Özet:

The offense of destruction, concealment or alteration of the evidence, which isa criminal offense regulated underArticle 281 of the Turkish Criminal Code, is an offense against the administration of justice. The subject of this offence regulated under Article 281 is the evidence of a criminal offense which has been already committed. For this reason, for this particular offense to be committed, an already committed offence must be present. This offensecan be committed by five different acts such as destruction, deletion, concealment, alteration or corruption of an evidence. The crime is completed by concluding one of these acts. Thus, the crime can be committed via five different acts.    The predicate offense can be committed deliberately or by negligence however, the offense of destruction, concealment or alteration of the evidence must be committed deliberately. The perpetrator should also commit the acts listed under    article 281 of the Turkish Penal Code with the aim of concealing the truth. There is no need for the perpetrator to succeed in concealing the evidence for this offence to be committed, only a certain intent to do so may suffice.    Article 281 subclause 3 of the Turkish Penal Code providesan effective remorse clause. Accordingly, the penalty is reduced if the perpetrator submits the hidden evidence to the court before the judgment is delivered. This provision is likely to lead misunderstandings and wrongpractices. For this reason, the law should be amended as follows: making sure the evidenceis obtained by judicial authorities should be sufficient to invoke the effective remorse clause rather than requiring the perpetrator to submit the evidence to the judicial authorities personally.

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