TURKEY: LAWYERS DEMAND REMOVAL OF MALATYA JUDGES
Compass Direct News
lead&lang=en&length=long&idelement=526 2
Feb 28 2008
CA
Court’s impartiality questioned as evidence, courtroom recording
withheld.
MALATYA, Turkey, February 28 (Compass Direct News) – Lawyers
representing the families of three Christians tortured and slaughtered
with knives in eastern Turkey last April demanded this week that the
three-member bench of judges hearing the case be replaced.
Addressing the Malatya Third Criminal Court on Monday (February 25),
plaintiff lawyer Ozkan Yucel Soylu declared that the "impartiality
and independence" of the court was in jeopardy. Soylu told presiding
justice Eray Gurtekin and his two associate judges that their repeated
refusals to grant the plaintiff legal team’s procedural requests were
obstructing justice in the high-profile murder case.
On April 18, 2007, five young Turkish Muslims entered the Malatya
offices of Zirve Publishing, a distributor of Bibles and Christian
literature, under false pretenses of wanting to study Christianity.
The assailants tied up, tortured and then slit the throats of Necati
Aydin and Ugur Yuksel, both Turkish Christians who had converted from
Islam, and German Christian Tilmann Geske.
According to identical handwritten notes found in the pockets of all
five killers, their motives were both nationalist and religious. "We
did this for our country," the notes read. "They are attacking our
religion."
Refusal to Record Hearings
Plaintiff lawyers have protested repeatedly that the official court
record contains only abbreviated summaries of their oral arguments
and court witnesses.
At the outset of Monday’s hearing, the Malatya panel of judges again
denied plaintiff requests to allow the hearings to be recorded. They
also refused to release access to all the evidence gathered by the
state prosecutors or to remove 16 files irrelevant to the killings,
which in effect targeted people who had been in contact with the
murdered Christians.
It was the Malatya judges’ third consecutive refusal of plaintiff
requests to record the trial hearings, coming just weeks after an
Istanbul court decision made Turkish judiciary history by permitting
the first courtroom taping of a trial hearing. Complete video and
sound recordings were ordered earlier in February at the trial of
Hrant Dink, a Turkish Armenian editor assassinated in January 2007.
Shortly after this ruling, Soylu noted, the Justice Ministry on
February 14 assured the plaintiff lawyers for the murdered Christians
that a similar request to tape the Malatya hearings would be granted
promptly.
Court Withholding Evidence
Soylu also objected to the court’s refusal to grant access to a host of
documents and other evidence, including the killers’ computer records,
photographs from the autopsies and crime scene and security camera
films from one suspect’s hospital room.
"This is essential information if we are to properly cross-examine
the defendants," Soylu stated. "It is illegal to not allow us to
review this evidence."
The right to decide on access to the documents was not the court’s
in the first place, Soylu continued.
"It is our automatic right under the laws of Turkey," Soylu stated.
"If this continues to happen, we will of course have to apply to the
European Court of Human Rights, which will make it obvious that Turkey
does not follow its own laws."
Questioning whether in fact vital evidence in the case had been
destroyed, Soylu said, "We don’t have any trust in the court. There
are many ‘lost’ details that are being withheld. We have the right
to examine all the missing documents and pieces of evidence."
In response to the plaintiff lawyers’ complaints, Gurtekin called a
short recess in the hearing to confer with the other two judges. Upon
his return, he reminded the plaintiff lawyers that they must file
their formal complaint within seven days to the Diyarbakir High
Criminal Court, demanding a new judicial bench.
He then adjourned the hearing until March 17 to await a decision from
the Diyarbakir court review of the plaintiff lawyers’ complaint.
Criminal Gang Links
In further remarks, Soylu referred pointedly to the instigators
believed to be behind the five suspects, complaining that both the
court and prosecutors were "working in the wrong direction."
"False letters to misdirect [the investigation] are coming to the
prosecutor, and someone is going from newspaper to newspaper to
misguide the public," Soylu said. "In other words, this gang’s
activities are continuing."
In mid-January Turkish police arrested dozens of prominent figures
accused of being part of a criminal gang, said to be the "deep state"
representing renegade powers inside the Turkish government.
The so-called "Ergenekon" network allegedly helped stage the Malatya
massacre as well as the slayings of Catholic priest Andrea Santoro and
journalist Hrant Dink. Jailed suspects in the ongoing investigation
include a retired army general, ultranationalist lawyer Kemal
Kerincsiz, journalists, university professors and a spokesperson of
the bogus Turkish Orthodox Church.
Court observers at this third hearing included official representatives
from the German, Norwegian and Dutch embassies, as well as human
rights groups and Diego Mellado, head of the political section of
the European Commission’s delegation to Turkey.
Police Protection for Lawyer
After stalling for nearly three weeks, Ankara police authorities
yesterday ordered an armed bodyguard for Orhan Kemal Cengiz, the
Turkish attorney heading the Malatya plaintiff team of lawyers.
Cengiz had requested police protection on February 8, after a series
of overt threats against his life and clear-cut evidence that his
telephones and e-mail correspondence were being tapped. Cengiz has
served for eight years as legal counsel to the Turkish Alliance of
Protestant Churches.
Last week two opposition deputies called for a parliamentary
investigation into the recent attacks against Turkey’s Christian
leaders and non-Muslims, declaring that these violent incidents were
"neither accidental nor individual."
Republican Party deputies Sukru Elekdag and Onur Oymen warned that
if such attacks continued, Turkey’s image would be seriously damaged.
In a report submitted to the Turkish Parliament’s Human Rights
Commission on January 14, Turkey’s Protestants noted that 2007 had
been a "dark year" with a "serious and negative effect" on their
small community.
In addition to the Malatya massacre, the report cited 19 specific
incidents of intimidation and violence against their church leaders
and buildings reported officially to Turkish security officials. The
Protestants faulted ongoing "campaigns of provocation" inciting Turkish
society against non-Muslim groups and portraying "missionary activity"
as a crime, even at the highest state levels.
"Non-Muslims in Turkey [are] a prime target, particularly for radical
groups," the report stated.
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