an action were evaluated by
anthropologists, criminals, and legal scholars, all at length. The 1898 Rome
Conference and 1904 St. Petersburg Protocol were outcomes of the efforts to
establish a common consensus on political crime, anarchism, and extradition. The
Ottoman Empire was a participant in this too. It turned out that each state positioned
itself according to its own public opinion, juridical operations, and political culture
on asylum rights, whilst also seriously considering the matter of the extradition of
anarchists. As states did not come to an accord on the terms surrounding extradition,
they favored expulsion and ad-hoc negotiations in urgent cases.
The second part of this chapter addressed the Ottoman part in this episode of
history. The 1848 Hungarian refugee crisis was the first truly transnational problem,
dragging the Empire into foreign politics. That incident revealed the ineptitude of the
Ottoman state in utilizing international law to formulate diplomatic policy on asylum
rights, particularly in the case of the extradition of Lajos Kossuth and his entourage.
311
They instead took counsel from England and France while maintaining a policy of
balance with Russia and Austria.
In the second half of the century, the assassination attempts against the
Sultans and the anarchic wave compelled the state to follow established policies. The
establishment of law schools and the emergence of legal scholars advanced this, and
elaborate arguments were articulated on these issues. At the same time, the Hamidian
regime maintained strict surveillance of Armenian and Macedonian revolutionaries
and closely monitored exiled Ottoman intellectuals. State officials tried to pacify
these groups with admonitions, threats, and pay-offs, to guarantee a general amnesty
at home. All these policies were granted in return for complete obedience and loyalty
to the Sultan. On the other hand, the Ottoman state occasionally resorted to foreign
collaboration in the expulsion and extradition of these people. They were eager to
legitimize and officialize the extradition of anarchists in the 1898 conference.
Besides, the state went to great length to extradite anarchists, especially in applying
bilateral negotiations. The murder case of Apik Uncuyan and the Russo-Ottoman
accord against anarchists are exemplars.
This chapter demonstrated that the policies toward anarchic activities were
closely relevant to security concerns. Even though the states upheld their positions
according to judicial operation and political culture in the international arena,
extradition and expulsion were opted for at will if they felt their power of control was
at stake. The failures of international conferences showed that diplomacy was all
about power politics. However, the states always favored practical solutions to
anarchism that achieved international collaboration.
This chapter also shows that political crime, whether related to anarchism or
nationalist uprisings or social protests, was always about friends and foes. The
312
shifting allegiances turned foes into friends, and vice versa, over time. The rise in
power of the CUP and their changing policies regarding the Armenian population are
illustrative of this. The outcry for representative democracy ended in an autocratic
regime whose “crime against humanity” became the leitmotiv underlying the
extradition demands from Germany.
313
CHAPTER 7
EPILOGUE
The Turkish nation, continually deprived of the benefits of peace, realized the
inadequacy and fruitlessness of its ceaseless peaceful efforts to obtain equity
and justice, and understanding that no other hope of salvation remained to it,
it has succeeded in defending its existence by its own moral and material
resources. In this course it has endured sufferings and has made innumerable
sacrifices which have been sympathetically witnessed by free nations.835
States necessarily stand at the intersections between domestic sociopolitical
orders and the transnational relations within which they must maneuver for
survival and advantage in relation to other states. The modern state as we
know it, has always been, since its birth in European history, part of a system
of competing and mutually involved states.836
This dissertation explored the issue of extradition in the international legal practice
of the Ottoman Empire. As such, it contributes to the existing literature on the
Ottoman legal studies with a diplomatically legal subject not investigated before.
This practice, regulating the rendition of the criminals between the states, introduced
a new dimension to the nature of Ottoman international relations that have been
treated under different lights in recent years. Addressing transnational crime and
criminal mobility in the rapidly changing nineteenth-century world politics is equally
worthy of analysis in the Ottoman context with respect to wars waged and frequently
arising conflicts, changing borders, and constant population movements in its last
century. The atmosphere under change required new security measures and resulted
in shifting legal allegiances in Ottoman territories. The dialogues of/on extradition
among the Ottoman bureaucracy showed how a single legal concept and diplomatic
practice became a protean question in Ottoman politics.
835 The statement of İsmet Pasha during the initial session of Lausanne Conference held on November
20, 1922. Lausanne Conference on Near Eastern Affairs 1922-1923, 4.
836 Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research,” 8.
314
For these reasons, this dissertation approached the practice of extradition
through a comprehensive account of the Ottoman political background. It followed a
chronological and thematic outline, with each chapter focusing on a particular
historical episode concerning the practice of extradition. By using a comparative
framework, this study enabled me to illustrate better how the political and social
milieu of the time directly influenced the course of extradition negotiations. Chapter
1 explored the historical evolution of the practice of criminal exchange by focusing
on the European account of the issue. As extradition could not be treated outside of
foreign relations, the rest of this study is contextualized within the axis of Ottoman-
European/American relations.
Even though bilateral diplomatic treaties usually guaranteed extradition in the
context of international law, judicial incompatibility and contest of power on the
international political stage frequently suspended the success of efficient
communication. The treatment of extradition in the Ottoman example becomes
further complicated since the capitulations hampered the possibility of a treaty
agreement from the very outset. The consular system in the empire already warded
off the principle of territorial jurisdiction, thus overlooking the need to ask for
foreign fugitives. Conversely, the state had to resort to diplomatic medium for the
Ottomans that had fled the country. Therefore, this dissertation made another
valuable contribution to the Ottoman legal and diplomatic studies by exploring the
territoriality of law and sovereignty issues in light of the question of extradition. In
the absence of treaties, the issue of extradition was always confronted to the question
of the Empire’s jurisdictional rights and legal autonomy. In this way, this dissertation
revisited the capitulations and the myth of extraterritoriality by inquiring its
application in daily politics and its resonance in Ottoman state discourse. An
315
archeology of the reports produced by the Foreign Ministry and its Office of Legal
Counsel provided invaluable material, most of which still awaits to be explored.
Accordingly, this study propounded the argument that Ottoman legal studies
could be read beyond the predicaments of the capitulation in many ways. I argued
that the capitulations lost their power proportionally to the rise of Ottoman domestic
legislative efforts. Chapter 2 showed how the Ottoman and Italian states successfully
collaborated against a transnational network of kaime forgers without extradition
treaties. The increasing power of Ottoman penal codes and engagement in
international law became decisive to assert a determinant political stance in foreign
relations. The enactment of the 1879 Procedural codes, as encapsulated in Chapter 5,
further revealed the unease the European consulates felt due to these developments,
which restrained the jurisdictional privileges they had enjoyed so far.
The Ottoman law in the making was an interactive process that witnessed the
interplay of many actors, as this study illustrated. Ottoman diplomatic agents and
legal advisors had as much impact on this process as the European influence on
codification efforts. If we are to speak of a figure of the Tanzimat statesman, the
portrayal of Ottoman officials, such as Rüstem Pasha, Aristarchi Bey, İbrahim Hakkı
Pasha, Gabriel Noradunghian Efendi, who were equally competent in law,
diplomacy, and various state matters, could represent them best. Their tact and
diplomacy in international disputes of a legal character formed the backbone of this
study, as becomes evident in their poise and arguments revealed in each chapter. In
this respect, this study also showed, particularly in Chapter 4, how law as a written
code emblematic of the rule of law could not be interpreted independently of the
agency of such figures.
316
Can what we call modern be considered Western at the same time? This
study’s answer is no, especially regarding the evolution of legal practice in the
Empire. It showed how modernization does not have to be restrictedly related to
Westernization and can succeed on its own means with equal competency. As
narrated so far, the Ottoman legal reforms and advancement of international law
were as much the outcome of appropriation from Europe as of domestic policies.
Inasmuch that the pace of legal transformation frequently attracted reactions from
Europe while it steadily continued to move on its own path, despite serious setbacks
faced in the meantime. The capitulations were always present, frequently as an
obstacle to Ottoman legal autonomy. However, the gains and achievements in
legislative efforts and diplomatic missions were a long way off from undervaluing
them.
The time frame of this dissertation ends in the 1910s. It is a deliberate
choice as the escalating tensions among the states on the brink of war suspended all
negotiations on extradition. In July 1914, the advent of war altered the balance in
diplomacy as well. The machtpolitik of WWI changed the rules of the game in
foreign relations for a while; the states’ sovereignty was at stake as the destructive
force of war reigned over. The terms of the Treaties of Paris and Berlin were
officially annulled.837 Then how can we probe into the post-Ottoman world
considering the Ottoman legacy, as regards the achievements and experiences for
jurisdictional rights and the idea of sovereignty?
The concept of sovereignty is founded on the notion that the states in the past,
or the nation-states in the contemporary world, stand in equality to one another,
which, in turn, justifies their claims of sovereignty on the international stage.
837 The Office of Legal Counsel prepared a lengthy report speculating on the cost and gains of these
treaty relations in nineteenth-century Ottoman politics. See BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 65/11.
317
Therefore, the set of rules that formulated international law become legitimate only if
they are confided in the consent of each sovereign state.838 Foreign policy and how it
is conducted through diplomacy are the components of this international game. In the
words of Robert Jackson, “sovereignty is the right to sail the metaphorical ship of
state on the open oceans regulated by international law without being told where to
head but only how to proceed.”839
In the midst of ongoing turmoil, however, international law was put aside
everywhere, as in the Ottoman Empire. The discipline itself had to undergo a
paradigmatic shift by adopting a pragmatic line of discourse that suited the political
needs of the time. The states tried to reconcile on the international arena, where solid
nationalist incentives rather than international collaboration prevailed.840 Genell
argues that “war had achieved what law ultimately failed to do, namely preserve the
state.”841
Meanwhile, the CUP government sent a memorandum to the consulates
declaring that they would unilaterally abrogate the capitulations and privileges that
accompanied this system by October 1914. The consulates lost no time protesting
against the decision and repudiating it as they were not consulted to nullify the
centuries-long structure established on mutual grounds.842 As a response, the Office
of Legal Counsel crafted an official report upholding their rights to denounce such a
“menace” to their system. The report sent to the Grand Vizier Said Halim Pasha laid
stress on the exceptional character of the capitulations as standing in stark contrast to
the notion of territorial sovereignty. They claimed that the jurisdictional clauses were
838 Jackson, “Sovereignty – Modern: A New Approach to an Outdated Concept,” 782.
839 Jackson, Quasi States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World, 39.
840 Özsu, Formalizing Displacement: International Law and Population Transfers, 35.
841 Genell, “The Well-Defended Domains: Eurocentric International Law and the Making of the
Ottoman Office of Legal Counsel,” 258.
842 BOA HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 5/27; 72/11; 72/15; and HR.SYS. 2276/50.
318
restrictedly interpreted until now. The denial of the consulates to respect the Ottoman
state’s resolution on this occasion portrayed the empire as a power that did not hold
the same rights as the others to abolish international acts on their own initiative. It
was not an acceptable stance, as they underscored, considering the notable progress
in the Ottoman commercial, administrative, and judicial system.843
Even though Germany and Austria were among the powers that rejected the
abrogation of the capitulations initially, they soon renounced those concessions as
wartime allies.844 A series of treaties on amity, on the consular system, and on
extradition were signed with them in 1917 and 1918.845 In the meantime, Germany
guaranteed to protect the interests of Ottoman subjects in Venezuela, whose rights
formerly were under French care since 1913. Likewise, Holland took care of
Ottoman interests in China and Greece, and the Swiss government did the same in
Australia.846
Nevertheless, worse was to come. WWI ended with the defeat of the Central
Powers, one of which was the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman government was put
into a vulnerable position in the aftermath of the war, with European plans to
partition the Empire’s territories and the gradual wane of the imperial power.
Istanbul remained under Allied occupation until 1923.847 During the occupation, the
Allied powers reopened the consular courts. The ongoing pressure from the latter
compelled the Ottoman government to temporarily establish a Mixed Council of
843 BOA HR. SYS. 2276/22.
844 Thayer, “The Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire and the Question of their Abrogation as it
Affects the United States,” 228.
845 For the treaty with Austria, See: BOA HR.SYS. 2282/4. For the treaty with Germany, See: BOA
HR.HMŞ.İŞO. 155/10. For the treaty text in Ottoman Turkish, see: Appendix A.
846 BOA HR. SYS. 77/35; 2092/10; and 2208/11.
847 For a historical account of the Ottoman and Turkish politics covering the decade after the end of
WWI see Zürcher, “The Ottoman Empire and the Armistice of Moudros,” 266-275; Karčić, “Sèvres at
100: The Peace Treaty that Partitioned the Ottoman Empire,” 470-479; and Criss, Istanbul Under
Allied Occupation, 1918-1923.
319
Justice (Muvakkat Muhtelit Encümen-i Adliyye).848 At first, this development could
be seen as a bounce back from a century-long Ottoman struggle against jurisdictional
constraints. However, Joseph MacArthur-Seal argued that this process was not a
complete success for the occupying powers, as the new legal structure in operation
was a combination of “sophisticated Ottoman legal system combining continental
and Islamic law.”849
On the other hand, similar politics played over non-Muslim Ottoman
communities continued with a different phase. The political phrasing of minority
rights was the legacy of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference organized to settle the
disputes in the aftermath of the war. The dialogues started in complete bona fide to
prevent rage and bias toward religious denominations and ethnic communities in the
post-war nation-states that were carved out of the old imperial powers. However, the
political agenda of the League of Nations was transmuted into a similar course to the
capitulatory system soon.850 Laura Robson shows how the new dynamics of
intervention worked for the remapped Anatolia and Eastern Europe under the pretext
of minority protection. She argues that this stance, especially the policies adopted by
British and French states, resembled the capitulatory system in the application with
the slight difference that “the capitulations had operated in a context of potential (and
often actual) military action” whereas “the minority treaties could normally threaten
little more than a strongly worded letter.”851
However, Heather Sharkey, who likewise focuses on minority construction in
the post-war Ottoman regions, evaluates the role of the League of Nations in that
848 MacArthur-Seal, “Resurrecting Legal Extraterritoriality in Occupied Istanbul, 1918-1929,” 777.
849 MacArthur-Seal, “Resurrecting Legal Extraterritoriality in Occupied Istanbul, 1918-1929,” 770.
850 Robson, “Capitulations Redux: The Imperial Genealogy of the Post-World War I ‘Minority’
Regimes,” 979-980.
851 Robson, “Capitulations Redux: The Imperial Genealogy of the Post-World War I ‘Minority’
Regimes,” 996.
320
process as exaggerated. She acknowledges that a minority regime came out of the
legacy of the Ottoman millet system, albeit in a distinct form. Whereas the concept
of millet designated the state relations toward the non-Muslim communities of the
empire, predominantly the Christian and Jewish populations, the minority regime of
the 1920s encapsulated diverse Muslim and non-Muslim groups alike, which were
classified according to their numbers in the territories they settled and their political
status in the eyes of the Turkish state. She asserts that the minority regime was as
much the outcome of the local dynamics as it also pertained to foreign
considerations.852
The questions of legal belonging and all the international disputes
concomitant to this issue pursued a similar track only in the course of changing
political trajectories of the time. Whereas similar rights of the capitulatory system
were claimed over minority groups as in the case of Ottoman Armenians a few
decades ago, this was only to the extent of where the states’ interest in question
stood. For example, Sarah Stein, who defines the European humanitarian policies as
forming a “symbiosis with colonialism” in her Extraterritorial Dreams; reveals
another side of this story. According to her account, the Ottoman Jewish population,
former official subjects of the empire, had to contest to obtain citizenship rights in
different parts of Europe. Unlike the European stance that fostered a caring attitude
for the minorities in the post-Ottoman regions, Stein shows how the Jews had to
undergo unpleasant experiences and hardship to receive a similar treatment in
Europe, thus posing critical questions on the meaning of official belonging and
citizenship.853
852 Sharkey, “History Rymes? Late Ottoman Millets and Post-Ottoman Minorities in the Middle East,”
761-764.
853 Stein, Extraterritorial Dreams: Citizenship, Sephardi Jews, and the Ottoman Twentieth Century,
95.
321
Therefore, if we turn back to the words of İsmet İnönü at the beginning of this
Epilogue,854 we can quickly realize that the tone of remonstration in İnönü’s
statement was still intrinsic to the Ottoman experience. It is highly reminiscent of the
Ottoman state’s constant struggles against capitulations and what they cost the
empire in its sovereign rights and unequal relations. In his following statement a
month later, İnönü directly aimed at the capitulatory system by underlining the
problems encountered in commercial relations and the legal cases pending with the
impunity of criminals because of the interference in territorial jurisdiction. He
elaborated on this observation by claiming that the capitulations, “far from assuring
any advantage to foreign nationals, give rise to innumerable difficulties in business
and prejudice the interests of Turks and foreigners alike.”855 İnönü aimed to
withstand the call of the delegates to appoint representatives to look out for the rights
of minorities in Turkey. Opposing any form of foreign intervention envisioned, he
supported the reciprocal exchange of minorities and civil prisoners, which prompted
the population exchange between Turkey and Greece a year later.856
As the Lausanne experience and the interwar politics shows, the dissolution
of the Empire and the emergence of a republican regime could not immediately
eliminate the old problems the Turkish Republic had to address concerning territorial
sovereignty and jurisdictional autonomy. Notwithstanding, the newly founded
Turkish Republic was determined to take a militaristic and diplomatic stance against
foreign encroachments on post-Ottoman territories. The legal scholars of the Turkish
854 This conference was organized to outplace and reformulate the heavy sanctions imposed on Turkey
by the Treaty of Sevres in 1920, which the Grand National Assembly of Turkey renounced. On the
Lausanne Conference and its outcomes; see Demirci, Strategies and Struggles -British Rhetoric and
Turkish Response: The Lausanne Conference 1922-1923; and Özsu, Formalizing Displacement:
International Law and Population Transfers.
855 Lausanne Conference on Near Eastern Affairs 1922-1923, 474-475.
856 Lausanne Conference on Near Eastern Affairs 1922-1923, 204.
322
Republic soon started working on the adaptation of international law to their new
politics. As Cemil Bilsel stressed, a raison d’être could no longer be maintained by
resorting to tact and skills in traditional state diplomacy. After all the turmoil of the
last decade, as he stated, international law should and would lead the direction of
political affairs and international relations more than ever in the future.857
This study illustrates well that the roots of what Bilsel termed a novelty in
employing international law in state affairs were already well rooted in the previous
century. Even though the Turkish government consented to accept foreign legal
advisors to oversee the legal conflicts that arose due to the arrest and detention of
foreign nationals,858 İsmet İnönü’s accomplishment as a representative of the Turkish
Republic undoubtedly carried the legacy of Ottoman diplomacy, based on similar
experiences as Ottoman agents. The phase involving the Ottoman dissolution and the
rise of a new nation state cannot be treated as a rupture but rather as a continuity that
faced common problems in different forms. The Ottoman contest for sovereignty and
legal autonomy could not be erased in one blow; instead, it could be understood
much better if considered in light of political circumstances and other contingencies
that emerged on the world stage. To this end, a close reading over the legal process
in their political framework vis-à-vis the textual analysis of written codes become a
prerequisite to shed light on the legal history of the post-Ottoman era and the first
years of the Turkish Republic.
857 “Eski devlet adamlarının hep tekrarladıkları ve her işi onunla haklı göstermek istedikleri devlet
maslahatı veya menfaati, devlet selameti bugün artık mutlak hâkim değildir. Beynelmilel
münasebetlerin düzenlenmesinde hukuk payını istemektedir. İhtirasları haklı göstermek için evvelce
ileri sürülen devlet maslahatı değil, artık hakiki hukuk, beynelmilel işleri düzeltmektedir ve daha çok
düzenleyecektir. Bu dünya tarihinde ilk görülen bir şeydir.” Bilsel, Hukuk-u Düvel, II, 49.
858 Gordon, “Turkish-American Treaty Relations,” 715.
323
When the French liner Lotus collided with the Turkish vessel Bozkurt just
north of Mytilene, the Greek island of Lesbos, in August 1926, eight Turkish
subjects on board of the Bozkurt died as the ship sank deep into the water. When the
case was brought to the Permanent Court of International Justice, long-lasting
sessions took place as to who should claim jurisdiction on such a case that occurred
in the open seas. To make a long story short, this case was resolved to the advantage
of the Turkish government as the casualties were on its side and the legal loopholes
complicating such cases that concerned jurisdictional rights at sea overlooked the
French protests against the Turkish trial of their national, Mr. Demons, the captain of
the Lotus. Demons, who was captured immediately after the incident along with the
Turkish crew, was not extradited to France and underwent a judicial process in
Turkish courts. Entering the terminology as “the Lotus Principle” as part of Public
International Law, this approach stated that “sovereign states may act in any way
they wish so long as they do not contravene an explicit prohibition.”859
Time shows that justice sometimes follows its own course. However, we
could not underestimate the fact that you ultimately reap the harvest if there is a real
contest and struggle. This dissertation shows that Ottoman legal history could be
interpreted in different venues. There are still many gray areas that await their
researchers. I hope this study opens a new lens and perspective into future studies on
the Ottoman legal arena.
859 “The Lotus Principle,” https://www.spacelegalissues.com/the-lotus-principle/ ; and Blakesley, “A
Conceptual Framework for Extradition and Jurisdiction over Extraterritorial Crimes,” 698-699.
324
APPENDIX A
OTTOMAN-GERMAN EXTRADITION TREATY
(BOA HR. HMŞ. İŞO. 155-10)
Iade-i Mücrimin Maddenamesinin Suret-i Tetkiki Hakkında Talimât
İade-i Mücrimin Muahadenamesinin Muhtac-ı Izah Görülen Bazı Mevadının Suret-i
Tetkiki Hakkında Talimat
Osmanlı Padişahlığı ile Almanya Devleti yedinde 11 Kanun-ı Sani 1333/1917
tarihinde akd olunan ve 10 Temmuz 1334/1918 tarihinde iktisab-ı meriyyet edecek
olan iade-i mücrimin muahedenamesinin muhtac-ı izah görülen bazı mevadının
memurin-i adliye-yi Osmaniyece suret-i tetkiki ber-vech-i zîr beyan olunur:
Ahkâm-ı Umumiyye
Madde 1- İade-i mücrimin, muahedenin ikinci maddesinde taadad olunan ifâl içün
vaki olabilir. Bu taadad tahdidi olmağla haricinde kalan ifâlden dolayı iade-i
mücrimin talebi tervic olunmaz. Fakat yirmi sekizinci maddede beyan kılındığı üzere
sair ifâl içün de iade-i mücrimin cihedine gidilmesi hususunda hükümetîn ileride
akd-i itilâf edebilir.
Madde 2- İade-i mücrimin cihetinde kaide-i esasiye, iadeye sebeb olacak faalin her
iki devlet kavaninine nazaren müstelzem mücazat bulunmasıdır. Yalnız bir tarafın
kanunlarınca muceb ceza olan faalden dolayı iade-i mücrimin muamelesi cereyan
etmez. İşbu kaide-i muahedenamenin sekizinci maddesinin birinci fıkrasının birinci
sayısında ve izah-ı protokolün ânı mufasser (müfesser) olan dördüncü numerosunda
sarahaten tesbit edilmişdir.
Gerçi ikinci maddeye kavanin-i osmaniyece henüz müstelzem icazat ad olunmayan
bazı ifâl derc ve idhal olunmuş ise de – maddenin ikinci numerosunda münderic faal
gibi- bu hâl-i muahedenin hîn-i akdinde hükümet-i seniyyece osmanlı ceza
kanunnamesinin nevakıs hasırasıyle mukid bulunması muvafık görülmemesinden
inbâs etmiş ve binaenaleyh ifâl-i mezkureden dolayı iade-i mücrimin muamelesinin
cereyanı bil-tab’ kanun-ı cezanın ikmâl-i nevakısına muallak bulunmuşdur.
Madde 3- Mar-ül-zikr kaide-i esasiyenin, muahedenameye nazaran müstesniyâtı:
1- Taadad-ı zevcât (izah-ı protokol, ilave 1. fıkra-i ahire) kavanin-i Osmaniyece
asla müstelzem mücazât olmayan taadad zevcâtından dolayı iade-i mücrimin
talebinin tervici, ancak ikinci kadınla akd-ı nikahın Almanya’da veya taadad-ı
zevcatı men eden diğer bir memleketde vukuuna vasıtadır. Şu kadar var ki
devlet-i Osmaniye ile Alman müstemlekâtı arasındaki münasâbatda ikinci
defa izdivâc eden bir müslümanın iadesi mümkün olamayacağı ol babdaki
muahedenamenin izahı protokolün “mülahaza-ı mahsusasında” tasrih
kılınmışdır.
2- Irz ve ahlâka mütaallik cerâimde anife maddesi münhasıran taleb eden tarafın
kavanin ve nizamatına tabiidir. Binaenaleyh bir senede bulunan şahsa bilâ
cebr ve tahdid-i icrâ olmasa bile iade-i mücrimin talebi red olunmaz.
325
Madde 4- İkinci maddeye istinaden iade-i mücrimin talebine esas ittihaz edilen faal,
diğer taraf-ı kavaninde mahiyet itibariyle müstelzem ceza olmakla beraber başka bir
nam altında olduğu takdirde iade talebi red olunamaz. Mesela emniyeti suistimal
diye tasvir edilen faal-i matlub-ı men-i kavanine göre ihtilas ise.
Madde 5- İadesi taleb olunabilecek eşhas şunlardır:
1- Memalik-i Osmaniyede ikinci maddede münderic ceraimden birini irtikab
edüb de Almanya veya müstemlekâtında bulunduğu anlaşılan tebaa-yı
Osmaniye ile Almanya veya müstemlekatı tebaasının gayr-i tebaayı
ecnebiyesi.
2- Memalik-i Osmaniye haricinde devletin emniyetini ihlal veya itibar-ı
maliyesini sektedar edecek ceraimi ikâ’ eyleyen tebaa-ı Osmaniye ve
ecnebiyye (Usul-u Muhakemat-ı Cezaiye madde- 5 ve 6)
3- Bunların hem faal veya feraen zeyl-i medhal sıfatıyla şerikleri.
Madde 6- Atıyül-zikr eşhas iade olunamaz:
Elif- Tebaa-i Osmaniye
Be- Cerâim-i siyasiye mürtekebleri (muahede: madde 3, fıkra 1)
Madde 7- Muahedenamenin sekizince maddesiyle dokuzuncu maddesinin birinci ve
ikinci fıkratında protokolün ol babdaki fıkrat-ı izahiyesinde münderic ahvalde iade-i
mücrimin talebi red olunabilir.
Muahedenamenin onuncu maddesiyle on ikinci maddesinin birinci fıkrasında
gösterilen ahvalde iade-i mücrimin talebinin tervici tehir edilebilir.
Madde 8- Memalik-i Osmaniyede bulunan bir şahs-ı ecnebiyenin iadesine müteallik
varid olacak talebnameler üzerine iadeye muvafakat kararı nazarınca ita ve led’el-arz
irade-i seniye hazret-i Padişahi şeref sadır olduğu takdirde şahs-ı mezbur teslim ve
iade olunur.
Fasl-ı Evvel
Hükümet-i Osmaniye Tarafından Vuku’ Bulucak İade Taleblerine Müteallik
Muamelat
Madde 9- Devair ve Mehakeme-i Osmaniyece takib ve mahkemesi icab eden bir
şahsın Almanya veya müstemlekatı arazisinde bulunduğu istihbar kılındık da eğer
cürm memalik-i Osmaniye dahilinde vuku bulmuşsa o mahal veya ikametgah ahir
Bidayet Müddei-i Umumiyesi ve Usul-ı Muhakemat-ı Cezaiye Kanunu’nun beşinci
maddesinde mevzu’ bahs olan ceraim içünde faal cürmün evvelce mukim olduğu
veya ikametgah-ı ahirinin bulunduğu mahal-i bidayet müddei-i umumiyesi ve eğer
Memalik-i Osmaniyede ikametgahı yoksa Dersaadet Bidayet Müddei-i Umumiyesi
tarafından iade-i mücrimin mütaalatına tevessül olunur.
Cürmün vukuuna mutla’ olanlar fıkra-i atide taadad olunan müddei-i umumileri
Usul-ü Muhakemat-ı Cezaiye Kanununun yirmi altıncı maddesine tevfiken cebirdar
iderler.
326
Madde 10- Bir şahsın iadesine ibtidar olunabilmek içün makam-ı iadından verilmiş
bir tevkif veya ahz-ı mezkuresinin veyahud bir hükm-i ilamının vücudı elzemdir.
Madde 11- Takibat ve tahkikat hayli ilerleyerek nev’i cürm-i tayin ve delâil-i kafiye
tahassül eylemiş bulunduğu veya bir hükm-i lâhak olduğu ve meselede mahiyet-i
müstecele görülmediği takdirde iadesine lüzum görülen şahsın istirdadına tevessül
olunmak üzere madde-i atide zikr ve taadad olunan evrak müddei-i umumilerce ahzar
ve İstinaf Müddei-i Umumiyeliği vesatetiyle nazareten tesyar olunur.
Madde 12- Muahedenamenin beşinci maddesine göre vücud-ı muktezi evrak
şunlardır:
Evvela- Şahs-ı matlubun tayin hüviyetine ve derdest olunmasını teshir ve
tasri’e madar olucak malumat ve izahatı havi yani ismini ve pederinin ismini, şöhret,
zanaat, mahal veladeti ve her halde memleket-i ecnebiyedeki mahal ikametini (mahal
ikameti mutazammın idaresinin aynı zamanda latin harufatıyla yazılması meşruttur)
ve eşgal-ı mahsusasını mabeyn-i varaka mevcud ise fotoğrafiyesi.
Saniyen- İade talebi tevkif müzekkeresine müstenid ise müzekkerenin aslı ve
mahkûma ilamına mübteni ise ilamın suret-i musaddıkası
Salisen- İsnad olunan faal ile ahval ve keyfiyatı evrak-ı müzekkere
mündericatından anlaşılmadığı takdirde izahat ve tafsilat-ı lazımeyi havi bir varaka
Rabien- Kanun-ı cezanın tatbiki icab eden maddesinin aslına mutabakatı
musaddık bir sureti. Balada zikr olunan varakadan tevkif müzekkereleri- alelade
yapıldığı üzere- matbu’ varakaların imlası suretiyle tanzim edilmeyerek ayrıca bir
varakaya bizzat müstantikin hatt-ı destiyle ve tahrir-i zirine mühr-ü resmi ile temhir
ve imza etmesi lazım gelir. Diğer evrakın zîrini müddei-i umumi mühr resmi ile
temhir ve imza eyler.
Madde 13- Aynı faalden dolayı müteadad eşhasın iadesi matlub olduğu takdirde
hüviyete müteallik varaka ile tevfik müzekkeresi aded-i eşhasa göre tadaad eder.
Kezalik ifal-i muhtelifeden dolayı iadesi taleb olunan şahıs içün her bir faal
hakkındaki evrak ve vesaikin rabtı iktiza eder.
Madde 14- Müddei-i umumi evrak-ı müzekkireyi devai-yi evrakının leffiyle ve
muamele-yi mukteziyenin icrası talebiyle merbut olduğu istinaf müddei-i
umumiyesine irsal eyler. İstinaf-ı mudde-i umumiyesi evrak-ı mevcude-i vürudundan
itibaren nihayet üç gün zarfında tedkik eder ve muahedename ile iş bu talimat
ahkamına nazaran navakıs var ise ikmal etdirdikden sonra iadenin derece-i
makbuliyeti hakkındaki mütalaa müdahelesiyle birlikte nezarete gönderir.
Madde 15- Almanya veya müstemlekatında bulunduğu haber olunan şahıs hakkında
takibat ve tahkikata henüz başlamış ve aleyhinde hiç olmazsa muvakkat bir tevkif
müzekkeresi isdar edilmiş veya bir ilam mevcud bulunmuş olduğu ve mevad-ı
sabıkada tafsil olunduğu vechle iade-i mücrimin talebnamesinin itasıyla neticesine
intizar dâi’yi muhazir olacak derce-i meselede müsteciliyet bulunduğu takdirde
muahedenamenin yedinci maddesi mucebince iade muamelatına tevsilden
mukaddem şahs-ı mezburun ol- emrde muvakkaten tevkifi taleb olunabilir.
327
(Muahedename madde 7 fıkra 1) işbu talep diploması tarikiyle dermeyan
edileceğinden müddei-i umumi tevkif olunacak şahsın mevzuhen hüviyetini,
bulunduğu veya bulunabileceği mahali, kendisine istinad olunan olunan fiil ile ahval
ve keyfiyatı hakkında isdar edilmiş tevkif-i mezkuresi veya hükm-i ilamı mevcud
bulunduğunu ve bilahere ve iade muamelatına tevessül edilmek üzere evvel emirde
tevkif ettirilmesi talebini muhtevi olmak üzere nezarete mufassal bir telgrafname ile
müracaat eyler.
Fevkalade müstecel olan ahvalda – ki tatbikatda pek nadir olacakdır- işbu tevkif-i
muvakkat talebi nezaretin tavassutuyla diplomasi tarikine tevessül edilmeksizin,
Almanya veya müstemlekatında ifa-yı vezaife edilen ve takib olunan şahsın
ikametgahı veya cürmün mahal-i ikası itibariyle salahiyatdar olan hükümet-i seniyye
şehbenderine müddei-i umuminin fıkra-i anifede beyan olunan tafsilatı havi bir
telgrafname keşide etmesi suretiyle dahi vaki olabilir. Bu takdirde müddei-i
umuminin keyfiyeti derhal istinaf-ı müddei-i umumiyeliği ile nezarete telgrafla ihbar
etmesi muktezidir. (Almanyadaki Osmanlı şehbenderliğinin daire-i memuriyetleri
ileride sildirilecekdir).
Madde 16- Tevkif-i muvakkat talebinin gerek diplomasi tarikiyle ve gerek doğrudan
doğruya vukuu üzerine cihet-i adliyece meznun olan şahsa ve kendisine isnad olunan
fiile aid muamelat-ı tahkike asla tehir edilmeyerek delail ve emaratın cem’ ve
telfikine bir kat daha ihtimam olunur.
Madde 17- Müddei-i umumi muvakkaten tevkifi talebiyle müracaat eylediği
tarihinden itibaren nihayet 15 gün zarfında işbu talimatnamenin on ikinci
maddesinde tadaad olunan evrak vesaik-i tehiyye ve ahzar ve muamele-i tevkifin
icraasından haberdar edilmesi akabinde bila-emhal evrak-ı devai ile beraber İstinaf ii
umumiliğine tesyar ve istinaf müddei-i umumiyesi dahi on dördüncü maddede
beyan olunduğu vechle mütalaasıyla birlikde nihayet üç gün zarfında nezarete irsal
eyler.
Muahedenamenin yedinci maddesinin son fıkrasında tasrih kılındığı vechle tevkif
tarihinden itibaren nihayet iki ay zarfında iade talebnamesi Almanya hükümetine
iade edilmediği takdirde şahs-ı mevkuf tahliye edileceğinden fıkra-i anifede beyan
olunan muamelatın tehiri asla tecavüz olunamaz.
Madde 18- Hakkında ahz-u girift mezkuresi mevcud bulunan bir şahsın Almanya
veya müstemlekatında olduğu malum ve fakat oradaki mahal ikameti mechul
bulunduğu takdirde derdestiyle muvakkaten tevkifi cihetine gidilebilmek üzere
mezkûr ahz-u girift emrinin ve – muahedenamenin beşinci maddesi üçüncü
fıkrasında bir protokolde beyan kılındığı vechle – musaddık Fransızca tercümesinin
ratbıyla Almanya ceride-i resmiyesinde derc-i bitttalebname istenilebilir.
(Talebnamenin Almanca lisanıyla muharrer olması muktezi bulunduğundan bu babda
ileride kâfi mikdarda ve yeknesak bir şekilde evrak-ı matbua gönderilecekdir.)
Bu suretle aranılan şahsın tevkif edildiği ilan olunduğu günden itibaren nihayet iki ay
zarfında iade talebnamesinin âdem-i itası halinde mevkufun tahliyesi icab
edeceğinden buna meydan verilmemek üzere ihbar-ı mezkûr tarihinden itibaren
madde-i sabıkada beyan olunan müddet zarfında evrak-ı lazıme ahzar ve nezarete
tesyar kılınır.
328
Kezalik mahal-i ikameti mechul olmakla beraber Almanya veya müstemlekatında
bulunduğu anlaşılan bir şahıs hakkında lazım-ül-tenfiz bir hükm-ü kati mevcud
olduğu takdirde derdesti temin edilebilmek üzere ol babda tanzim kılınacak
mezkurenin Almanya ceride-i resmiyesine derci ve muvakkaten tevkifi üzerine iade
muamelesi fıkrat-ı anefe ahkamı dairesinde cereyan eyler.
Memalik-i Osmaniyeye İade Edilmiş Olan Şahsın Suret-i Takib ve Muhakemesi
Madde 19- Memalik-i Osmaniyeye iadesine muavafakat edilen ve hududun muayyen
noktasında memurin-i zabıta-yı Osmaniye tarafından tesellüm olunan şahıs- eğer
birlikde verilmiş ise- iş bu cürmiyye ile beraber iade talebinde bulunmuş olan
müddei-i umumiye tesellüm olunur.
Madde 20- Müddei-i umumi evvel emirde şahs-ı mezburun hüviyetini tahkik yani
iadesi taleb olunan şahıs olub olmadığını tayin eyler. Bu babda- nezaretce kendisine
iade edilmiş olan- evrak-ı deavi ile iade eden devlet memurini tarafından hîn-i
teslimde ita edilen evrakdan ve iadeye muvafakatı ve şerait ve teferruatını mübeyyen
nezaretten vuku bulacak tebligattan istina eyler.
Hüviyetin ancak bu suretle tayin etmesi üzerine muamelat-ı lazıme-i kanuniyeye
devam olunabilir.
Madde 21- İade olunan şahıs mesela istinad olunan fiilin kavanin-i Osmaniyeye göre
müruru zamana uğramış bulunduğu, tevkifi mezkuresinin usülüne muvafık olmadığı
yolunda kavanin-i Osmaniyeye müsteniden itirazat-ı dermeyan eylediği takdirde eğer
şahs-ı mezbur hakkında henüz bir hükm-i lahık olmamış ise itirazat vaka-ı daire veya
muhakeme-i aidesince halledilir. Ve eğer şahs-ı mezbur mukaddemen hakkında
verilmiş olan bir hükmün tenfizi zımmında iade olunmuş ise müddei-i umumi
itirazat-ı mezkurey-i salahiyeti ve usul-u mevzuu dairesinde bir tedkik neticeye rabt
eyler.
Madde 22- Devair ve muhakeme-i adliyyede muahedename tefsirinden memnudur.
Bu gibi ahvalde nezaretden istilam-ı keyfiyet edilmek lazımdır.
Madde 23- Bir şahsın hîn-i iadesinde iade eden devletce mevzuu-ı kuyud ve şuruta
riayet-i kavaid-i esasiyeden olmağla bu babda nezaretce vuku bulacak tebligata
tevfik-i harekât olunmak muktezidir.
Madde 24- İade olunan şahıs hakkında cereyan eden tahkikat ve muhakemat
esnasında iadeye sebeb olan fiilin mahiyet-i hukukiyesi tebeddül etdiği ve mesela
sirkatden dolayı iade edilen şahsın sirkatı ifa içün bir cürm fiilini de irtikab etmesi
gibi aynı fiile mürettebat olarak başka bir fiil daha işlediği veyahud sırkat-i
adiyyeden dolayı iade olunan şahsın fiil-i sirkat-i mevsufa şeklinde görülmek gibi
fiilin mahiyeti müşedidesi tezahür eylediği takdirde muahedenamenin on altıncı
maddesinin fıkra-i saniye ve salisesine tevfik-i muamele olunmakla beraber keyfiyet
bila-tehir evrak ve vesaik-i lazıme ile birlikde nezarete işar ve vürud edecek talimata
intizaren tahkikat veya muhakemat-ı tehir olunur. Şimdiye kadarki sebeb-i iade olan
fiilin mahiyetini tagyir eden keyfiyetin tefriki mümkün olduğu takdirde nezaretden
cevab vüruduna değin, delailin ziyadan vekayesi zımmında ve yalnız iadeye sebeb
329
olan fiiile münhasır olmak üzere tahkikat veya muhakemat devam olunarak karar
derecesine getirilir.
Madde 25- Fiilin derecatı veya vasfen tenezzülünü veya esbab-ı mahfufeye iktirarını
muceb ahvaldan dolayı iadenin makbulatına halel gelmez.
Madde 26- İade edilen şahıs ancak sebeb-i iade olan fiilden dolayı takib veya düçar-ı
ceza edilebilir. Şayed şahs-ı mezbur iadeden evvel ve iadeye sebeb olan fiilin gayri
bir veya birkaç filli dahi mürettekeb olduğu anlaşılır ve takibine lüzum görülür ise
muahedenamenin on altıncı maddesi ahkamına tevkifi muamele olunmak lüzum
gelir. Ma haza madde-i mezkurede münderic muamelatın icra ve ikmaline intizaren
şahs-ı mezburun ifal-i mezkure hakkında ta’van ita edeceği izahat istima’ olunmak
üzere daire veya mahkemeye celbi caiz olduğu gibi cebr-i tazammın etmeyecek
muamelat-ı tahkikiyeye dahi tevessül edilebilir.
Fasl-ı Sani
Almanya Tarafından Vuku Bulacak İade Taleblerine Müteallik Muamelat
Madde 27- Memalik-i Osmaniyede bulunan bir şahsın iadesine müteallik talebname
ve hille-i evlada gayr-i kabul görüldüğü takdirde nezaret-i İstinaf müddei-i
umumiliği vasıtasıyla ol şahsın bulunduğu ve bulunabileceği mahal-i müddei-i
umumiyesine keyfiyeti ve muamelat-ı lazımeye tevessül olunması lüzumunu bildirir.
Müddei-i umumi taleb olunan şahsın derdestini temin zımmınında derhal zabıtaya bir
derdest müzekkeresi verir. Müzekkereye şahs-ı mezburun hüviyeti, esbab-ı derdesti
ve nezaretin ol babdaki emrinin tarihi ve numerosu derc olunur. Bazı hususat
hakkında nezaretten istizana lüzum görülmesi derdest müzekkeresinin ita ve infasına
katiyyen mâni olamaz.
Madde 28- Muahedenamenin yedinci maddesinin birinci fıkrasına tevfiken iade
talebnamesinin itasından mukaddem iade olunacak şahsın olm emrde muvakkaten
tevkifi diplomasi tarikiyle taleb edilmiş ise keyfiyet nezaretce bittelgraf müddei-i
umumiye tebliğ olunduğu veyahud madde-i mezkurenin birinci fıkrasının son
cümlesine tevfiken tevkif-i muvakkat talebnamesi Almanyanın mahalen salahiyetdar
olan şehbenderi tarafından doğrudan doğruya ita kılınmış ise iade olunacak şahsın
teba-ı Osmaniyeden olması gibi ve hille-i evlada mani iade bir hal bulunmadığı ve
kezalik madde-i mezkurenin ikinci fıkrası mucebince ceride-i resmiyeye derc ve ilan
olunan tahrirat talebnamesinde mevzu bahs olan şahs-ı zahire ihrac edildiği takdirde
müddei-i umumi bila-ifaten zaman nezdinde bulunan müstantike bittalebname
müracaatla vuku bulan talebe ve ahkam-ı muahedeye müsteniden ve reisin tasdikine
hacet kalmaksızın şahs-ı mezbur hakkında gayr-ı muvakkat bir tevkif müzekkeresi
istihsal ederek infaz eyler. Ve cereyan hali derhal telgrafla nezarete işar ile beraber
istinaf müddei-i umumiyesine bildirir. Tevkif eğer şehbenderin talebine mübteni ise
ona ve eğer ceride-i resmiyedeki ilana müstenid ise onu taleb eden daireye dahi biltehir
malumat verir.
Madde 29- İadesi veya muvakkaten tevkifi taleb olunan şahsın zahire ihracıyla
derdest ve tevkifini temin zımmında müddei-i umumi kavanin-i Osmaniye ile
ahkam-ı muahedenamenin bahs eylediği salahiyet-i dairesinde taharriyat icrasına ve
330
şahs-ı mezbura aid posta ve telgraf irsalatının müstantikden bu babda bir karar-ı
mahsus istihsal edildikden sonra tedkik ve zabtına tevessül eder.
Kezalik şahs-ı mezburun nezdinde zuhur eden ve cürme taallük eyleyen eşya dahihakk-
ı gayri mâni olmadıkca – usulüne tevfiken zabt ve olbabda bir müfredat defteri
tanzim olunur.
Madde 30- Müddei-i umumi işbu talimatnamenin 27.ci maddesine tevfiken hakkında
derdest müzekkeresi verilen veyahud 28. Maddesi mucebince ol emrde muvakkaten
tevkifi taleb edilmiş olan şahsın derhal hüviyeti tahkik ve aranılan şahıs olduğu tayin
ile ol babda bir zabt varakası tanzim etdikden sonra evrak ve eşya-ı mevcude ile
beraber şahs-ı mezburu bil-tehir ve doğrudan doğruya İstinaf-ı müddei-i umumiyesi
nezdine sevk eyler.
331
APPENDIX B
THE 1874 OTTOMAN-US EXTRADITION TREATY
(BOA İ. HR. 264-15815)
Saltanat-ı Seniyye ile Hükûmât-ı Müctemia-yı Amerika beyninde iade-i mücrimîn
hakkında akdolunacak mukâvelenâmenin sureti tercümesidir.
Zât-ı şevket-simât-ı hazret-i Padişahî ile Amerika Hükûmât-ı Müctemi‘ası kalemrev-
i hükûmetleri olan memâlikde kavânîn-i adliyeleri ahkâmının bir kat daha hüsn-i
cereyânını te’min ve cerâim ve cinayâtın vuku‘unu men‘ etmek maksadıyla âtîde
beyân ve ta‘dâd olunan cinayâtdan biriyle müttehem veya mahkum olup pençe-i
kanundan tahlîs-i girîbân edecek olan eşhâsın bazı ahvâl-i muayyenede mukabeleten
iade ve teslimini bi't-tensîb bu bâbda bir mukâvelenâme akdine karar vererek taraf-ı
eşref-i hazret-i Padişahî'den Hariciye Nâzırı Arifî Paşa ve Amerika Cumhuriyeti
Reisi tarafından dahi nezd-i Saltanat-ı Seniyye'de hükûmât-ı müşârunileyhimin sefiri
bulunan George Boker murahhas tayin olunmuş olduklarından müşârunileyhimâ
yolunda ve muntazam bulunan ruhsatnâmelerini yekdiğere irâe eyledikden sonra
mevâdd-ı âtiyeyi tanzim ve imza etmişlerdir. Şöyle ki:
Birinci Madde: Tarafeyn-i muâhideynden birinin memâlikinde ikinci maddede tayin
olunan cinayâtdan biriyle müttehem veya mahkum olan eşhâs diğerinin memâlikinde
bulunacak veyahud oraya iltica edecek olur ise firarî veya müttehem olan şahsın
bulunacakları memleketin kavânîni mûcebince vuku‘-ı cinayeti müeyyid olan delâil
cinayetin orada vuku bulmuşcasına o firarî veya şahsın tevkif ve muhakeme-i
cezaiyesini icab etdirecek suretde olmadıkça o makûleler redd ü teslim
olunmayacaklardır.
İkinci Madde: Teslimi iktizâ eden eşhâs işbu mukâvelenâme ile muayyen şerâite
tevfîkan zîrde muharrer cinayâtın biriyle mahkûm veya müttehem olanlardır.
Birincisi: Ebeveyni veya çocuğunu veyahud bir adamı katl ve tesmîm gibi
taammüden vuku bulacak bir katl cinayeti
İkincisi: Katl-i nefse kasdetmeklik
Üçüncüsü: Kız kaçırmak ve kundakçılık ve korsanlık etmek veyahud derûn-ı
sefînede bulunan tayfanın cümlesi veya bir kısmı bir hile veya kaptanı aleyhinde
muamele-i cebriye ile sefîneyi zabteylemek
Dördüncüsü: Leylen hırsızlık, yani irtikâb-ı cinayât maksadıyla derûnunda adam
bulunan hâneye leylen bir yeri kırıp girmek ve sirkat yani zor ve cebr ve ihâfe ile
âhardan eşya veya akçe almak
Beşincisi: Sahtekârlık yani sahte olan evrak ve senedâtı neşretmek ve bir hükümdar
veya bir hükûmete ve halka müte‘allik evrak ve senedât-ı resmiyeyi taklîd eylemek
Altıncısı: Gerek meskûkât ve gerek kâğıd olsun akçe veyahud eshâm-ı hükûmet ile
bank kâimesi ve sair tahvilâtı ve ale'l-umum akçeye müte‘allik olan her nev‘ evrakı
332
neşr ve imal eylemek ve devlet ve devâir-i umumiyesinin mühür ve sikke ve damga
ve alâmetlerini taklîd ve neşr eylemek
Yedincisi: Tarafeyn memâlikinden birinde memurîn tarafından emvâl-i mîriye sirkat
olunmak
Sekizincisi: Ücret ile istihdam olunan şahıs veya eşhâs tarafından kendilerini
istihdam edenlerin zararına olarak irtikâb olunan ve cinayete mahsus cezaları icab
eden sirkat
Üçüncü Madde: İşbu mukâvelenâme ahkâmının politika töhmetlerine şümûlü
olmayıp madde-i sâbıkada ta‘dâd olunan cinayâtdan birinin irtikâbından dolayı iade
ve teslim olunacak eşhâsın o cinayâtdan evvelce irtikâb etmiş olduğu diğer bir adi
cinayet için hiçbir vechile muhakemesi caiz olmayacakdır.
Dördüncü Madde: İşbu mukâvelenâme ahkâmına tevfîkan teslimi taleb olunan şahsın
iltica eylediği memâlikde bir cünhadan dolayı tevkif olunacak veyahud mahkûm
olacak olur ise tebriye-i zimmet veyahud mahkûm olduğu mahbusiyet müddetini
ikmâl edinceye kadar teslimi te’hir olunacakdır.
Beşinci Madde: Pençe-i kanundan tahlîs-i girîbân edecek olan eşhâsın teslimi için
vâki olacak taleb tarafeyn-i muâhideyn sefâretleri ma‘rifetiyle ve sefâret bulunmadığı
hâlde konsülatoları vasıtasıyla icra olunacakdır. İade ve teslimi taleb olunan şahıs
hakkında bir cinayetden dolayı hüküm lâhık olmuş ise o hükmü i‘tâ eden
mahkemenin mührüyle memhûr ve musaddak ilâm suretiyle hâkimin sıfat-ı
resmiyesinin aid olduğu icra memurları tarafından ve onun dahi Devlet-i Aliyye veya
Amerika Hükûmât-ı Müctemi‘ası sefir veya konsolosları tarafından tasdikini hâvî
iktizâ eden varakanın ve fakat firarî-i merkûm mahkum olmayıp da yalnız müttehem
ise cinayetin vuku bulduğu memleketde kendisinin ahz ve tevkifini mutazammın
olan ihzârnâmenin veyahud bunun müstenid olduğu şehâdet ve ifadâtı hâvî bulunan
varaka suretinin dahi eşhâs-ı merkûmenin mutâlebesi sırasında irsâli lâzım gelir.
Saltanat-ı Seniyye icra memurları veyahud Amerika Hükûmât-ı Müctemi‘ası Reisi
tarafından firarînin li-ecli'l-muhakeme iktizâ eden mahkemeye getirilmesi için ahz ü
giriftine dair olan ihzârnâme tastîr olundukdan sonra işbu mukâvelenâme mûcebince
kavânîn ve delâil-i vâkı‘aya göre iade ve teslimine karar verilir ise ahvâl-i
mümâsilede muayyen olan şerâite tevfîkan teslimi icra olunacakdır.
Altıncı Madde: İade ve teslimi taleb olunan eşhâsın ahz ve tevkif ve nakli masârıfı,
taleb eden hükûmet tarafından tesviye olunacakdır.
Yedinci Madde: Tarafeyn-i muâhideynden hiçbiri kendi tebaa ve ahalisinden bulunan
eşhâsı bu mukâvelenâme şerâiti tahtında olarak teslime mecbur olmayacakdır.
Sekizinci Madde: İşbu mukâvelenâme tasdik ve teâtisi tarihinden itibaren beş sene
müddet mer ‘iyyü'l-icra olacak ve fakat bunun feshine dair hükûmeteynin hiçbiri
tarafından altı ay evvel bir gûne tebligât vâki olmayacak olur ise beş sene daha ve'lhâsıl
her defasında tebligât icra olunmadıkça beşer sene daha mer ‘î tutulacakdır.
İşbu mukâvelenâme tasdik olunacak ve tasdiknâmeleri bir sene zarfında ve mümkün
ise daha evvel Dersaâdet'de teâti ve mübâdele kılınacakdır.
333
Binâberîn işbu mukâvelenâme Dersaâdet'de iki nüsha olarak tanzim ve tarafeyn
murahhasları tarafından imza ve temhîr kılınmışdır.
334
APPENDIX C
THE 1869 OTTOMAN NATIONALITY LAW
(BOA Y.EE 41/133)
Madde 1- Vâlideyni veyahut yalnız vâlidi tabiiyet-i Devlet-i Aliyye’de bulunduğu
hâlde tevellüt eden eşhâs Devlet-i Aliyye tebaasından maduttur.
Madde 2- Vâlideyni ecnebî olduğu hâlde Memâlik-i Şahanede mütevellit olan şahıs
sin-i rüşde vusûlü tarihinden bade ile üç sene zarfında tâbiiyyeti Devlet-i Aliyye’yi
bi-hakk talep edebilir.
Madde 3- Sin-i rüşde vâsıl olan bir ecnebî Memâlik-i Osmaniyyede beş sene ikamet
eylediği hâlde bizzat veya bil vâsıta hariciye nezaret-i celilesine bir istida takdimiyle
tâbiiyeti Devlet-i Aliyye’yi istihsâl edebilir.
Madde 4- Saltanat-ı seniyye bend-i sâbıkda muharrer şerâiti i’fâ etmiş olan ecnebîleri
dahi müsaade-i istisnaiyeye şayeste gördüğü surette fevkalâde olarak tâbiiyetine
kabul eder.
Madde 5- Tebaa-i saltanat-ı seniyyeden me’zûnen tâbiiyet-i ecnebiyyeye giren eşhâs
tebdil-i tâbiiyet ettikleri tarihten itibaren ecnebî sıfatında tutulup haklarında ol
vecihle muamele olunur fakat Devlet-i Aliyye’den me’zûn olmaksızın tâbiiyet-i
ecnebiyyeye girer ise işbu tâbiiyet-i cedidesi keen lem yekûn ve kendisi kemâkân
tâbiiyet-i Devlet-i Aliyye’den addolunup kâffe-i hususâtta tebaa-i Devlet-i Aliyye
hakkında olunan muamelenin aynı icra kılınacaktır. Her hâlde tebaa-i Devlet-i
Aliyye’den bir şahsın terk-i tabiiyyet etmesi mutlaka irade-i seniyye üzerine
verilecek bir senede muallak olacaktır.
Madde 6- Saltanat-ı seniyye tarafında me’zûn olmaksızın diyâr-ı ecnebiyyede tebdil-i
tâbiiyet eden veyahut bir ecnebî devletin hizmet-i askeriyyesine giren şahsı Devlet-i
Aliyye ister ise tâbiiyetinden ıskat edebilir ve bu makûle tâbiiyeti ıskat olunan
eşhâsın Memâlik-i Şâhaneye avdeti memnu olur.
Madde 7- Tebaa-i Devlet-i Aliyye’den iken ecnebi ile tezevvüc eden kadın zevcinin
vefatı tarihinden itibaren üç sene zarfında istida ederse tâbiiyet-i asliyyesine ricat
edebilir bu maddenin hükmü şahsa şâmildir tasarruf-u emlâk ve arazi maddesi
nizamât ve kavânin-i umumiyyesine tâbidir.
Madde 8- Tâbiiyet-i Devlet-i Aliyye’den çıkmış veyahut mahrum olmuş olan eşhâsın
evlâdı sabî dahi olsa pederlerinin sıfat-ı tâbiiyetine tâbi olmayarak saltanat-ı
seniyyenin tâbiiyetinde kalır ve Devlet-i Aliyye tâbiiyetine girmiş olan ecnebinin
evladı sabî bile olsa pederinin sıfat-ı tâbiiyesine tâbi olmayıp ecnebî addolunur.
Madde 9- Memâlik-i mahrusa-i padişahî’de ikamet eden her bir şahıs tebaa-i Devlet-i
Aliyye’den madut olup hakkında Devlet-i Aliyye’ye tâbi muamelesi icra olunur ki
kendisi tebaa-i ecnebiyyeden ise tâbiiyetini usulen isbat etmesi lâzım gelir.
335
APPENDIX D
THE RUSSO-OTTOMAN EXTRADITION TREATY PROJECT
(BOA HR.SYS.1282/1)
1.Tarafeyn-i akdiye memalikinde mer’i kanunlarda muayyen müruru zamanların hiç
birine uğramamış olan hukuk-u umumiyeye aid yani ceraim-i siyasiyeden gayri
cinayet failleri mütekabilen istirdad olunacakdır. Yani akdiyenin taleb edeceği şahsın
cürm-ü vaki akdi mezburun kendi kavanini hükümetce müruru zaman uğramamış
cinayeti adiyeden olacakdır.
2.Sebebi taleb olunacak olan cürm tarafeyn-i akdiye memalikinde aynı derecede
cürm bazı cinayeti itibar olunarak o mahiyetle muceb-i ceza olmalıdır.
3.İadeyi mücrimin talebi devleteynin yek diğeri nezdindeki süferası vasıtasıyla vuku
bulacak ve mücrimin ve mücrimin cürmünü isbat eden ve derece-yi ahirede sadır
olmuş bulunan ilamat veyahud heyet-i ithamiye mazbatasında sureti müsveddesiyle
Fransızca tercümesi ve meşhur isticvapnâmesi ve sair delâil-i subutiye
mazbatanâmeleri talebnameye rabıt edilecektir.
4. Taleb olunan mahkum-u aliyye veya mütehhem hangi maddeyi kanuniyeye
tevkifen mahkum olmuş veya olacak ise veya itham edilmiş ise mezkur maddenin bir
suret-i musaddıkası ve tercümeyi resmiyesi ve mütehhemin eşgal ve ilamat-ı sabıka
ve farikasını varaka-yı resmiye dahi mümkün ise bir fotoğrafı hükümet talebi
tarafından matlubumuz olan devlete tevdi olunacakdır.
5.Mücrim firar etdiği memleketde tabiiyetini iktisab veya din-i resmiyesini kabul
eylemiş veyahud memleketin hükümetinden müaadesiyle oraya hicret etmiş ise
hakkında istirdad muamelesi cari olmayacakdır. (İşbu kabulü din vesilesiyle
istirdadın cari olmaması kaidesi Kaynarca muahedesinde dahi mündericdir.)
6. Bir devlet-i salise Rusya’da bulunan bir Osmanlıyı veya Memaliki Osmaniye’de
bulunan bir Rusyalıyı devlet-i mezbura memalikinde bir cinayet ika etmiş olmakdan
naşi merkumun sakin bulunduğu memleket hükümetinden taleb edecek olur ise şahsı
mezkurun hükümet matbuası canibinden taleb edildiği takdirde devletii mezkureye
iadesi mümkün olacakdır.
336
REFERENCES
ARCHIVES
Ottoman Archives (BOA), Istanbul
BOA, A.) AMD. 70/5
BOA, A.) DVN. 161/100
BOA, A.) DVN. NMH. 21/8, 21/10
BOA, A.) MKT. MHM. 208/97,497/7, 630/5, 718/5
BOA, A.) MKT. MVL. 123/38
BOA, A.) MKT. NZD. 342/48
BOA, A.) MKT. UM. 139/43, 156/47
BOA, A.) MTZ (04) 75/46, 92/59, 124/9, 141/3, 159/13
BOA, AE. SSLM.III 186/11219
BOA, BEO 302/22579, 319/3872, 493/36957, 593/44469, 925/9316, 1060/ 79447,
1087/81467, 1242/93092, 1245/93344, 1653/73744, 1696/127182, 2012/150895,
2014/150992, 2772/207833, 2878/215794, 3461/259502, 3654/274004, 3699/
277415, 3760/281932, 3843/288189, 3914/293519, 4140/310444, 4300/ 322450
BOA, C.DRB. 42/2070
BOA, C. HR. 151/7530
BOA, C.ZB. 19/941
BOA, DH. EUM. KADL. 4/9
BOA, DH. HMŞ. 18/109
BOA, DH. KMS. 65/49
BOA, DH. MKT. 1272/82, 1347/15, 1434/42, 1452/111, 1499/81, 1576/20,
1620/104, 1642/40, 1756/12, 1792/63, 1912/71, 2276/130
BOA, DH. SAİDd. 4/176, 47/401, 81/473, 100/481, 112/179, 113/51, 183/100,
193/343
337
BOA, DH. SYS. 39/50
BOA, FTG. f. 269
BOA, HAT 488/23965, 1429/58503
BOA, HR.H. 50/15, 114/2, 135/15, 155/14, 159/11, 161/11, 163/8, 164/20, 164/48,
165/13, 169/2, 169/3, 169/4, 169/5, 170/2, 170/5, 170/11, 191/42, 211/2, 212/5,
232/4, 259/17, 285/5, 300/71, 311/63, 346/2, 346/19, 347/1, 349/1, 349/8, 350/2,
380/23, 382/11, 426/28, 494/2, 511/52, 511/62, 512/28, 512/35, 513/35, 513/44,
513/54, 514/3, 561/8, 637/7, 689/20, 754/10
BOA, HR. HMŞ.İŞO. 5/3, 5/16, 5/40, 5/53, 6/4, 6/6, 6/7, 6/8, 6/17, 6/20, 6/22, 6/24,
6/25, 6/34, 7/5, 7/6, 7/22, 7/24, 7/31, 7/40, 90/21, 15/28, 65/11, 72/11, 72/15, 75/26,
90/21, 101/24, 101/34, 107/29, 108/55, 109/10, 126/12, 145/1, 145/3, 155/10,
156/17, 156/22, 157/41, 157/42, 158/23, 158/96, 164/19, 165/54, 165/59, 165/70,
166/4, 166/36, 168/5, 170/9, 171/12, 173/2, 174/9, 174/20, 175/53, 182/5, 182/7,
182/41, 182/45, 182/47, 182/52, 182/55, 182/57, 182/60, 182/62, 182/65, 183/17,
183/46, 185/19, 188/44, 188/49, 218/16, 218/49, 219/34, 235/40
BOA, HR.İD. 40/8, 40/14, 139/2, 139/3, 139/6, 139/7, 139/8, 139/11, 139/13,
139/15, 139/16, 139/17, 139/24, 139/26, 139/29, 139/33, 139/35, 139/59, 140/3,
140/4, 140/8, 140/9, 140/10, 140/11, 140/12, 140/14, 140/15, 140/16, 140/17,
140/19, 140/23, 140/26, 140/29, 140/46, 175/45, 175/46, 175/89, 175/92, 183/35,
1828/52, 1902/36, 1902/37, 1902/43, 1902/58, 2037/71, 2100/40
BOA, HR. İM. 193/89
BOA, HR. MKT. 12/23, 41/55, 191/80, 192/28, 241/21, 234/73, 235/26, 235/51,
252/15, 254/59, 258/69, 272/32, 275/60, 279/14, 281/15, 282/95, 283/41, 283/84,
284/69, 285/73, 325/9, 328/79, 329/1, 336/6, 343/81, 367/63, 379/29, 381/15, 329/1,
443/56, 458/34, 478/24, 484/28, 537/58, 552/19, 553/17, 553/25, 559/42, 561/52,
565/47, 578/20, 591/53, 592/81, 592/94, 603/84, 650/48, 694/43, 814/41, 824/17,
853/90, 858/30, 859/9, 859/27, 861/10, 872/66, 890/51, 900/21
BOA, HR. SAİD. 2/1020, 4/12, 11/30
BOA, HR.SFR.3 4/14, 4/28, 48/13, 59/2, 191/75, 225/72, 280/20, 290/37, 513/1
BOA, HR.SFR (04) 416/76, 862/21
BOA, HR.SYS. 56/1, 77/35, 138/14, 323/2, 346/4, 587/25, 696/2, 822/3, 1055/3,
1248/1, 1274/2, 1281/1, 1282/1, 1282/2, 1282/3, 1342/92, 1342/94, 1359/2, 1359/6,
1359/9, 1430/70, 1438/25, 1439/91, 1444/30, 1445/6, 1547/5, 1628/2, 1664/2,
1730/61, 1742/134, 1742/137, 1763/24, 1798/29, 1798/40, 1802/26, 1809/79,
1809/80, 1809/81, 1809/85, 1809/88, 1809/94, 1810/39, 1881/18, 1822/3, 1822/7,
825/16, 1825/17, 1825/15, 1951/100, 2092/10, 2208/11, 2276/22, 2276/50, 2282/4,
2320/7, 2755/34, 2764/19, 2764/20, 2769/33, 2769/67, 2770/13, 2270/43, 2321/1,
2774/29, 2775/38, 2775/75, 2775/76, 2776/57, 2776/58, 2785/3, 2787/7, 2793/6,
2801/1, 2829/23, 2836/15, 2841/35, 2856/80, 2858/16, 2858/21, 2942/75, 2953/59
338
BOA, HR.TH. 3/16, 26/44, 30/18, 30/72, 33/51, 37/18, 77/40, 91/42, 139/40, 144/53,
146/97, 149/37, 212/46, 244/60, 246/61, 259/82, 272/69, 313/92
BOA, HR.TO. 19/19, 99/31, 146/12, 285/4, 299/23, 355/94, 479/8, 512/23, 512/31,
569/2, 569/6, 569/7, 570/20
BOA, HR.UHM. 98/43, 127/42
BOA, İ. AZN. 29/11
BOA, İ.DH. 391/25893, 832/66943, 931/73744, 1164/91031, 1237/96891
BOA, İ. DUİT. 150/14
BOA, İ.HR. 177/9725, 264/15815, 289/18150, 422/40, 423/1, 427/34, 5799/5
BOA, İ.HUS. 16/80, 30/38, 45/143, 71/4, 94/54
BOA, İ.MTZ (01) 18/735
BOA, İ.MVL. 183/5481
BOA, İ.ŞD. 87/5164, 81/4781
BOA, MF. İBT. 20/94, 266/98, 266/110
BOA, MF. MKT. 188/143, 232/46, 1036/73, 1102/48
BOA, MHD. 265, 268, 269
BOA, MV. 38/6, 51/49, 52/7, 71/47, 72/41, 110/90, 154/54
BOA, MVL. 224/3, 241/134, 830/105, 844/40, 845/75, 846/49
BOA, ŞD. 2092/19
BOA, TFR.I.SL. 5/466, 16/1594
BOA, TFR. I. ŞKT. 128/12720
BOA, Y.A.HUS. 281/108, 293/28, 385/55, 431/43, 482/27, 493/1
BOA, Y.A.RES. 50/42, 83/18
BOA, Y. EE. 10/9, 37/54, 41/133, 83/17, 87/59, 87/62,
BOA, Y. EE. KP. 7/612
BOA, Y. MRZ. D. 9317
339
BOA, Y.MTV. 96/109, 225/81, 236/151, 243/71, 278/73
BOA, Y.PRK.AZN. 3/65, 7/8, 17/2
BOA, Y.PRK. AZJ. 54/36, 55/106
BOA, Y.PRK. BŞK. 63/2
BOA, Y.PRK.DH. 1/44
BOA, Y.PRK. HR. 19/14, 21/51, 27/38, 30/35, 36/12
BOA, Y.PRK.TKM. 30/68, 31/3
BOA, Y.PRK.UM. 48/59, 64/44
BOA, Y.PRK.ZB. 9/61, 11/75, 15/56
National Archives (NARA), Washington
NARA 5505, 5084, 8778/10, 8778/40
Foreign Office (FO), London
FO 424/5, 424/6
Archives du ministère des Affaires étrangères et de l’Europe (AMAE), Paris
AMAE 50 – Mémoires et documents (MD) 45
NEWSPAPER / JOURNALS
Daily Levant Herald
Deutscher Reichsanzeiger und Preußischer Staatsanzeiger
Diyojen
Hürriyet
Journal de Constantinople Echo de L’Orient
340
Kalem
La Turquie
Lancaster Intelligence
Le Droit : Journal des Tribunaux
Les Nouvelles D’Orient
Leeds Mercury
Liverpool Mercury
Pro Armenia
Servet-i Fünûn
The Chicago Tribunal
The Guardian
The Illustrated London News
The Times
The New York Daily Times
The New York Times
PRINTED PRIMARY SOURCES
Ahmed Cevdet. (1986). Tezakir, I-II. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu.
Ahmed Selahaddin. (1912/1331). Hukuk-ı Beyne’d-düvelin Mukâddemat-ı Nazariye
ve Safahât-ı Tekâmüliyesi. Istanbul: Kanaat Kütüphanesi.
Ahmet Lütfi. (1887). Mirât-ı Adalet yahut Tarihçe-yi Adliye-yi Devlet-i Aliyye.
Istanbul: Kitapçı Ohannes.
Ahmet Şuayb. (1912). Hukuk-ı Umumiye-yi Düvel. Istanbul: Matbaa-ı İkbal.
Aristarchi Grégoire Bey. (1873/74/1878/1881). Législation Ottomane ; ou Recueil
des lois, règlements, ordonnances, traités, capitulations et autres documents
officiels de l’Empire Ottoman. Constantinople : Imprimerie Frères
Nicolaïdes.
341
Arminjon, P. (1903). Étrangers et Protégés dans l’Empire Ottoman. Paris : Librairie
Maresco.
Asadur, H., Halil Cemaleddin. (1915). Ecânibin Memâlik-i Osmaniye’de Haiz
Oldukları İmtiyaz-ı Adliye. Istanbul: Hukuk Matbaası.
Bazancourt, L. B. (1855). Cinq Mois au Camp Devant Sébastopol. Paris : Amyot.
Bentham, J. (1894). Theory of Legislation. Trans. by R. Hildreth. Trübne: London.
Bernard, P. (1883). Traite Théorique et Pratique de l’Extradition Comprenant
L’Exposition d’un Projet de Loi Universelle sur l’Extradition. Deuxième
Partie. Paris : Librairie Nouvelle de Droit et de Jurisprudence.
Billot, A. (1874). Traite de L’Extradition, Paris : Plon.
Bilsel, C. (1934). Hukuk-u Düvel, II. Istanbul : Ahmet İhsan Matbaası.
Calani, A. (1855). Scene Della Vita Militare in Crimea. Napoli: Stabilimento
Tipografico.
Calvo, C. (1887). Le Droit International Théorique et Pratique. Tome Second. Paris
: Guillaumin.
Cardaillac, F. (1878). De l’Extradition. Tarbes.
Clarke, E. (1874). A Treatise upon the Law of Extradition. London: Stevens and
Haynes.
Code Pénale. (1812). Paris : De L’Imperimerie de A. Belin.
Codice penale per gli stati di s.m.il re di Sardegna. (1859). Torino: Stamperia Reale.
Cornewall Lewis, G. (1859). On Foreign Jurisdiction and the Extradition of the
Criminals. J.W. Parker and Son.
De Ribes, A.C. (1870). Les Capitulations ou La Reforme dans Les Échelles du
Levant. Le Droit : Journal des Tribunaux. 4 Mai.
Devlet-i Aliye ile Düvel-i Mütehabbe Beynlerinde Teyemmüna Mün’akid olan
Muahedât-ı Atika ve Cedideden Memurîn-i Saltanat-ı Seniyyeye Müracaatı
Lâzım Gelen Fukarat-ı Ahdiyeye MutazammınRisaledir. (1867). Resail-i
Ahdiye Mecmuası. Istanbul: Matbaa-i Âmire.
Duvergier, J.B. (1833). Code Pénal Annoté : Edition de 1832, Paris : A. Guot et
Scribe.
Düstur. (1289). Tertib 1, Cilt 1, 4, 5. Matbaa-yı Amire.
342
Eren, A.A. (1872/1311). Lahey Konferansı Yahud Taknin-i Hukuk-u Düvel.
Matbaa-i Ebülziya, Konstantiniyye.
Fiore, P. (1880). Traite Droit Pénal International et de L’Extradition, Vol. I and II.
Charles Antoine (Trans.) A. Durand et Pedone-Lauriel.
Gatteschi, D. (1865). Manuale di Diritto Pubblico e Privato Ottomano. Tipografia
della Posta Europea di V. Minasi e C.
Hasan, Sırrı. (1910). Hukuk-ı Hususiye-yi Düvel. Dersaadet: Mahmud Bey Matbaası.
Heath, S. L. G. (1897). Letters from the Black Sea During the Crimean War, 1854-
1855. London: Richard Bentley and Son.
Heidborn, A. (1908). Manuel de Droit Public et Administratif de l’Empire Ottoman.
Leipzig: C. W. Stern Editeur.
Hobhouse, J.C. (1817). A Journey Through Albania and Other Provinces of Turkey
in Europe and Asia to Constantinople during the years 1809-1810, Vol.II,
Philadelphia: M. Carey and Son.
Hornby, L. (1863). Constantinople During the Crimean War. London: Richard
Bentley.
Hozier, H. M. (1880). The Russo-Turkish War. London: William McKenzie.
Hüsrevyan, H. (1913). Hukuk-u Hususiye-i Düvel. Istanbul: Edeb Matbaa ve
Kütüphanesi.
International Law. (1861). The Times (Nov.4).
İbrahim Hakkı. (1885/1303). Tarih-i Hukuk-u Beyneddüvel. Karabet ve Kasbar
Matbaası.
Jenkins, M.P. E. (1877). The Russo-Turkish War: Janus or the Double-Faced
Ministry. London: William Mullan and Son.
Keçecizade İzzet Fuat. (1907/1325). 1293 Osmanlı-Rus Seferi. Ahmet İhsan
Matbaası.
Kemalpaşazade Said and Cebrail Gregor. (1882). Hukuk-ı Düvel. Konstantiniyye:
Kitabcı Karabet, Matbaa-i Ebuzziya.
Lausanne Conference on Near Eastern Affairs 1922-1923: records of proceedings
and draft terms of peace. (1923). London: H.M.S.O.
Lawrence, W. B. (1880). Études sur la Juridiction Consulaire en Pays Chrétiens et
en Pays non-Chrétien et sur l’Extradition. Leipzig: F.A. Brochaus.
Locke, J. (1773). An Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil
Government. Boston: Edes and Gill.
343
Lombroso, C., Laschi, R. (1890). Il Delitto Politico e le Rivoluzioni in Rapporto al
Diritto, all'Antropologia Criminale ed alla Scienza di Governo. Fratelli
Bocca.
Martens, F. G. (1864). Précis du droit des gens moderne de l'Europe. Paris:
Guillaumin et Cie.
Martin Koszta – Correspondences. (1854). United States Department of State,
Washington: A.O.P. Nicholson.
Mittermaier, K.J.A. (1863). Il progetto di revisione del Codice 1859 pel
regno d’Italia, presentato al Senato in Torino nel 9 gennaio 1862. Monitore
dei Tribunali. Giornale di legislazione e giurisprudenza civile e penale e del
contenzioso amministrativo, anno IV, n.3, 49-52.
Moore, J. B. (1906). A Digest of International Law. Vol. III. Washington
Government Printing Press.
Muahedat Mecmuası (1880/1298). C.4, Ceride-yi Askeriye Matbaası.
Namık Kemal. (1871). Kapitülasyonlar. Diyojen, No. 166.
Ngai, M.M. (2014). Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern
America. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Noradunghian, G.E. (1903). Recueil d’Actes Internationaux de l’Empire Ottoman.
Tome 4, Paris : Libraire Cothilon.
Nusret Bey. (1927). Hukuk-u Hususiye-yi Düvel. Ankara: Ankara Hukuk Mektebi.
Olivier, G.A. (1801). Travels in the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Persia, Vol.1.
London: Guillaume Antoine.
Ostrorog, C. L. (1912). Pour la Réforme de la Justice Ottomane : rapports, exposés
des motifs, avant-projets de lois. Paris : A. Pedone.
Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to
Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 6, 1880.
(1880). Washington: United States Government Printing Office.
Pardoe, J. (1854). The City of the Sultan and Domestic Manners of the Turks with a
Steam Voyage to the Danube. London: Routledge.
Polyvios, P. (1913). La Condition Légale de Sociétés Étrangères Dans L’Empire
Ottoman. Paris: A. Rousseau.
Porter, S.J. (1854). Turkey, Its History and Progress, Vol. I. London: Hurst and
Blackett Publishers.
Proal, L. (1898). Political Crime. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
344
Raussaus, G. P. (1902). La Régime des Capitulations dans l’Empire Ottoman.
Paris: A. Rousseau.
Regolamento sui Delitti e Sulle Pene del 20 Settembre 1832. (1862). Bologna: Tipi di
Giuseppe Vitali Alle Scienze.
Reid, D.A. (1911). Memories of Crimean War, January 1855 to June 1856. London:
Murray.
Report of Edward A. Van Dyck, Consulate Clerk of the United States at Cairo, upon
the Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire since the Year 1150, part I. (1881).
Washington: Government Printing Office.
Reuss, R. (1918). L’Affaire des Faussaires de Vienne Arrêtes à Huningue et
L’Assemblée Nationale (1790-1792) d’Après Quelques Documents Inédits.
Revue Historique, T. 127, Fasc. 2, Editions Belin, 297-303.
Rivier, A. (1883). Note sur La Literature du Droit de Gens Avant la Publication du
Jus Belli Ac Pacis de Grotius (1625). Bruxelles: F. Hayez.
Robinson, F. (1856). Diary of the Crimean War. London: Richard Bentley.
Salname-yi Nezaret-i Hariciye. (1883/1302). Konstantiniyye: Matbaa-yı Ebül Ziya.
Senate: Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the Year 1857. (1858). Volume II.
Washington: William A. Harris.
Servet. (1909/1327). Hukuk-ı Ceza: Malumat-ı Umumiye ve Kısm-ı Cürm. Dersaadet:
İkdam Matbaası.
Slade, S. A. (1867). Turkey and the Crimean War: A Narrative of Historical Events.
London: Smith-Elder.
Soldan, C. (1882). L’extradition des criminels politiques. Paris : E. Thorin.
Testa, B. (1864). Recueil de traités de la Porte ottomane avec les puissances
Étrangères, Tome Cinquième. Paris: Amyot.
Tosti, G. (1899). Anarchic Crimes. Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 14, No.3,
(Sept.), 404-417.
Twiss, T. (1861). The Law of Nations Considered as Independent Political
Communities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Young, G. (1906). Corps de Droit Ottoman, Vol. VII. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Van den Steen de Jehay, F. (1906). De la Situation Légale des Sujets Ottomans non-
Musulmans. Société Belge de Libraire : Bruxelles.
345
Vattel, Emer. (1853) The Law of Nations or Principles of the Law of Nature Applied
to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns. Philadelphia: T.&J.W.
Johnson, Law Booksellers, Chestnut Street.
Vazelhes, E. (1877) Étude Sur L’Extradition : suive du texte des traites franco-belge
de 1874 et franco-anglais de 1843 et 1876. Paris : P. Pichon, Libraire-éditeur.
White, C. (1845). Three years in Constantinople or Domestic Manners of the Turks
in 1844. Vol. I. London: Henry Colburn Publisher.
Zohrab, K.(1909). Hukuk-u Ceza. Istanbul: Ahmed Şaki Bey Matbaası.
SECONDARY SOURCES
A, J.C. (1914). Criminal Law: Interstate Extradition. California Law Review, Vol.3,
No.1 (Nov.), 63-64.
Age of Rogues: Rebels, Revolutionaries and Racketeers at the Frontiers of the
Empire. (2021). Ed. by Ramazan Hakkı Öztan and Alp Yenen. Edinburgh
University Press.
Agmon, I. (2006). Family Court: Legal Culture and Modernity in Late Ottoman
Palestine. Syracuse University Press: New York.
Ahmad, F. (2000). Ottoman Perceptions of Capitulations. Journal of Islamic Studies,
Vol. 11, No.1, 1-20.
Ahmad, F. (1969). The Young Turks: The Committee of Union and Progress in
Turkish Politics, 1908-1914. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Akarlı, E. D. (1993). The Long Peace: Ottoman Lebanon, 1861-1920. California:
University of California Press.
Akçam, T. (2006). A Shameful Act. New York City: Holt & Co.
Akçam, T. (2004). From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian
Genocide. London & New York: Zed Books.
Akçasu, E. (2016). Migrants to Citizens: An Evaluation of the Expansionist Features
of Hamidian Ottomanism, 1876-1909. Die Welt des Islam, 56, 388-414.
Akçasu, E. (2021). Nation and Migration in Late-Ottoman Spheres of (Legal)
Belonging: A Comparative Look at Laws on Nationality. Nationalities
Papers, Vol. 49, Issue 6, 1-19.
Akgündüz, A. (1987). 1274/1858 Tarihli Osmanlı Ceza Kanunnâmesinin Hukukî
Kaynakları, Tatbik Şekli ve Men’-i İrtikâb Kanunnâmesi”. Belleten, 199,
153-173.
346
Akiba, J. (2003). A New School for Qadis: Education of Sharia Judges in the Late
Ottoman Empire. Turcica, 35, 125-163.
Akiba, J. (2005). From Kadı to Naib: Reorganization of the Ottoman Sharia
Judiciary in the Tanzimat Period. In Frontiers of Ottoman Studies: State,
Province, and the West. Editors Colin Imber and Keiko Kiyotaki. London:
I.B. Tauris, 43-60.
Akiba, J. (2021). Muallimhane-yi Nüvvabtan Mekteb-i Kuzata Osmanlı Kadı
Okulunun Yarım Yüzyıllık Serüveni. Sahn-ı Semandan Darülfünuna:
Osmanlı’da İlim ve Fikir Dünyas. Istanbul: Zeytinburnu Belediyesi Kültür
Yayınları, 13-29.
Akiba, J. (2009). The Local Councils as the Origin of the Parliamentary System in
the Ottoman Empire. Development of Parliamentarism in the Modern Islamic
World 11, 176-204.
Akgündüz, A. (1986). Mukayeseli İslam ve Osmanlı Hukuku Külliyatı. Diyarbakır:
Dicle Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi.
Akif Paşa. (2004). Tabsıra. Istanbul: IQ Kültür Sanat Yayıncılık.
Akyıldız, A. (2003). Para Pul Oldu: Osmanlı’da Kâğıt Para, Maliye ve Toplum.
İletişim Yayınları.
Al-Qattan, N. (1999). Dhimmis in the Muslim Court: Legal autonomy and religious
discrimination. IJMES, 31, 429-444.
Alexander, G. G. (1923). International Criminal Law. Journal of Comparative
Legislation and International Law, Vol.5, No. 1, 90-98.
Alexander, R.S. (2012). Europe’s Uncertain Path, 1814-1914: State Formation and
Civil Society. Malden: Wiley.
Aliprantis, C. (2020). Transnational Policing After the 1848-1849 Revolutions: The
Habsburg Empire in the Mediterranean. European History Quarterly, Vol.
50, 412-437.
Alloul H. and Michael Anwers. (2018). What is (New in) New Diplomatic History.
Journal of Belgian History, XLVIII, 4, 112-122.
Altıntaş, T. (2021). The Abode of Sedition: Resistance, Repression and Revolution
in Sasun, 1891–1904. In Age of Rogues: Rebels, Revolutionaries and
Racketeers at the Frontiers of the Empire. Edited by Ramazan Hakkı Öztan
and Alp Yenen. Edinburgh University Press, 178-207.
Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas. (2005). Ed. by Robert
Graham. Montreal: Black Rose Books.
347
Anastasopoulos, A. (2013). Non-Muslims and Ottoman Justice(s?). Ed. by Jeroen
Duindam, Jill Harries, Caroline Humfress and Nimrod Hurvitz. In Law and
Empire: Ideas, Practices, Actors. Leiden: Brill, 275–292.
Angell, J. B., Curtis, G. T., and Cooley, T. M. (1885). The Extradition of Dynamite
Criminals. The North American Review, Vol. 141, No. 344 (Jul.), 47-59.
Angell, J. B. (1901). The Turkish Capitulations. The American Historical Review,
Vol. 6, No. 2 (Jan.), 254-259.
Anghie, A. (2016). Imperialism and International Legal Theory. In The Oxford
Handbook of the Theory of International Law. Edited by Anne Orford and
Florian Hoffmann. Oxford University Press, 156-172.
Anscombe, F. (2012). The Balkan Revolutionary Age. Journal of Modern History
84 (3), 572–606.
Aral, B. (2016). The Ottoman ‘School’ of International Law as Featured in
Textbooks. Journal of the History of International Law, Vol.18, 70–97.
Ardelenau, C. (2010). Russian-British Rivalry Regarding Danube Navigation and the
Origins of the Crimean War (1846-1853). Journal of Mediterranean Studies,
Vol. 19, No.2, 165-186.
Ardıç, N. (2010). Islam, Modernity and the 1876 Constitution. In The First Ottoman
Experiment in Democracy. Christoph Herzog, and Malek Sharif (eds.).
Istanbul: Orient-Institut, 89-107.
Ashcraft, R. (1992). The Radical Dimensions of Locke’s Political Thought: A
Dialogic Essay on Some Problems of Interpretation. History of Political
Thought, Vol. 13, No.4, 703 – 772.
Aslan, Y. M. (2009). Transformation of Turkish Criminal Law from the Ottoman-
Islamic Law to the Civil Law Tradition. Ankara Bar Review, No.2, 92-98.
Ateş, S. (2013). The Ottoman-Iranian Borderlands: Making a Boundary, 1843-1914.
Cambridge University Press.
Augusti, E. (2011). From Capitulations to Unequal Treaties: The Matter of an
Extraterritorial Jurisdiction in the Ottoman Empire. Journal of Civil Law
Studies, Vol.4, No.2, Mediterranean Legal Hybridity: Mixtures and
Movements, the Relationship between the Legal and Normative Traditions of
the Region, (Dec.), 285-307.
Auslin, M. R. (2004). Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the
Culture of Japanese Diplomacy. Harvard University Press.
Aykut, E. (2016). Toxic Murder, Female Poisoners, and the Question of Agency at
the Late Ottoman Law Courts, 1840-1908. Journal of Women’s History, Vol.
28, Number 3, 114-137.
348
Aymes, M. (2019). Les Faux-Monnayeurs d’Istanbul. Anacharsis: Toulouse.
Aytekin, A. E. (2009). Agrarian Relations, Property and Law: An Analysis of the
Land Code of 1858 in the Ottoman Empire. Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 45.
No.6, 935-951.
Babaoğlu, R. (2017). Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e Mekteb-i Mülkiye. Ankara
Üniversitesi, Basılmamış Doktora Tezi.
Baberowski, J. (2006). Law, the judicial system and the legal profession. The
Cambridge History of Russia, Vol. 2, ed.by Dominic Lieven. Cambridge
University Press, 344-368.
Badem, C. (2015). Güney Kafkasya’da Rus Politikaları ve Ermeniler 1828-1918.
1915: Siyaset, Tehcir, Soykırım. Haz. Fikret Adanır, Oktay Özel. Tarih Vakfı
Yurt Yayınları, 408-420.
Badem, C. (2005). Kırım Savaşı’nn Osmanlı Toplumsal Yaşamına Etkileri.
Toplumsal Tarih, 133. 64-71.
Baer, G. (1977). The Transition from Traditional to Western Criminal Law in Turkey
and Egypt. Studia Islamica. No. 45, 139-158.
Baktıaya, A. (2007). 19. Yy. Sonlarında Anarşist Terör, Toplumun Anarşistlere Karşı
Korunması Konferansı (1898) ve Osmanlı Devleti. Bilgi ve Bellek, 8, 43-55.
Bantman, C. (2013). The French Anarchists in London, 1880-1914: Exile and
Transnationalism in the First Globalisation. Liverpool University Press.
Barkey, K. (2013). Aspects of Legal Pluralism in the Ottoman Empire. In Lauren
Benton and Richard J.Ross. (Eds.). Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1500-1850.
NYU Press, 83-108.
Barkey, K. (2008). Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective.
Cambridge University Press.
Barkey K, Gavrilis, G. (2016). The Ottoman Millet System: Non-Territorial
Autonomy and Its Contemporary Legacy. Ethnopolitics, Vol. 15, No.1,
24-42.
Barosky, T. (2012). Legal and Illegal Moneymaking: Colonial American
Counterfeiters and the Novelization of Eighteenth-Century Crime. Early
American Literature, Vol.47, No.3, 531-560.
Bayard, T.F., Struve, C. and Rosen. Text of the Russian Extradition Treaty.
American Advocate of Peace (1892-1893), Vol. 55, No.7, (July 1893), 148-
149.
349
Bayly, C.A., Beckert, S., Connelly, M., Hofmeyr, I., Kozol, W., Seed, P. (2006).
Conversation: On Transnational History. The American Historical Review,
111 (5), 1441-1464.
Baytimur, S. O. (2016). Osmanlı Devleti’nde Kalpazanlık Faaliyetleri ve Uygulanan
Cezalar (1789-1808). Journal of Bitlis Eren University, Vol.5, No:2 (Dec.),
249-256.
Beccaria, C. (1963). On Crimes and Punishments. Indianapolis: Bobs Merrill.
Bedir, M. (2004). Fikih to Law: Secularization through Curriculum. Islamic Law and
Society, Vol. 11, no.3, 387-401.
Bektaş, Y. (2017). The Crimean War as a Technological Enterprise. The Royal
Society Publishing, 71(3), (Sep.), 233-261.
Bektaş, Y. (2000). The Sultan’s Messenger: Cultural Constructions of Ottoman
Telegraphy, 1847-1880. Technology and Culture, Vol. 41, No. 4, (Oct.),
669-696.
Bender, T. (2006). A Nation Among Nations: America’s Place in World History.
New York: Hill and Wang.
Benton, L. (2002). Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History,
1400-1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Berman, P. S. (2014). From Legal Pluralism to Global Legal Pluralism. In Law,
Society and Community: Socio-Legal Essays in Honour of Roger Cotterrell.
Edited by Richard Nobles and David Schiff. Ashgate, 255-271.
Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1500-1850. (2013). Lauren Benton and Richard Ross
(eds.). New York: New York University Press.
Berberian, R. (2019). Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected
Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian, and Ottoman Worlds. University of
California Press.
Bevans, C. I. (1968). Commerce and Navigation. In Treaties and Other International
Agreements of the United States of America, 1776-1949. Washington DC:
United States Government Printing Office.
Beyhan, M. A. (2008). Said Bey, Lastik (1848–1921). İstanbul: TDV İslâm
Ansiklopedisi, C.35, 549–551.
Bingöl, S. Tanzimat Sonrası Taşra ve Merkezde Yargı Reformu. Osmanlı, C.6
(1999), 533-545.
Blakesley, C. (1984). A Conceptual Frame for Extradition and Jurisdiction Over
Extraterritorial Crime. Utah Law Review, 685.
350
Blakesley, C. (1981). The Practice of Extradition from Antiquity to Modern France
and the United States: A Brief History. Boston College International and
Comparative Law Review, Volume 4, Issue 1, 39-60.
Blomley, N. (2003). Law, Property, and the Geography of Violence: The Frontier,
the Survey, and the Grid. Annals of the Association of American
Geographers, Vol. 93, No.1, 121-141.
Bloomberg, A. (1990). A Carefully Planned Accident: The Italian War of 1859.
Associated University Press.
Blumi, I. (2003). Capitulations in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Shifting Parameters
of Russian and Austrian Interests in Ottoman Albania, 1878-1912. Oriente
Moderno, Anno 22 (83), Nr.3, 635-647.
Blumi, I. (2011). Reinstating the Ottomans: Alternative Balkan Modernities, 1800-
1912. Palgrave Macmillan.
Blumi, I. (2013). Ottoman Refugees, 1878–1939: Migration in a Post-Imperial
World. London: Bloomsbury.
Bogossian, E. (2015). Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the
Armenian Genocide. Little, Brown & Company.
Borisova, T. (2013). Legislation as a Source of Law in late Imperial Russia.
Comparative Studies in Continental and Anglo-American Legal History, Vol.
31, 295-315.
Borisova, T. (2008). Russian National Legal Tradition: Svod versus Ulozhenie in
Nineteenth-century Russia. Review of Central and East European Law 33,
295-341.
Bostan, Z. (2021). Osmanlı Hariciyesinin Modern Temelleri: II. Abdülhamid
Döneminde Diplomasi. Kitap Yayınevi.
Burbank, J. (2006). An Imperial Rights Regime: Law and Citizenship in the
Russian Empire. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Vol.
7, No.3, 397-431.
Bozkurt, G. (1996). Batı Hukukunun Türkiye’de Benimsenmesi: Osmanlı Devleti’nde
Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’ne Resepsiyon Süreci (1839-1939). Ankara: Türk Tarih
Kurumu Basımevi.
Bozkurt, G. (1992). Review of the Ottoman Legal System. OTAM, 3, 115-128.
Brisku, A. (2017). Political Reform in the Ottoman and Russian Empires: A
Comparative Approach. Bloomsbury Academic: London, New York.
Brown, P.M. (1914). Foreigners in Turkey: Their Juridical Status. Princeton
University Press.
351
Brubaker R., F. C. (2000). Beyond ‘Identity’. Theory and Society. Vol.29, No.1
(Feb.), 1-47.
Bryne, A. (2020). The Monroe Doctrine and United States National Security in the
Early Twentieth Century. Palgrave Macmillan.
Camera Ottomana: Photography and Modernity in the Ottoman Empire 1840-1914.
(2015). Ed. by Zeynep Çelik, Edhem Eldem. Istanbul: Koç Üniversitesi
Yayınları.
Can, L. (2016). The Protection Question: Central Asians and Extraterritoriality in the
Late Ottoman Empire. IJMES 48, 679-699.
Cankara, M. (2019). Patrik Mateos İzmirliyan’a Göre II. Abdülhamid’in Politikaları.
Toplumsal Tarih, 302, 4-7.
Cassel, P. C. (2012). Grounds of Judgment: Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power
in Nineteenth-Century China and Japan. Oxford University Press.
Cervati, R. L’Indicateur Constantinopolitain: Guide Commercial, Premier Année
1868-1869. Imprimerie G. B. Pagano, 1868.
Chabot, M. E. (1928). Un Cas d’Extradition en 1446 entre la Principauté d’Orange
et l’État Pontifical D’Avignon. Revue historique de droit français et
étranger, Quatrième série, Vol. 7, 104-110.
Chambre des conseillers légistes de la Sublime Porte : Rapports, avis et
consultations sur la condition juridique des ressortissants étrangers, le statut
des communautés non musulmanes et les relations internationales de
l’Empire Ottoman. (2012) Edited by Sinan Kuneralp and Emre Öktem.
Istanbul : The Isis Press.
Charlton Extradition Case (Charlton vs Kelly). (1913). The American Journal of
International Law, Vol. 7, No.3, (Jul.), 637-653.
Chen, L. (2016). Chinese Law in Imperial Eyes: Sovereignty, Justice &
Transcultural Politics. Colombia University Press: New York.
Chen, L. (2010). Law, Empire and Historiography of Modern Sino-Western
Relations: A Case Study of Lady Hughes Controversy in 1784. Law and
History Review, Vol.27, Issue 1, 1-54.
Chen, L. (2011). Universalism and Equal Sovereignty as Contested Myths of
International Law in the Sino-Western Encounter. Journal of the History of
the International Law, 13, 75-116.
Cheta, O. Y. (2018). A Prehistory of the Modern Legal Profession in Egypt, 1840s-
1870s. International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 50, Issue 4, 649-
668.
352
Chinese Extradition Ordinance. (1964). Laws of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Government.
Clark, J. R. Frederick R. Coudert and Julian W. Mack. (1909). “The nature definition
of political offense in international extradition”, The Proceedings of the
American Society of International Law at Its Annual Meeting (1907-1917),
Vol.3 (April 23 and 24), 95-165.
Clifford, H. (1956). Letters and Sketches from the Crimea. London: Michael Joseph.
Coates, B. A. (2016). Legalist Empire: International Law and American Foreign
Relations in the Early Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cobbing, A. (2018). A Victorian Embarrassment: Consular Jurisdiction and the Evils
of Extraterritoriality. The International History Review, 40:2, 273-291.
Cole, S. (2001). Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal
Identification. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Compte Rendus de la Conférence Internationale pour l’Adoption d’une Convention
Pour la Répression du Faux Monnayage : Genève, du 9 au 20 avril 1929.
(1929). (Série de Publications de la Société des Nations.
Conway, A. and J.O. B. (1968). Soldier-Surgeon: The Crimean War Letters of Dr.
Douglas A. Reid, 1855-1856. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Csorba, G. (2002). Hungarian Emigrants of 1848-49 in the Ottoman Empire. In The
Turks, Vol. 4. Edited by Hasan Celal Güzel, C.Cem Oğuz. Ankara: Yeni
Türkiye Yayınları.
Cörüt, İ. (2005). Social Rationality of Lower-Class Criminal Practices in the
Nineteenth Century Istanbul. MA Thesis. Boğaziçi University.
Cuthell, D.C. (2005). The Muhacirun Komisyonu: An agent in the transformation of
Ottoman Anatolia, 1860-1866. Unpublished Phd, Columbia University.
Criss, N. B. (1999). Istanbul Under Allied Occupation, 1918-1923. Brill.
Çankaya, A. (1968). Yeni Mülkiye Tarihi ve Mülkiyeliler II, III. Ankara: Mars
Matbaası.
Çiçek, T.M. (2016). Myth of the Unionist triumvirate: the formation of the CUP
factions and their impact in Syria during the Great War. In Syria in World
War I: Politics, economy, and society. Ed. by. M.Talha Çiçek. Routledge:
London, New York, 8-32.
Çorlu, A. (2016). Anarchist and Anarchism in the Ottoman Empire, 1850-1917. In
History From Below: A Tribute in Memory of Donald Quataert, Istanbul:
Bilgi University Press, 553-583.
353
Dabağyan, L.P. (2001). Sultan Abdülhamit ve Ermeniler. Istanbul: Kum Saati
Yayınları.
Daly, J. (2002). Political Crime in Late Imperial Russia. The Journal of Modern
History, Vol.74, No.1, (Mar.), 62-100.
Darnton, R. (1989). What Was Revolutionary about the French Revolution. The New
York Review of Books.
De Haan I., Van Zanten J. (2019). Constructing an International Conspiracy
Revolutionary Concertation and Police Networks in the European
Restoration. In Securing Europe after Napoleon 1815 and the New European
Security Culture. Edited by Beatrice de Graaf. Cambridge University Press.
171-192.
Deal, A. R. (2010). Crimes of Honor, Drunken Brawls and Murder – Violence in
Istanbul Under Abdulhamid II. Libra.
Deal, A. R. (2013). War Refugees and Violence in Hamidian Istanbul. Middle
Eastern Studies, Vol. 49, No.2, 179-190.
Deere, L.L. (1933). Political Offenses in the Law and Practice of Extradition. The
American Journal of International Law, Vol. 27, No. 2, 247-270.
Deflem, M. (2005). Wild Beasts Without Nationality: The Uncertain Origins of
Interpol, 1898-1910. In Handbook of Transnational Crime and Justice.
Edited by Philip Reichel. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 275-285.
Demirci, S. (2005). Strategies and Struggles: British Rhetoric and Turkish Response:
The Lausanne Conference 1922-1923. Istanbul: The ISIS Press.
Demirel, F. (2007). Adliye Nezareti; Kuruluşu ve Faaliyetleri (1876-1914). İstanbul:
Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınevi.
Deringil, S. (2015). Abdülhamid Döneminde Ermeni Meselesi. Haz. Fikret Adanır,
Oktay Özel. 1915: Siyaset, Tehcir ve Soykırım, İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt
Yayınları, 99-111.
Deringil, S. (2012). Conversion and Apostasy in Late Ottoman Empire. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Deringil, S. (2011). The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of
Power in the Ottoman Empire, 1876-1909, I.B. Tauris.
Derri, A. (2020). Imperial Creditors, ‘Doubtful’ Nationalities and Financial
Obligations in Late Ottoman Syria: Rethinking Ottoman Subjecthood and
Consular Protection. The International History Review, Vol. 43, Issue 5,
1060-1079.
354
Di Paola, P. (2007). The Spies Who Came in from the Heat: The International
Surveillance of the Anarchists in London. European History Quarterly, 37,
189-215.
Dirlik, A. (1999). Is There History After Eurocentrism? : Globalism,
Postcolonialism, and the Disavowal of History. Cultural Critique, No. 42, 1-
34.
Duguid, S. (1973). The Politics of Unity: Hamidian Policy in Eastern Anatolia.
Middle Eastern Studies, 9(2), 139-155.
Dupriez, L. H. (1929). La Répression Internationale du Faux-Monnayage”, Revue de
Droit Internationale et de Législation Comparée, 511-530.
Dussel, D.C. (1981). Russian Judicial Reforms and Counter Reforms (1864-1914).
Unpublished PhD. Thesis, Columbia University of Missouri.
Dündar, F. (2015). Savaş ve Ermeni Nüfus Meselesinin Halli, 1915-1923. Haz.
Fikret Adanır, Oktay Özel. 1915: Siyaset, Tehcir ve Soykırım, İstanbul: Tarih
Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 418-25.
Ekinci, E. B. (2004). Osmanlı Mahkemeleri: Tanzimat ve Sonrası. İstanbul: Arı
Sanat.
Eldem, E. (2015). “Banka Vakası” ve 1896 İstanbul Katliamı. Haz. Fikret Adanır,
Oktay Özel. 1915: Siyaset, Tehcir ve Soykırım, İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt
Yayınları, 169-190.
Eldem, E. (2006). Capitulations and Western Trade. In the Cambridge History of
Turkey (Volume 3): The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839. Edited by
Suraiya Faroqhi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 281-335.
Eldem, E. (2011). Chaos and Half Measures: The Ottoman Monetary ‘System’ of the
Nineteenth Century. In E.Eldem and S.Petmezas (Eds.). The Economic
Development of South-Eastern Europe (1830-1914). Athens: Alpha Bank
Historical Archives, 251-305.
Edhem E. (2007). Foreigners at the Threshold of Felicity: The Reception of
Foreigners in Ottoman Istanbul. In Cultural Exchange in Early Modern
Europe: Cities and Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400-1700. Edited by
Donatella Calabi, Stephen Turk Christensen. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 114-31.
Eldem, E. (2013). Istanbul as a Cosmopolitan City: Myths and Realities. In A
Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism. Edited by Ato Quayson and
Girish Daswani. Wiley-Blackwell, 212-230.
Eldem, E. (1999). Istanbul: from Imperial to Peripheralized Capital. In The Ottoman
City Between East and West: Aleppo, Izmir and Istanbul. Edited by Edhem
Eldem, Daniel Goffman and Bruce Masters. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 135-206.
355
Eldem, E. (2005). Ottoman financial integration with Europe: foreign loans, the
Ottoman Bank and the Ottoman public debt. European Review, Vol.13, No.3,
431-445.
Eldem, E. (2018). The Search for an Ottoman Vernacular Photography. In The
Indigenous Lens: Early Photography in the Near and Middle East. Ed. by
Ritter M. and S.G. Scheiwiller. De Gruyter, 29-56.
Erdoğdu, A.T. (2016). The Administrative and Judicial Status of the First Ottoman
Parliament According to the 1876 Constitution. The First Ottoman
Experiment in Democracy. Ed. by Christoph Herzog and Malek Sharif.
Würzberg: Ergon Verlag in Kommission, 67-87.
Ergene, B. (2004). Pursuing Justice in an Islamic Context: Dispute Resolution in
Ottoman Courts of Law. Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Vol. 27,
No. 1, 51-71.
Ergut, F. (2004). Modern Devlet ve Polis. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları.
Ergül, E. (2013). Avrupa İnsan Hakları Sözleşmesi ve Türk Hukuku’nda Sınır Dışı
Etme, Geri Gönderme ve Geri Verme. Yargı Yayınevi.
Erickson, E.J. (2011). Template for Destruction: The Congress of Berlin and the
Evolution of Ottoman Counterinsurgency Practices. In War and Diplomacy:
The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and the Treaty of Berlin. Ed.by
M.Hakan Yavuz and Peter Sluglett. University of Utah Press, 351-381.
Erozan, B. (2014). Türkiye’de Uluslararası İlişkiler Disiplininin Uzak Tarihi: Hukuku
Düvel. Uluslararası İlişkiler, Vol. 11, No. 43, 53-80.
Ersoy, A. (2016). Ottomans and the Kodak Galaxy: Archiving Everyday Life and
Historical Space in Ottoman Illustrated Journals. History of Photography,
40:3, 330-357.
Extradition. Fugitives from Justice. Necessity for Physical Presence at Time of
Commission of Crime. (1924). The Yale Law Journal, Vol.33, No.7 (May),
784.
Extradition in the Absence of Treaties. (1901). Harvard Law Review, Vol.14, No.8,
(Apr.), 607-608.
Evelyn, G.P. (1954). A Diary of Crimea. London: Gerald Duckworth.
Fahmy, K. (1999). The Anatomy of Justice: Forensic Medicine and Criminal Law in
Nineteenth Century Egypt. Islamic Law and Society, Vol.6, no.2, 224-271.
Fahmy, Z. (2013). Jurisdictional Borderlands: Extraterritoriality and “Legal
Chameleons” in Precolonial Alexandria, 1840-1870. Comparative Studies in
Society and History, Vol.55, Iss.2, (April), 305-329.
356
Féraud-Giraud, L. J. D. (1855). De La Juridiction Française Dans Les Échelles Du
Levant. Revue Historique De Droit Français et Étranger, Vol.1. Paris :
Edition Dalloz, 579-608.
Ferrara, A., Pianciola N. (2019). The dark side of connectedness: forced migrations
and mass violence between the late Tsarist and Ottoman empires (1853-
1920). Historical Research, Vol. 92, No. 257. 608-631.
Findley, C. V. (1989) Ottoman Civil Officialdom: A Social History. New Jersey:
Princeton University Press.
Findley, C. (1972). The Foundation of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry: The
Beginnings of Bureaucratic Reform under Selim III and Mahmud II.
International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 3, No.4 (Oct.), 388-416.
Fisher, A.W. (1987). Emigration of Muslims from the Russian Empire in the Years
After the Crimean War. Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. Neue Folge,
Bd. 35, H. 3.
Fisk, C. L., Gordon R. W. (2011). Foreword: “Law As …”: Theory and Method in
Legal History. UC Irvine Law Review, 1(3), 519-541.
Flaherty, D. E. (2013). Public Law, Private Practice: Politics, Profit, and the Legal
Profession in Nineteenth-Century Japan. Harvard East Asian Monographs,
348.
Fleming, M. (1980). Propaganda by the deed: Terrorism and anarchist theory in late
nineteenth-century Europe. Terrorism, Vol. 4, 1-23.
Forestier-Peyrat, E. (2016). Une autre histoire des relations russo-ottomanes : Trois
moments de la frontière caucasienne (1900-1918). European Journal of
Turkish Studies, 22, 1-20.
Fugitive Criminals in International Extradition. (1923). Columbia Law Review,
Vol.23, No. 2, Feb. 176-179.
Fujinami, N. (2019). Law for Tanzimat: Islam and Sovereignty in Kemalpaşazade
Sait’s Legal Thought. Die Welt des Islams, 59, 171-188.
Fujinami, N. (2017). The First Ottoman History of International Law. Turcica,
Vol. 48, Edition Peeters, 245-270.
Gadal, S., Jeansoulin, R. (2000). Borders, Frontiers and Limits: Some Computational
Concepts Beyond Words. European Journal of Geography, 125, 1-16.
Gango, G. (2001). 1848-1849 in Hungary. Hungarian Studies, 15/1, 39-47.
Gavrilis, G. (2008). The Greek – Ottoman Boundary as an Institution, Locality, and
Process, 1832-1882. American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 51, No. 10, 1516-
1537.
357
Genell, A. (2016). Autonomous Provinces and the Problem of ‘Semi-Sovereignty’ in
European International Law. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies,
Vol. 18, No.6, 533-549.
Genell, A. (2016). The Well-Defended Domains: Eurocentric International Law and
the Making of the Ottoman Office of Legal Counsel. Journal of the Ottoman
and the Turkish Studies Association, Vol.3, No.2, November, 255-275.
Georgeon, F. (2003). Abdülhamid II. Le sultan calife. Paris: Fayard.
Gerber, H. (1994). State, Society, and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in Comparative
Perspective. Albany: SUNY Press.
Gernsheim A. and H. G. (1954). Roger Fenton, Photographer of the Crimean War.
London: Secker and Warburg.
Geyikdağı, N. (2008). Osmanlı Devleti’nde Yabancı Sermaye. İstanbul: Hill.
Ghobrial, J.A. (2019). Introduction: Seeing the World like a Microhistorian. Past and
Present, Vol. 242, Issue Supplement 14, 1-22.
Gomez, H. R. (2017). Migrazione Italiani in Nuova Russia e Crimea: Tracce, Fonti,
Contesti in la Crimea tra Russia, Italia e Impero Ottomano. Eurasiatica,
Vol.8, pp.117-144.
Gordon, L. J. (1928). Turkish-American Treaty Relations. The American Political
Science Review, Vol. 22, No. 3, 711-721.
Gorky, M. (1913). Chelkash and Other Stories. New York: A.A. Knopf.
Gökçen, A. (1994). 1296 (1879) Tarihli Usul-ü Muhakemât-ı Cezaiyye Kanun-ı
Muvakkatı. Selçuk Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi, 4, 203-288.
Gölen, Z. (2014). Karadağ Devleti’nin Doğuşu: Osmanlı-Karadağ Sınır Tespiti
(1858-1860). Belleten, Cilt 78, Sayı 282, 659-698.
Grassi, F. L. (2006). Sardinya Krallığı’nın Kırım Savaşı’na Katılması. Toplumsal
Tarih, 151. 80-86.
Grey, F. T. (1928). Extradition: A Draft Convention. Transactions of the Grotius
Society, Vol. 14, Problems of Peace and War, Papers Read before the Society
in the Year 1928, 103-112.
Groot, A. H. (2003). The Historical Development of the Capitulatory Regime in
the Ottoman Middle East from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries.
Oriente Moderno. Nuovo Serie, Anno 22, (83), Nr. 3, 575-604.
Grotius, H. (1925). De Jure Belli Ac Pacis Libri Tres (The rights of war and peace,
including the law of nature and of nations). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
358
Gutman, D. (2019). The Politics of Armenian Migration to North America, 1885-
1915. Edinburgh University Press.
Gutman, D. (2016). Travel Documents, Mobility Control, and the Ottoman State in
the Age of Global Migration, 1880-1915. JOTSA, Vol.3, No.2 (November),
347-368.
Güler, Ü. (2010). Türk Ceza Hukuku’nda Geri Verme.
Günay, B. (2009). The Crimean War and Its Effects on Ottoman Social Life.
Güneydoğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi, 16. 105-128.
Gürpınar, D. (2013). Ottoman Imperial Diplomacy: A Political, Social and Cultural
History. I.B. Tauris.
Gürsoy, G. (2019). Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Sikke Kalpazanlığı. Basılmamış
Yüksek Lisans Tezi. İstanbul Üniversitesi.
Hamed-Troyansky, V. (2018). Imperial Refuge: Resettlement of Muslims from
Russia in the Ottoman Empire, 1860-1914. PhD Thesis. Stanford University.
Haney, C. (1982). Criminal Justice and the Nineteenth Century Paradigm: The
Triumph of Psychological Individualism in the ‘Formative Era.’ Law and
Behavior Vol.6, No. ¾, 191-235.
Hanioğlu, Ş. M. (2001). Preparation for A Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902-1908.
Oxford University Press.
Hanley, W. (2018). Extraterritorial Prosecution, the Late Capitulations, and the New
International Lawyers. In To Kill a Sultan: A Transnational History of the
Attempt on Abdülhamid II (1905). Ed. by Houssine Alloul, Edhem Eldem and
Henk de Smaele. London: Palgrave, 163-192.
Hanley, W. (2016). International Lawyers without Public International Law: the
Case of the Late Ottoman Egypt. Journal of the History of International Law
18, 98-119.
Hanley, W. (2016). What Ottoman Nationality Was and Was Not? Journal of the
Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, Vol. 3, No. 2, 277-298.
Hanley, W. (2013). When Did Egyptians Stop Being Ottomans? An Imperial
Citizenship Case Study. In Multilevel Citizenship. Ed. by Willem Maas.
University of Pennsylvania Press. 89-109.
Hannappel, T. (2019). Extradition and Expulsion as Instruments of Transnational
Security Regimes Against Anarchism in the Late Nineteenth Century. In The
Transnationalisation of Criminal Law in the Nineteenth and Twentieth
Century: Political Crime, Police Cooperation, Security Regimes and
Normative Orders. Ed. by Karl Härter, Tina Hannappel, and Jean Conrad
Tyrichter. Verlag Vittorio Klostermann, 65-97.
359
Hannavy, J. (1974). The Camera Goes to War: Photographs from the Crimean War.
Edinburgh: Scottish Arts Council.
Harsin, J. (2002). Barricades: The War of the Streets in Revolutionary Paris, 1830-
1848. Palgrave: Macmillan.
Hartmann, E. (2013). The Central State in the Borderlands: Ottoman Eastern
Anatolia in the Late Nineteenth Century. In Shatterzone of Empires:
Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian and Ottoman
Borderlands. Ed. by Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz. Indiana University
Press: Bloomington and Indianapolis, 172-192.
Hatton, T. (2001). The Age of Mass Migration: What We Can and Can’t Explain. In
Migration and Mobility: the European Context. Ed. by Ghatak S. and
Sassoon A.S. Palgrave: Macmillan.
Hegel, G.W.F. (2008). The Outlines of the Philosophy of Right. Translated by
T. M. Knox, edited by Stephen Houlgate. Oxford University Press.
Heinzelman, T. (2014). The Ruler’s Monologue: The Rhetoric of the Ottoman Penal
Code of 1858. Die Welt des Islams, Vol.54, Issue 3-4, Special Thematic
Section: Competing Notions of Order in the Later Ottoman Empire (18th -20th
Centuries), 292-321.
Heiss, M.A. (2002). The Evolution of the Imperial Idea and U.S. National Identity.
Diplomatic History, Vol. 26, No. 4, 511-540.
Herlihy, D. (2011) The Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and
His Mysterious Disappearance. Mariner Books.
Herzog, C. (2011). Migration and the state: On Ottoman regulations concerning
migration since the age of Mahmud II. In the City in the Ottoman Empire:
Migration and the making of urban modernity, ed. by Ulrike Freitag, Malte
Fuhrmann, Nora Lafi and Florian Riedler. Routledge: London and New York,
117-134.
Hill, P. (2021). How Global Was the Age of Revolutions? The Case of Mount
Lebanon, 1821. Journal of Global History, 16, 65-84.
Hobsbawm, E. (2003). The Age of Capital: 1848-1875. London: Abacus, 2003.
Hobsbawm, E. (1996). The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848. Vintage Books.
Holquist, P. (2004). The Russian Empire as a “Civilized State: International Law as
Principle and Practice in Imperial Russia, 174-1878. The National Council for
Eurasian and East European Research. Washington D.C., 1-37.
Horowitz, R. (2005). International Law and State Formation in China, Siam and the
Ottoman Empire during the 19th Century. In Journal of World History 445,
445-486.
360
Howard, H.N. (1976). The Bicentennial American-Turkish Relations. Middle East
Journal, Vol. 30, No. 3, 291-310.
Howe, J. W., Mead E.D., Wyman L.B.C., Dillingham P., Garrison F.J., Noble E.,
Hobart A. (1893). Society of American Friends of Russian Freedom.
American Advocate of Peace, Vol. 55, No. 5, 103-104.
Howell, R. (2003). The Effect of the Martin Koszta Affair on American Foreign
Policy. Fairmount Folio: Journal of History, Vol. 5, 40-50.
Hughes, C. S. (1994). Crime, Disorder and the Risorgimento: The Politics of
Policing in Bologna. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hunt, C. (2015). Changing Identities at the Fringes of the Late Ottoman Empire: The
Muslims of Dobruja, 1839-1914. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. The Ohio
State University.
Hyde, C.C. (1914). Notes on Extradition Treaties of the United States. The American
Journal of International Law 8, no.3 (July), 487–514.
Ilıcak, Ş. (2021). "Those Infidel Greeks": The Greek War of Independence Through
Ottoman Archival Documents. Leiden: Brill.
Immig, N. (2009). The “New” Muslim Minorities in Greece: Between Emigration
and Political Participation, 1881–1886. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs,
Vol. 29, No. 4 (Dec.), 511–522.
International Convention for the Suppression of Counterfeiting Currency and
Protocol. Signed at Geneva, April 20, 1929. (1931) League of Nation Treaty
Series 45.
Ispahani, M. (2018). Building Sovereignty in the Late Ottoman World: Imperial
Subjects, Consular Networks and Documentation of Individual Identities.
Unpublished PhD Thesis, Columbia University.
İleri, N. (2015). A Nocturnal History of Fin de Siècle Istanbul. PhD Thesis,
Binghamton University.
İlgürel, M. (2009). Subaşı. TDV Islâm Ansiklopedisi, S.37, 447-448.
Jackson, J. H. (1991). Quasi States: Sovereignty, International Relations, and the
Third World. Cambridge University Press.
Jackson, J. H. (2003). Sovereignty – Modern: A New Approach to an Outdated
Concept. American Journal of International Law, 97, 782-802.
Jacobson, S. (2009). Catalonia’s Advocates: Lawyers, Society, and Politics in
Barcelona, 1759-1900. The University of North Carolina Press.
361
Jagodic, M. (1998). The Emigration of Muslims from the New Serbian Regions
1877/1878. Balkanologie: Revue d’études pluridisciplinaires, Vol. II, No.2,
1-21.
James, L. (1981). Crimea, 1854-56: The War with Russia from Contemporary
Photographs. Oxford: Hayes Kennedy.
Jarrett, M. (2013). The Congress of Vienna and Its Legacy: War and Great Power
Diplomacy after Napoleon. London-New York: I.B. Tauris.
Jasanoff, M. (2010). Revolutionary Exiles: The American Loyalist and French
Émigré Diasporas. In The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760-
1840. Ed. by David Armitage and Sanjay Subrahamanyam. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 37-58.
Jennings, R. (2011). Studies on Ottoman Social History in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries: Women, Zimmis and Sharia Courts in Kayseri,
Cyprus, and Trabzon. Gorgias Press.
Jennings, R. C. (1975). The Office of Vekil (Wakil) in 17th Century Ottoman Sharia
Courts. Studia Islamica, 42, 147-169.
Jensen, R. B. (2014). The Battle Against Anarchist-Terrorism: An International
History, 1878-1934. Cambridge University Press.
Jensen, R. B. (1981). The International Anti-Anarchist Conference of 1898 and the
Origins of Interpol. Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Apr.
1981), pp. 323-347.
Jianu, A. (2011). A circle of friends: Romanian revolutionaries and political exile,
1840-1859. Balkan Studies Library, 3. Leiden: Brill.
Jones, F. C. (1970). Extraterritoriality in Japan and the Diplomatic Relations
Resulting in Its Abolition, 1853-1899. AMS Press.
Kahraman, O. (2020). Osmanlı İdari Modernleşmesinde Şura-yı Devlet. Basılmamış
Doktora Tezi. Hacı Bayram Veli Üniversitesi.
Kale, B. (2014). Transforming an Empire: The Ottoman Empire’s Immigration and
Settlement Policies in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. Middle
Easterm Studies, 50 (2), 252-271.
Kamay, B. (2021). The Ottoman Empire, the United States, and the legal battle over
extradition: the “Kelly affair.” New Perspectives on Turkey, Vol. 65, 78-99.
Karakaya, H. (2020). Osmanlı Ceza Hukukunda Parada Sahtecilik Suçu. Basılmamış
Yüksek Lisans Tezi. Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt Üniversitesi.
Karakoç, E. (2010). Osmanlı Hariciyesinde Bir Ermeni Nazır: Gabriel Noradunkyan
Efendi. Uluslararası İlişkiler, Cilt 7, Sayı 25, 157-177.
362
Karčić, H. (2020). Sèvres at 100: The Peace Treaty that Partitioned the Ottoman
Empire. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 40, Issue 3, 470-479.
Karpat, K. (2002). Kossuth in Turkey: The Impact of Hungarian Refugees in the
Ottoman Empire, 1849-1851. In Studies on Ottoman Social and Political
History. Brill, 169-184.
Karpat, K. (1985). The Ottoman Emigration to America, 1860-1914. International
Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2, 175-209.
Kasaba, R. (2011). Moveable Empire: Ottoman Nomads, Migrants & Refugees.
University of Washington Press.
Kasaba, R. (1988). The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy. Albany: State
University of New York Press.
Kayalı, H. (1995). Elections and the Electoral Process in the Ottoman Empire, 1876-
1919,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3, 265-286.
Kayaoğlu, T. (2014). Legal Imperialism: Sovereignty and Extraterritoriality in
Japan, the Ottoman Empire, and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Keene, E. (2004). Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in
World Politics. Oxford: Cambridge University Press.
Kemal, Y. (2003). Karıncanın Su İçtiği, Bir Ada Hikayesi 2. Yapı Kredi Yayınları.
Keneally, T. (2008). Abraham Lincoln: A Life. London: Penguin Books.
Kern, K. (2011). Imperial Citizen: Marriage and Citizenship in the Ottoman Frontier
Provinces of Iraq. Syracuse University Press.
Ketsemanian, V. (2018). The Hunchakian Revolutionary Party and the Assassination
Attempts Against Patriarch Khoren Ashekian and Maksudzade Simon Bey in
1894. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 50, 735-755.
Kévorkian, R.H. (1995). Gabriel Noradunghian : Extraits des Mémoires recueillis par
Aram Andonian. Revue d’Histoire Arménienne Contemporaine, TOME I,
1-37.
Kévorkian, R.H. (2011). The Armenian Genocide : A Complete History. London :
New York. I.B. Tauris
Khair, A. A. (1973). Le Moutaçarrifat du Mont-Liban. Beyrouth : Publications de
L’Université Libanaise.
Kılıç, O. (1999). XI. Yüzyılın ikinci yarısında Osmanlı Devleti’nde Kalpazanlık
Faaliyetleri. Osmanlı Ansiklopedisi, C.3, 180-187.
363
Kılıç, S. (1992). 1876 Anayasası’nın Bilinmeyen İki Tasarısı. A.Ü.Osmanlı Tarihi
Araştırma Merkezi Dergisi (OTAM), no 4, 557- 635.
Kırımlı, H. (2008). Emigrations from the Crimea to the Ottoman Empire during the
Crimean War. Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.44, No.5, 751-773.
Kırlı, C. (2019): Tanzimat: Düzen ve Kaos. Toplumsal Tarih, 311, Kasım, 80-85.
Kırlı, C. (2015). Yolsuzluğun İcadı: 1840 Ceza Kanunu, İktidar ve Bürokrasi.
Istanbul: Verita.
Kimberly, L.A. (1965). Samoan Hurricane. Naval Historical Foundation
Publication, August.
Klein, J. (2011). The Margins of the Empire: Kurdish Militias in the Ottoman Tribal
Zone. Stanford University Press.
Knauf, D. and Moreno, B. (2010). Leaving Home: Migration Yesterday and Today.
Edition Temmen.
Kocabaşoğlu, U. (2000). Anadolu’daki Amerika: Kendi Belgeleriyle 19. Yüzyılda
Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’ndaki Amerikan Misyoner Okulları. İmge Yayınevi.
Koçunyan, A. (2014). The Transcultural Dimension of the Ottoman Constitution. In
Well-Connected Domains: Towards an Entangled Ottoman History. Ed. by
Pascal Firges, Tobias Graf, Christian Roth, and Gülay Tulasoğlu. BRILL,
235-258.
Kolbaş, B. T. (2021). Suçluların İadesi. Basılmamış Yüksek Lisans Tezi. Galatasaray
Üniversitesi.
Koptaş, M. (2005). Armenian Political Thinking in the Second Institutional Period:
The Case of Krikor Zohrab. Unpublished MA Thesis, Boğaziçi University.
Koskenniemi, M. (2001). The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of
International Law 1870-1960. Cambridge University Press.
Krasner, S. (1999). Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. New Jersey: Princeton
University Press.
Kuhn, A. (1934). International Cooperation in the Suppression of Crime,” The
American Journal of International Law, Vol. 28, No.3 (Jul.), 541-544.
Kuneralp, S. (2002). Ottoman Diplomacy and the Controversy Over the
Interpretation of Article 4 of the Turco-American Treaty of 1830. The Turkish
Yearbook of International Relations XXXI, 7-20.
Kuneralp, S. (1999). Son Dönem Osmanlı Erkân ve Ricali (1839-1922):
Prosopografik Rehber. Istanbul: İsis Press.
364
Kuneralp, S. (2008). The last of the Phanariotes: Grégoire d'Aristarchi Bey (1843-
1914), an Ottoman diplomat and publicist in search of identity" The Greek
world under Ottoman and Western domination. New York: Alexander S.
Onassis Public Benefit Foundation: Benaki Museum.
Kurz, M. (2012). Gracious Sultan, Grateful Subjects: Spreading Ottoman Imperial
“Ideology” throughout the Empire. Studia Islamica 107, 96-121.
Laine, J.P. (2021). Beyond Borders: Towards the Ethics of Unbounded
Inclusiveness. Journal of Borderland Studies, 36:5, 745-763.
Lambert, F. (2005). The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic
World. New York: Hill and Wang.
Laver, J. (2002). The Modernization of Russia, 1856-1985. Oxford: Heinemann.
Latour, B. (2010). The Making of Law: An Ethnography of the Conseil d’Etat. Polity
Press, Cambridge.
Lee, B. (1970). The Kingdom of Sardinia. Historical Atlas of the World. Edinburgh.
Lefebvre, G. (2015). The Coming of the French Revolution. Princeton University
Press.
Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1500-1850 (2013). Ed. by Lauren Benton, Richard J.
Ross. NYU Press.
Levi, G. (2019). Frail Frontiers? Past and Present. Vol. 242, Issue Supplement 14,
November, 37-49.
Lévy-Aksu, N. (2015). A Capital Challenge: Managing Violence and Disorders in
Late Ottoman Istanbul. In U.Freitag, N.Fuccaro, C.Ghrawi, N.Lafi. (Eds.),
Rethinking Urban Violence in the Middle East: Changing Cityscapes in the
Transition from Empire to Nation State. Oxford: Berghahn, 52-69.
Lévy-Aksu, N. (2016). An Ottoman variation on the state of siege: The invention of
the idare-i örfiyye during the first constitutional period. New Perspectives on
Turkey, no. 54, 1-24.
Lévy-Aksu, N. (2015). Institutional Cooperation and Substitution: The Ottoman
Police and Justice System at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries. In
Order and Compromise: Government Practices in Turkey from the Late
Ottoman Empire to the Early 21st Century. Ed. by Marc Aymes, Benjamin
Gourisse, Elise Massicard. Leiden: Brill, 146-168.
Lévy-Aksu, N. Osmanlı İstanbul’unda Asayiş, 1879-1909. İletişim Yayınları.
365
Lévy-Aksu, N. (2018). The State and the City, the State in the City: Another Look at
Citadinité. In Ordinary Jerusalem, 1840-1940: Opening New Archives,
Resisting a Global City. Ed.by Angelos Dalachanis, Vincent Lemire. Leiden:
Brill.
Liu, S. S. (1925). Extraterritoriality: Its Rise and Decline. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Living in the Ottoman Realm: Empire and Identity: 13th to 20th Centuries. (2016).
Christine Isom-Verhaaeren and Kent Schull. (Eds.). Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Lohr, E. (2006). The Ideal Citizen and Real Subject in Late Imperial Russia. Kritika:
Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Vol. 7, No.2. Slavica
Publishers, 173-194.
Lorca, A. B. (2010). Universal International Law: Nineteenth Century Histories of
Imposition and Appropriation. Harvard International Law Journal 51, no.2,
475-552.
Low, M. C. (2016). Unfurling the Flag of Extraterritoriality: Autonomy, Foreign
Muslims, and the Capitulations in the Ottoman Hijaz. Journal of Ottoman
and Turkish Studies Association, Vol. 3, No. 2, 299-323.
MacArthur-Seal, D. J. (2018). Resurrecting Legal Extraterritoriality in Occupied
Istanbul, 1918-1929. Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.54, No.5, 769-787.
Markovits, S. (2013). The Crimean War in the British Imagination. Cambridge
University Press.
Martinez-Robles, D. (2016). Constructing Sovereignty in Nineteenth-Century China:
the Negotiation of Reciprocity in the Sino-Spanish Treaty of 1864. The
International History Review. Vol. 38, No.4, 719-740.
Martykánová, D. (2019). Public Debt After a Defeat: Negotiating the French image
of the Ottoman Empire as debtor in the aftermath of Russo-Turkish War of
1877-78. Journal of European Economic History, 57-82.
Matiossian, V. (2012). Armenian Printing in America (1857-1912). The Armenian
Weekly, Sep. 25-27.
Maxey, E. (1908). Extradition and Protection Against Anarchy. The Yale Law
Journal, Vol.17, No. 5, 376-389.
Mazower, M (2021). The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern
Europe. Penguin Press.
Mccarthy, J., Turan, Ö., Taşkıran, C. (2014). Sasun: The History of an 1890s
Armenian Revolt. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press.
366
Melzer, N. (2022). The Trial of Julian Assange: A Story of Persecution. London:
Verso Books.
Meray, S.L. (1976). Lozan’ın Bir Öncüsü: Prof. Ahmet Selahattin Bey 1878-1920.
Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu.
Meyer, J.M. (2007). Migration, Return, and the Politics of Citizenship: Russian
Muslims in the Ottoman Empire, 1860-1914. International Journal of Middle
East Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Feb.), 15-32.
Migrations and Borders: Practices and Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion in
Europe from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century. (2019). Margit
Fauser, Anne Friedrichs, Levke Harders. Journal of Border Land Studies.
Mihm, S. (2007). A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making
of the Unites States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Miller, B. (2016). Borderline Crime: Fugitive Criminals and the Challenge of the
Border, 1819-1914. University of Toronto Press.
Miller, N. B. (2019). Trading Sovereignty and Labor: The Consular Network of
Nineteenth Century Hawaii. The International History Review, 42:2, 260-
277.
Miller, O. (2018). Rethinking the violence in the Sasun Mountains (1893-1894).
Études arméniennes contemporaines, 10, 97-123.
Miller, R. (2005). Legislating Authority: Sin and Crime in the Ottoman Empire and
Turkey. New York: Routledge.
Minawi, M. (2021). International Law and the Precarity of Ottoman Sovereignty in
Africa at the End of the Nineteenth Century. The International History
Review, Vol. 43, Issue 5, 1098-1121.
Minawi, M. (2016). The Ottoman Scramble for Africa: Empire and Diplomacy in
the Sahara and the Hijaz. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Mine, E. (1970). Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Kâğıt Para (Kaime). Ankara: Türk
Tarih Kurumu.
Miras, T. (1967). Le Tanzimat et Son Système Législatif. Annales de la Faculté de
Droit d’Istanbul. Vol.17, 1-40.
Mirkova, A.M. (2013). ‘Population Politics’ at the End of Empire: Migration and
Sovereignty in Ottoman Eastern Rumelia, 1877-1886. Comparative Studies in
Society and History, 55 (4), 955-985.
Mitzen, J. (2013). Power in Concert: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Global
Governance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
367
Montesquieu. (1989). The Spirit of Laws. Trans. and edit. by Anne M. Cohler, Basia
Carolyn Miller and Harold Samuel Stone. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Morris, J. (2020). Locating the Wallachian Revolution of 1848. The Historical
Journal, Vol. 64, Issue 3, 606-625.
Moumdjian, G. (2011). From Millet-i Sadika to Millet-i Asiya: Abdülhamid II and
Armenians, 1878–1909.” Edited by Yavuz, Hakan and Sluglett, Peter. War
and Diplomacy: The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and the Treaty of
Berlin. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Moumdjian, G. (2013). Rebels with a Cause: Armenian-Macedonian Relations and
Their Bulgarian Connection, 1895-1913. In War and Nationalism: The
Balkan Wars, 1912–1913, and Their Sociopolitical Implications. Ed. by Isa
Blumi, M. Hakan Yavuz. University of Utah Press, 132-175.
Mughal, A. G and Sadiki, L. (2017). Shari’ah Law and Capitulations Governing the
Non-Muslim Foreign Merchants in the Ottoman Empire. Sociology of Islam.
Vol.5, Issue 2-3, Jun, 138–160.
Muslu, Z. (2020). Language and Power: The Dragoman as a Link in the Chain
Between the Laws of Nations and the Ottoman Empire. Journal of History of
International Law, 22, 50-74.
Müller, A.T. (2014). Friedrich F. Martens on ‘The Office of Consul and Consular
Jurisdiction in the East.’The European Journal of International Law, Vol. 25,
No.3, 871-891.
Müşavir Paşa’nın Kırım Harbi Anıları, Sir Adolphus Slade. (2012). Candan Badem.
(Haz.). Türkiye İş Bankası Yayınları.
Nagy, L.J. (1992). La Turcophilie en Hongrie au Temps des Crises D'orient. Oriento
Moderno, 72 (7-12), 21-25.
Ottoman Borderlands: Issues, Personalities and Political Changes. (2004). Ed. by
Kemal Karpat and Robert Zens. Center of Turkish Studies.
Önal, O. (2017). The Tsar’s Armenians: A Minority in Late Imperial Russia. I.B.
Tauris: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Özbek, N. (2008). Policing the Countryside: Gendarmes of the Late-Nineteenth-,
Century Ottoman Empire (1876-1908). IJMES 40, no.1, 47-67.
Özcan, A. (1995). Jamaladdin Afghani’s honorable confinement in Istanbul and
Iran’s demands for his extradition. The Journal of Ottoman Studies, XV, 285-
291.
Özdemir, H. (2019). Osmanlı Ermenilerinin Göçünün Fotoğrafını Çekmek:
Fotoğrafçılar, Arka Planları ve Terk-i Tabiiyet Fotoğrafları. Toplumsal
Tarih, Sayı: 310, 48-59.
368
Özkan, D. (2020). The Final Phase of the Greek Revolution: Delimitation:
Determination and Demarcation of the First Greek Borders in Ottoman
Sources. In European Revolutions and the Ottoman Balkans: Nationalism,
Violence and Empire in the Long Nineteenth Century. Ed. by Dimitris
Stamatopoulos, Warren Dockter. I.B. Tauris, 111-138.
Özman, A. (2000). The Portrait of the Ottoman Attorney and Bar Associations: State,
Secularization and Institutionalization of Professional Interests. Der Islam;
Zeitschrift für Geschicte und Kultur des Islamischen Orients, Vol. 77, 319-
337.
Özsu, U. (2015). Formalizing Displacement: International Law and Population
Transfers. Oxford University Press.
Özsu, U. (2010). ‘Receiving’ the Swiss Civil Code: Translating Authority in Early
Republican Turkey. International Journal of Law in Context, Vol.6, No.1.
Cambridge University Press, 63-89.
Özsu, U. (2016). The Ottoman Empire, the Origins of Extraterritoriality, and
International Legal Theory. In the Oxford Handbook of the Theory of
International Law. Edited by Florian Hoffmann and Anne Orford. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 123–37.
Öztan, G.G., Turan, Ö. (2015). Mütareke Döneminde Tehcir Tartışmaları ve Divân-ı
Örfî Yargılamaları. In 1915: Öncesi ve Sonrasıyla Ermeni Siyaseti, Tehcir ve
Soykırım. Ed. by Oktay Özel, Fikret Adanır. İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt
Yayınları, 505-525.
Öztan, R. H. (2021). Chemistry of Revolution: Naum Tyufekchiev and the
Trajectories of Revolutionary Violence in Late Ottoman Europe. In Age of
Rogues: Rebels, Revolutionaries and Rackeeters at the Frontiers of the
Empire. Ed. by Ramazan Hakkı Öztan and Alp Yenen. Edinburgh University
Press, 261-301.
Öztan, R. H. (2017). Tools of Revolution: Global Military Surplus, Arms Dealers,
and Smugglers in the Late Ottoman Balkans, 1878–1908. Past & Present
237, 167– 95.
Öztel, M. (2018). Osmanlı Devleti’nde Kalpazanlık ve Sahte Para (1818-1914):
Kalpazanlığın ve Tedavül eden Kalp Paraların Sosyo-Ekonomik Etkileri.
Akademik Araştırmalar ve Çalışmalar Dergisi, (C.10), 304-317.
Öztel, M. (2019). Osmanlı Devleti’nde Madeni ve Kağıt Para Kalpazanlığında
Yabancıların ve Yabancı Ülkelerin Rolü (1818-1923). BELLETEN, 174-175.
Palabıyık, M. S. (2015). International Law for Survival: Teaching International Law
in the Late Ottoman Empire (1859-1922). Bulletin of the School of Oriental
and African Studies, Vol. 78, Issue 2, 271-292.
369
Palabıyık, M. S. (2014). The Emergence of the Idea of ‘International Law’ in the
Ottoman Empire before the Treaty of Paris (1856). Middle Eastern Studies
50:2, 233-251.
Pamuk, Ş. (1999). Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Paranın Tarihi. Tarih Vakfı. Yurt
Yayınları.
Payne, H. C., Grosshans, H. (1963). The Exiled Revolutionaries and the French
Political Police in the 1850's. The American Historical Review, Vol. 68, No. 4,
954-973.
Paz, O. Documenting Justice: New Recording Practices and the Establishment of an
Activist Criminal Court System in the Ottoman Provinces (1840-late 1860s).
(2014). Islamic Law and Society, Vol.21, No. ½, 81-113.
Peirce, L. (2003). Morality Tales: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Perl-Rosenthal, N. (2015). Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of
Revolution. Belknap Press.
Peters, R. (1997). Islamic and Secular Criminal Law in Nineteenth-Century Egypt:
The Role and Function of Qadi. Islamic Role and Society, 4 (1), 70-90.
Petriccia, F. (2012). Filling the Void: Shari’a in Mixed Courts in Egypt:
Jurisprudence (1876-1949). Journal of the Economic and Social History of
the Orient 55, 718-745.
Petrov, M. (2004). Everyday Forms of Compliance: Subaltern Commentaries on
Ottoman Reform, 1864–1868. Comparative Studies in Society and History
46, no. 4. 730-759.
Pifferi, M. (2018). The Roots of Italian Penal Codification: Nation Building and the
Claim for a Peculiar Identity in Criminal Law. In the Western Codification of
Criminal Law: A Revision of the Myths of its Predominant French Influence,
eds. by Aniceto Masferrer, Switzerland: Springer, 163-192.
Pitts, J. (2018). Boundaries of the International: Law and Empire.
Cambridge/London: Cambridge University Press.
‘Political Offense’ in Extradition Treaties. (1909). The American Journal of
International Law, Vol.3, No.2, (Apr.), 459-461.
Potter, P. B. (1926). The Expansion of International Jurisdiction. Political Science
Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Dec.,), 546-566.
Proudhon, P.J. (1969). General Idea of the Revolution in The Nineteenth Century.
New York: Haskell House Publishers.
Putnam, L. (2006). To Study the Fragments/Whole: Microhistory and the Atlantic
World. Journal of Social History, Vol. 39, No. 3, 615-630.
370
Pyle, C. H. (2001). Extradition, Politics and Human Rights. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
Quataert, D. (1993). Ottoman Manufacturing in the Age of the Industrial Revolution.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Radzinsky, E. (2005). Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar. Antonina W.Bouis.
(Trans.). New York: Free Press.
Rahul, R. (1965). Russia’s Other Boundaries. Australian Journal of Politics and
History, 23-40.
Rapport Faux Monnayage. (1930). Troisième Conférence International d’Unification
du Droit Pénal, Bruxelles.
R.D. (1869). Review: Storia degli studi del diritto internazionale in Italia by Augusto
Pierantoni. Revue Historique de Droit Français et étranger (1855-1869),
Vol.15, 495-496.
Reid, D. M. (1981). Lawyers and Politics in the Arab World, 1880-1960. Bibliotheca
Islamica.
Regimes of Mobility: Border and State Formation in the Middle East, 1918-1946.
(2022) Ed. by Jordi Tejel, Ramazan Hakkı Öztan. Edinburgh University
Press.
Reinkowski, M. (2005). The State’s Security and the Subjects’ prosperity: notions of
order in Ottoman bureaucratic correspondence (19th century). In Legitimizing
the Order: The Ottoman Rhetoric of State Power. Edited by Maurus
Reinkowski and Hakan Karateke. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 195-212.
Revel, J. (1998). Microanalysis and the Construction of the Social. In Histories:
French Constructions of the Past. Ed. by Revel J., and Hunt L. New Press,
492-502.
Reynolds, M. A. (2011). Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the
Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908-1918. Cambridge University Press.
Riall, L. (1994). The Italian Risorgimento: State, Society and National Unification.
London: Routledge.
Robson, L. (2021). Capitulations Redux: The Imperial Genealogy of the Post-World
War I “Minority” Regimes. The American Historical Review, Vol. 126, Issue
3, 978-1000.
Rodogno, D. (2012). Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman
Empire, 1815-1914. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
371
Rodogno, D. (2016). European Legal Doctrines on Intervention and the Status of the
Ottoman Empire within the ‘Family of Nations’ throughout the Nineteenth
Century. Journal of the History of International Law, 18, 5-41.
Rogan, E. L. (1999). Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire:
Transjordan, 1850– 1921. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rogers, H.W. (1884). Harboring Conspiracy. The North American Review, Vol. 138,
No. 331, 521-534.
Rogers, H.W. (1887). Supreme Court of the United States and Rauscher. The
American Law Register (1852-1891), 35, no. 4 (April), 218–246.
Rosenthal, S.T. (1980). The Politics of Dependency: Urban Reform in Istanbul.
London: Greenwood Press.
Royle, T. (2000). The Great Crimean War 1854-56. London: Abacus.
Rubin, A. (2012) From legal representation to advocacy: Attorneys and Clients in the
Ottoman Nizamiye Courts. IJMES, 44, Issue 1, 111-127.
Rubin, A. (2011). Ottoman Nizamiye Courts. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rubin, A. Legal borrowing and its impact on Ottoman legal culture in the late
nineteenth century. Continuity and Change, Vol. 22, Issue 2, (August 2007),
279-303.
Rubin, A. (2012). The Trial of the Prosecutor Hamdi Bey: Inside and Out of the
Ottoman “Nizamiye” Court. Journal of Social History. Vol.45, No.3, The
Hidden History of Crime, Corruption, and States (Spring), 757-779.
Ruskola, T. (2002). Legal Orientalism. Michigan Law Review v. 101, n. 1, 179-234.
Russia’s Great Reforms, 1855-1881. (1994). B. Ekloff, J.Bushnell and L. Zakharova.
(Eds.). Indiana University Press.
Rygiel, P. (2015). Does International Law matter? The Institute de Droit
International and the Regulation of Migrations before the First World War.
Journal of Migration History, 1, 7-31.
Saydam, A. (2019). Muhacir. TDV Islâm Ansiklopedisi, Ek.2, 286-288.
Saydam, A. (1997). Osmanlıların Siyasi Mültecilere Bakışı ya da 1849 Macar-Leh
Mültecileri Meselesi. BELLETEN, C. 61, Sayı 231, 339-386.
Scarfi, J. P. (2020). Denaturalizing the Monroe Doctrine: The rise of Latin American
legal anti-imperialism in the face of the modern US and hemispheric
redefinition of the Monroe Doctrine. Leiden Journal of International Law,
Vol. 33, Issue 3, 541-555.
372
Schull, K. (2016). Criminal Codes, Crime, and the Transformation of Punishment in
the Late Ottoman Empire. In Law and Legality in the Ottoman Empire and
Republic of Turkey. Ed. by Kent Schull, M. Safa Saraçoğlu, and Robert Zens.
Indiana University Press, 156-178.
Schull, K. (2014). Prisons in the Late Ottoman Empire: Microcosms of Modernity.
Edinburgh University Press.
Scott, J.C. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Scheme to Improve the Human
Condition Have Failed. Yale University Press: New Haven.
Seaton, A. (1977). The Crimean War: A Russian Chronicle. London: B.T. Batsford.
Serbestoğlu, İ. (2011). Zorunlu bir Modernleşme Örneği Olarak Osmanlı Tabiiyet
Kanunu. OTAM, 29, 193-214.
Servières, G. (1907). Un Épisode de l’Expédition d’Irlande, l’Extradition et la Mise
en Liberté de Napper Tandy (1798-1802). Revue Historique, T.93, Fasc. 1,
46-73.
Shahar, I. (2008). Legal Pluralism and the Study of Shari’a Courts. Islamic Law and
Society, Vol. 15, No. 1, Shifting Perspectives in the Study of Shari’a Courts:
Methodologies and Paradigms, 112-141.
Sharkey, H.J. (2018). History Rhymes? Late Ottoman Millets and Post-Ottoman
Minorities in the Middle East. International Journal of Middle East Studies,
50, 760-764.
Shaw, J. S. (1970). The Central Legislative Councils in the Nineteenth Century
Ottoman Reform Movement Before 1876. International Journal of Middle
East Studies, Vol.1, No.1, 51-84.
Silverman, J.L. (1982). Imposition of a Western Judicial System in the Hawaiian
Monarchy. Hawaiian Journal of History, 16, 48-64.
Skocpol, T. (1985). Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current
Research. In Bringing the State Back In. Edited by Peter B. Evans, Dietrich
Rueschemeyer, Theda Skocpol. Cambridge University Press, 3-38.
Skocpol, T. (2015). States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of
France, Russia, and China. Cambridge University Press.
Slys, M. T. (2014). Exporting Legality: The Rise and Fall of Extraterritorial
Jurisdiction in the Ottoman Empire and China. Geneva: Graduate Institute
Publications.
Smiley, W. (2014). The Burden of Subjecthood: The Ottoman State, Russian
Fugitives, and Interimperial Law, 1774-1869. International Journal of Middle
East Studies 46, no.1, 73-93.
373
Sohrabi, N. (2002). Global Waves, Local Actors: What the Young Turks Knew
About Other Revolutions and Why It Mattered. Comparative Studies in
Society and History, Vol. 44, Issue 1, 45-79.
Somel, A. (2001). The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire
1839-1908. Leiden: Brill.
Sousa, N. (1933). The Capitulatory Regime of Turkey: In History, Origin and
Nature. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press.
Sönmez, A. (2006). Zaptiye Teşkilatı’nın Düzenlenmesi (1840-1869). Tarih
Araştırmaları Dergisi, Vol.25, Issue 39, 173-194.
Stein, S. A. (2016). Extraterritorial Dreams: European Citizenship, Sephardi Jews,
and the Ottoman Twentieth Century. Chicago University Press.
Stordeur Pryor, E. (2016). Colored Travelers: Mobility and the Fight for Citizenship
Before the Civil War. Chapel Hill, the University of Carolina Press.
Strauss, J. (2016). A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire: Translations of the
Kanuni Esasi and Other Official Texts in Minority Languages.” The First
Ottoman Experience in Democracy. Ed.by Christoph Herzog and Malek
Sharif. Orient Institute: Istanbul, 21-52.
Swanson, G. W. (1972). Ottoman Police. Journal of Contemporary History. Vol.7,
No. 1/2 (Jan.-Apr.), 243-260.
Szabo, M. D. (1972). Political Crimes: A Historical Perspective. Denver Journal of
International Law and Policy, Vol. 2, No.1, 7-22.
Taşkın, F. (2016). 1844 Tashih-i Sikke Sonrasında Para Düzeni ve Kalpazanlık.
Studies of the Ottoman Domain, Cilt:6, Sayı: 11, 1-19.
“Tehcir ve Taktil” Divan-ı Harb-i Örfî Zabıtları: İttihat ve Terakki’nin Yargılanması
1919-1922. Der. Vahakn N. Dadrian, Taner Akçam. İstanbul Bilgi
Üniversitesi Yayınları.
Terzibaşoğlu, Y. (2006). Eleni Hatun’un zeytin bahçeleri: 19. yüzyılda mülkiyet
hakları nasıl inşa edildi? Tarih ve Toplum: Yeni Yaklaşımlar, Sayı 4, 121-147.
Thayer, L. E. (1923). The Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire and the Question of,
Their Abrogation as it Affects the United States. American Journal of
International Law, Volume 17, Issue 2, 207-233.
The Charlton Extradition Case. (1911). The American Journal of International Law,
Vol.5, No.1 (Jun.), 182-192.
The Definitive Treaty of Peace between Russia and the Porte: Signed at
Constantinople on 8th February 1879. (1908). The American Journal of
International Law, Vol. 2, No. 4, 424-426.
374
The Frontiers of the Ottoman World. (2009). Edited by C.S. Peacock. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
The Habsburg–Ottoman Borderlands: New Insights for the Study of the Nineteenth-
Century European Legal and Social Order. (2020). Austrian History
Yearbook 51, 15–87.
The late Ottoman port-cities and their inhabitants: subjectivity, urbanity, and
conflicting orders. (2009). Mediterranean Historical Review, Vol. 24.
The Subjects of Ottoman International Law. (2020). Lâle Can, Michael Christopher
Low, Kent F. Schull, and Robert Zens (eds). Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
Tirelli, M. C. (2018). The Unification of Italy as Seen Through the Ottoman
Diplomatic Correspondences (1848-1870). Basılmamış Doktora Tezi,
Istanbul Üniversitesi.
To Kill a Sultan: A Transnational History of the Attempt on Abdülhamid II (1905).
(2018). ed. Houssine Alloul, Edhem Eldem and Henk de Smaele.
London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Todd, D. (2018). Beneath Sovereignty: Extraterritoriality and Imperial
Internationalism in Nineteenth-Century Egypt. Law and History Review, Vol.
36, No. 1, 105-137.
Toprak, Z. (2007). From plurality to unity: Codification and jurisprudence in the late
Ottoman Empire. Ways to Modernity in Greece and Turkey – Encounters with
Europe, 1850-1950. Ed. by A. Frangoudaki, Ç. Keyder. London/New York:
I.B. Tauris, 26-39.
Torunoğlu, B. (2021). The Neo-Hellenes in the Ottoman Empire, 1830-1869. Journal
of Modern Greek Studies, Vol. 39, Number 1, 49-70.
Tuğ, B. (2014). Gendered Subjects in Ottoman Constitutional Agreements, ca. 1740-
1860. European Journal of Turkish Studies (Online), 18.
Tuğ, B. (2017). Politics of Honor in Ottoman Anatolia: sexual violence and sociolegal
surveillance in the eighteenth-century. Leiden: BRILL.
Trattato di Estradizione del 19 Giugno 1926 tra l’Italie e la Turchia. (1930). Oriente
Moderno, anno 11, nr.2, Febbraio, 76-70.
Treaty between Great Britain, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Russia, and Turkey
for the Settlement of Affairs in the East: Signed at Berlin, July 13, 1878.
(1908). The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 2, Issue 4, 401-
424.
Tucker, E. (1996). The Peace Negotiations of 1736: A Conceptual Turning Point in
Ottoman-Iranian Relations. The Turkish Studies Association Bulletin, Vol.
20, no.1, 16-37.
375
Turan, Ö., Öztan, G.G. (2015). Mütareke Dönemi’nde İlk Tehcir Tartışmaları ve
Divân-ı Harb-i Örfî Yargılamaları. 1915: Siyaset, Tehcir, Soykırım. Haz.
Fikret Adanır, Oktay Özel. Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları,473-491.
Turhan, F. (2019). 6706 Sayılı Cezai Konularda Uluslararası İş Birliği Kanunu’nun
Kapsamı ve Genel Hükümleri Hakkında Bir Değerlendirme. D.E.Ü. Hukuk
Fakültesi Dergisi, C. 21, 3067-3109.
Turner, F. J. (2008). The Significance of the Frontier in American History. London:
Penguin Books.
Tzouvala, N. (2021). The Specter of Eurocentrism in International Legal History.
Yale Journal of Law & Humanities, Vol. 32, Issue 2, 413-434.
Tzouvala, N. (2019). ‘And the laws are rude... crude and uncertain’ Extraterritoriality
and the emergence of territorialised statehood in Siam. In The
Extraterritoriality of Law: History, Theory, Politics. Edited by Daniel S.
Margolies, Umut Özsu, Maïa Pal, and Ntina Tzouvala. Routledge, 134-150.
Tzouvala, N. (2018). ‘These Ancient Arenas of Racial Struggles’: International Law
and the Balkans, 1878-1914. The European Journal of International Law,
Vol. 29, No.4, 1149-1171.
Ulugöl, H. (2002). Suçluların Geri Verilmesi ve Siyasi Suç. Ankara: Adil Yayınevi.
Unterman, K. (April 2012). Boodle over the Border: Embezzlement and the Crisis of
International Mobility, 1880-1890. The Journal of the Gilded Age and
Progressive Era, Vol.11, No. 2, 151-189.
Unterman, K. (2015). Uncle Sam’s Policemen: The Pursuit of Fugitives Across
Borders. Harvard University Press.
War and Diplomacy: The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and the Treaty of Berlin.
(2011). Ed.by M.Hakan Yavuz and Peter Sluglett. University of Utah Press.
Vakali, A. (2021). Conspiracy under Trial: Christian Brigands, Rebels and Activists
in Bosnia during the Balkans. In Age of Rogues: Rebels, Revolutionaries and
Racketeers at the Frontiers of the Empire. Edited by Ramazan Hakkı Öztan
and Alp Yenen. Edinburgh University Press, 151-177.
Van den Steen de Jehay, F. M. J. G. (1906). De la Situation Légale des Sujets
Ottoman non-Musulmans. O. Schepens.
Van der Boogert, M.H. (2005). The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System:
Qadis, Consuls, and Beraths in the 18th Century. Leiden-Boston: Brill.
Van Ittersum, M.J. (2016). Hugo Grotius: The Making of a Founding Father of
International Law. The Oxford Handbook of the Theory of International Law.
Ed. by Anne Orford and Florian Hoffmann. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
83-106.
376
Veinstein, G. (2008). Les Fondements Juridiques De La Diplomatie En Europe. Les
Relations Diplomatiques entre le Monde Musulman et L'Occident Latin (XIIEXVIE
Siécle), Nuova Serie, Anno 88, N.2, 509-522.
Vries, V. (2019). Playing with Scales: The Global and the Micro, the Macro and
the Nano. Past and Present. Volume 242, Issue Supplement 14, November,
23-36.
Weisbrode, K. (2014). Old Diplomacy Revisited-A Study in the Modern History of
Diplomatic Transformations. Palgrave Macmillan.
Yazıcı Cörüt, G. (2015). Ambivalent Loyalties and Imperial Citizenship on the
Russo-Ottoman Border between 1878 and 1914: An Analysis of the Ottoman
Perspective. PhD Thesis. University of Manchester.
Yenisey, F. (1988). Milletlerarası Ceza Hukuku: Ceza Yargılarının Milletlerarası
Değeri ve Mevzuat. Istanbul: Beta Basım Yayın.
Yeşil, F. (2011). The Transformation of the Ottoman Diplomatic Mind: The
Emergence of Licensed Espionage. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des
Morgenlandes, Vol. 101, 467-479.
Yılmaz, H. (2008). Osmanlı Devleti’nde Batılılaşma Öncesi Meşrutiyetçi Gelişmeler.
Divan, Vol. 13, no. 24, 1-30.
Yılmaz, İ. (2014). Anti-Anarchism and Security Perceptions during the Hamidian
Era. Zapruder World: An International Journal for the History of Social
Conflict, 1.
Yılmaz, İ. (2021). Conspiracy, International Police Cooperation and the Fight
Against Anarchism in the Late Ottoman Empire, 1878-1908. In Age of
Rogues: Rebels, Revolutionaries and Racketeers at the Frontiers of the
Empire. Ed. by Ramazan Hakkı Öztan and Alp Yenen. Edinburgh
University Press, 208-234.
Yılmaz, İ. (2019). Governing the Armenian Question Through Passports in the Late
Ottoman Empire (1876-1908). Journal of Historical Sociology, 1-16.
Yılmaz, İ. (2017). Propaganda by Deed and Hotel Registration Regulations in the
Late Ottoman Empire. JOTSA, Vol.4 No.1, 137-156.
Yılmaz, İ. (2014). Serseri, Anarşist ve Fesadın Peşinde: II. Abdülhamid Dönemi
Güvenlik Politikaları Ekseninde Mürur Tezkereleri, Pasaportlar ve Otel
Kayıtları. Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları.
Yılmaz, Ş. (1999). An Ottoman Warrior abroad: Enver Paşa as an expatriate. Middle
Eastern Studies, 35:4, 40-69.
Yılmaz, Ş. (2015). Turkish-American Relations, 1800-1952: Between the Stars,
Stripes and the Crescent. Routledge.
377
Yosmaoğlu, İ. (2014). Blood Ties: Religion, Violence, and the Politics of Nationhood
in Ottoman Macedonia, 1878–1908. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Zanotti, I. (2006). Extradition in Multilateral Treaties and Conventions. Martinus
Nijhoff Publishers, Leiden/ Boston.
Zarinebaf, F. (2010). Crime and Punishment in Istanbul: 1700-1800. University of
California Press.
Zidar, A., Gauci, J.P. (Eds.). (2016). The Role of Legal Advisors in International
Law. Brill: Leiden.
Zürcher, E.J. (1998). The Ottoman Empire and the Armistice of Moudros. In At the
Eleventh Hour: Reflections, Hopes, and Anxieties at the Closing of the Great
War, 1918. Ed. by Hugh Cecil and Peter H. Liddle. London: Leo Cooper.
Zürcher, E.J. (2019). The Young Turk revolution: comparisons and connections.
Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 55, 481-489.
ONLINE SOURCES
Andreopoulos, G.J. (2010). Extradition. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/extradition (Last date of access: 13 April
2022)
Extradition. 19 Stat. 572, Treaty Series 270.Retrieved from:
https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/lltreaties//lltreatiesustbv010/
lltreaties-ustbv010.pdf (Last date of access: 20 February 2019)
Cezaî Konularda Uluslararası Adlî İş Birliği Kanunu (2016). Retrieved from:
https://www.mevzuat.gov.tr/MevzuatMetin/1.5.6706.pdf (Last date of
access: 5 May 2022)
European Convention on Extradition. (1957). Retrieved from:
https://rm.coe.int/1680064587 (Last date of access: 5 May 2022)
Gambino, M. (2010). The Unsolved Case of the “Lost Cyclist.” Retrieved from:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-unsolved-case-of-the-lostcyclist-
57021309/ (Last date of access: 24 June 2021).
Gentile, P. (2017). SALMOUR, Ruggiero Gabaleone conte di. Dizionario Biografico
degli Italiani, Vol. 89. Retrieved from
https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/ruggiero-gabaleone-conte-disalmour_%
28Dizionario-Biografico%29/ (Last date of access: 26 November
2021).
378
Hatfield, S. (2015). Faking It: British Counterfeiting During the American
Revolution. Journal of the American Revolution, (Oct.). Retrieved from:
https://allthingsliberty.com/2015/10/faking-it-british-counterfeiting-duringthe-
american-revolution/ (Last date of access: 20 May 2020).
Hong Kong-China Extradition Plans Explained. BBC News. Retrieved from:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-47810723 (Last date of access:
1 May 2022)
İkili Sözleşmeler. Retrieved from:
https://diabgm.adalet.gov.tr/home/BilgiDetay/7#collapse1 (Last date of
access: 5 May 2022)
Kanun-u Ceza’nın Bazı Mevaddı Makamına Kaim Kanun Lâyihası. Retrieved from:
https://www5.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanaklar/TUTANAK/MECMEB/mmbd01ic03c0
05/mmbd01ic03c005ink079.pdf (Last date of access: 10 December 2018)
Koptaş, R. (2013). 1915’in Robert Kolejli Kurbanları. Agos. Retrieved from:
https://www.agos.com.tr/tr/yazi/4908/1915in-robert-kolejli-kurbanlari
(Last Date of access: 9 April 2022).
Manukyan, T. (2016). Christopher Ter-Seropyan, US Dollar. Retrieved from:
https://www.mersoft.am/en/famous-armenians/christopher-ter-serobyan.html
(Last date of access: 16 November 2021)
Martin, M. (2019). Hongkong’s Proposed Extradition Law Amendments. Retrieved
from: https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/IF11248.pdf (Last date of access: 1 May
2022)
Ngai, M. M. (2012). The Future of the Discipline: Promises and Perils of
Transnational History. Retrieved from:
https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-onhistory/
december-2012/promises-and-perils-of-transnational-history (Last
date of access: 29 April 2022).
Request for businessperson Sezgin Baran Korkmaz’s extradition to Turkey accepted.
(2021). Bianet. Retrieved from: https://m.bianet.org/english/politics/249518-
request-for- businessperson-sezgin-baran-korkmaz-s-extradition-to-turkeyaccepted
(Last date of access: 1 May 2022)
Sezgin Baran Korkmaz vakası. (2022). Junshu. Retrieved from:
https://apos.to/s/608ebc106686bb0006226e61?utm_source=aposto (Last date
of access: 4 May 2022)
Suçluların İadesine Dair Avrupa Sözleşmesi’ne Ek İkinci Protokol. Retrieved from:
https://diabgm.adalet.gov.tr/arsiv/adli_yardimlasma/adli_isbirligi_ceza/suclul
arin_iadesi_ek/SİDAS%20EK%20İKİNCİ%20PROTOKOL,%20yürürlük%2
0%201992,%20No%2098.pdf
379
The Canadian Numismatic Company Auction. Retrieved from:
https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=3649&lot=1560 (Last date of
access: 16 November 2021)
The Lotus Principle. Retrieved from: https://www.spacelegalissues.com/the-lotusprinciple/
(Last date of access: 10 June 2022)
Thirty-Sixth Congress. Retrieved from: https://www.loc.gov/item/llsl-v12/ (Last date
of access: 5 April 2019)
Turkish Penal Code. Retrieved from: https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/kanunlar/k5237.html
(Last date of access: 27 October 2018)
Türk Ceza Kanunu. (2004). Retrieved from:
https://www.mevzuat.gov.tr/mevzuatmetin/1.5.5237.pdf (Last date of access:
5 May 2022)
Türk Vatandaşları Hakkında Yabancı Ülke Mahkemelerinden ve Yabancılar
Hakkında Türk Mahkemelerinden Verilen Ceza Mahkumiyetlerinin İnfazına
Dair Kanun. (1984) Retrieved from:
https://www.mevzuat.gov.tr/MevzuatMetin/1.5.3002.pdf (Last date of
access: 5 May 2022)
UK court approves extradition of Julian Assange to US. The Guardian. Retrieved
from: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/apr/20/uk-court-approvesextradition-
of-julian-assange-to-us (Last date of access: 30 April 2022)
U.S. and Turkey Caught in Extradition Fight for Businessman With Ties to Turkish
Elite. (2021). The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-and-turkey-caught-in-extradition-fight-forbusinessman-
with-ties-to-turkish-elite-11627905600 (Last date of access: 1
May 2022)
USS Vandalia. Retrieved from:
https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/OnlineLibrary/photos/sh-usn/usnshv/
vandla2.htm (Last date of access: 12 February 2019)
Walther, H. (2016). The Right to Asylum in the 19th Century. Retrieved from:
https://openborders.info/blog/asylum-19th-century/ (Last date of access: 9
February 2022)