ARMENIAN ORIGIN SOLDIER KILLED ACCIDENTALLY: COURT

Hurriyet, Turkey
March 27 2013

A Diyarbakýr military judge sentenced yesterday a private to four years
and five months in prison for killing Armenian-Turkish soldier Sevag
Balýkcý with “conscious negligence,” but stopped short of sentencing
the suspect to the more serious charge of deliberate murder.

“It seems my dear Sevag’s life was that cheap, so killing is legal,”
the dead soldier’s mother, Ani Balýkcý, told the Hurriyet Daily News
on the phone yesterday.

Aðaoðlu, who killed Balýkcý on April 24, 2011, will serve three years
in prison for killing Balýkcý “with a stray bullet.”

In passing the sentence, the Diyarbakýr Air Force Command Military
Court dismissed the Balýkcý family’s lawyers’ demands to sentence
Aðaoðlu on charges of deliberate murder. Ani Balýkcý and lawyer Cem
Halavurt said they would appeal at a higher court and would consider
carrying the case to the European Court of Human Rights if their
demands were not met. They will also hold a press conference on the
court verdict. “We are determined to continue our legal battle,”
Balýkcý said. “We may even take the case to the European Court of
Human Rights if we have to.”

Activist Garo Paylan noted that the date of Balýkcý’s killing was the
anniversary of April 24, the annual date recognized internationally for
remembering the victims of violence at the end of the Ottoman Empire.

“He was killed on an April 24 and it coincided with Easter, but
the judge did not pay heed to our warnings,” Baylan said. “The
investigation should have been extended.”

Paylan said Aðaoðlu’s lawyers were expecting the decision.

“After the decision was announced, they made statements such as,
‘The minorities are our brothers,'” Baylan said. “That was a decision
they had been expecting.”

March/27/2013