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TURKEY: LAWYERS SLAM INVESTIGATION OF MALATYA MURDERS
Compass Direct News
http://compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page= lead&lang=en&length=long&idelement=512 4
Nov 28 2007
CA
Widows of slain Christians speak out at opening day of trial.
MALATYA, Turkey, November 27 (Compass Direct News) - At the opening
day trial of three Christians tortured and killed here in April,
attorneys for the bereft families accused prosecutors of "sloppy"
investigations that focused on the religious activities of the victims
rather than on the crime itself.
The 20 lawyers, most of them working pro bono on behalf of the victims'
families and Turkish Protestant churches, spelled out detailed
criticisms of the prosecutors' "irresponsible" investigations at the
hearing on Friday (November 23).
The plaintiffs' attorneys objected to the tone of the indictment
and investigation, declaring that 16 of the 31 files focused on
the religious activities of the Christian victims rather than on
the murderers, who tied up, stabbed and slit the throats of Turkish
converts Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann
Geske.
According to one lawyer quoted by Milliyet newspaper on November
20, this "irrelevant" information looked like an indirect effort by
the chief prosecutor "to reduce the charges by making the victims'
attempts to spread their religion look like 'provocation.'"
"If a prosecutor sees missionary activities as criminal, then it
is not difficult to understand how some people can become crazy and
kill these missionaries!" wrote plaintiff lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz,
legal representative of the Alliance of Turkish Protestant Churches,
in a November 22 column in the Turkish Daily News.
The plaintiffs' attorneys also presented a surprise demand to broaden
the prosecution from an isolated case of terrorism to the criminal
code statutes against religious "genocide."
It was the first time the five confessed murderers, all 19 to 20
years of age, had appeared outside prison since their arrest. Two
other young men who have not been detained are also being tried,
accused of involvement in the crime. No photography was permitted of
the defendants, and they were flanked in the courtroom by more than a
dozen armed guards who shielded them from the view of court observers.
Prosecutors' Irregularities
During the four-hour court proceedings, the plaintiff team protested
a number of irregularities on the part of Malatya public prosecutors
Mehmet Badem and Omer Tetik, who had conducted the six-month criminal
investigation and prepared the written indictment submitted October 5.
In a series of four lengthy statements submitted to the court, the
plaintiff team demanded that evidence and interrogations that were
blatantly missing in the prosecutors' investigation be obtained and
included in the court trial.
Only after the indictment was filed were plaintiff and defense lawyers
allowed access to the 31 investigation files, with even the victims'
autopsies officially kept "confidential" under Turkish anti-terrorism
laws. Nevertheless, large portions of the murderers' interrogations
have been leaked to the Turkish press throughout the investigation.
Cengiz accused prosecutors of failing to properly investigate the
organizations and individuals named by the murderers during their
interrogations. No inquiries were made into inflammatory local media
reports, which he said trumpeted the killers' slanderous accusations
of immorality and political intrigue against the three victims killed
at their Zirve Publishing House workplace.
Orhan Kemal Cengiz According to an article on the Turkish Bianet
(Independent News Net) website posted yesterday, the tone of the
criminal investigation and biased reporting in the Turkish media
marks "a dangerous shift of focus from the presumed perpetrators of
a crime to conspiracy theories linking Christian missionaries and PKK
[the separatist Kurdish Workers' Party] activities."
Bianet fingered the Ihlas News Agency as one major culprit trying
to deflect blame from the killers by targeting some of the joint
team of well-known Turkish attorneys for their defense of various
Kurdish defendants accused of PKK links. Other lawyers were targeted
for representing the family of murdered Armenian Christian journalist
Hrant Dink or Necati Aydin, who had been falsely accused in 2000 of
distributing Christian materials by force.
Two days after the Malatya hearing, the plaintiff lawyers announced
they were filing an official complaint over repeated surveillance and
interference with their e-mail and telephone communications in the
days leading up to the opening of the trial on Friday (November 23).
"When we tried to open our e-mails, we had a message claiming, 'Blocked
by court order,'" attorney Cengiz told Milliyet newspaper on Sunday
(November 25). "But if this had been a court order, we couldn't have
accessed them a day later."
The lawyer noted that details of private telephone conversations within
the lawyers' group were appearing in the press during the days just
preceding the trial, including their discussions on applying "genocide"
laws in the case. "Our complete defense strategy was known beforehand,"
he said.
Widows' Remarks
The hearing over the ritual slaughter of three Christians in eastern
Turkey last April 18 grabbed national attention in last weekend's
Turkish media, with the spotlight focused on the court appearance of
two widows of the murdered men.
News clip footage and reports from the hearing led a number of national
TV and radio station broadcasts that evening, followed the next day by
prominently headlined reports in nearly all national newspapers. The
most prominent coverage focused on the two widows who attended the
hearing and briefly addressed the court as official plaintiffs in
the case.
Turkey's largest circulation newspaper, the daily Hurriyet, featured
the wife and children of Necati Aydin in its front-page banner headline
the day after the opening day hearing.
"Mommy, when will they kill us?" read the headline, flanked by a
photograph of widow Semse Aydin with her 6-year-old daughter Esther
in her arms during the murdered pastor's funeral seven months ago.
"My children are missing their father, and I cannot comfort them,"
the widow told the court. "They are asking me if they will also be
killed because they are Christians."
Susanne Geske, wife of Tilmann Geske, told the court that after
living in Turkey for 10 years, "As a Christian, I view this nation
as my own. I have established my whole life here." She noted that her
neighbors and even the local Muslim imam had come to her home to pay
condolence visits to her and her three children after the murders.
"Turkey is a secular country, and I believe a correct decision for
justice will be made," Geske concluded.
Uncover the Instigators
As the wife of a former Muslim who had converted to Christianity,
Aydin said that while she also left the prosecution of justice to
the Turkish state, she expected the court to uncover the instigators
behind the young murderers who so viciously tortured and killed her
pastor husband, along with Yuksel, also a former Muslim, and Geske.
"I want the murder mentality of these youths uncovered," Aydin
declared. "And I want not only punishment of these five youths,
but those who were behind them in this mentality."
Before and during the high-profile trial, Turkish police enforced a
heavy security clampdown around the Malatya Criminal Court building
as well as hotels where out-of-town lawyers, diplomatic observers,
journalists and some relatives of the victims were staying.
International observers admitted into the courtroom included official
representatives from the German and U.S. embassies and the European
Commission's delegation to Turkey, as well as two foreign journalists.
More than 20 Turkish Protestant church leaders gathered at the
courthouse for the trial, although due to the limited space in the
courtroom, only five were allowed to observe the proceedings.
During initial proceedings of the hearing, the plaintiff lawyers
protested the presence of several observers expected to be called to
testify in the case. The judge subsequently ordered three individuals
removed from the courtroom, including the fathers of two of the
killers.
At the hearing, plaintiffs' attorney Cengiz complained that making some
investigation files public had released private contact information,
allowing Islamic extremists to target many Protestant Christians
throughout Turkey as well as everyone the victims had contacted in
the Malatya region since 2005.
"The prosecutor failed to make a thorough investigation, and he has
also put many other lives in danger," Cengiz said.
The bench of three judges refused the plaintiff lawyers' request
to withdraw these files from the trial. Nor did the judges agree to
allow video or audio recordings of the court proceedings, although
the court stated it would consider plaintiff demands to interrogate
the defendants regarding possible commission of religious genocide
or a hate crime.
Another Death Threat
Three weeks before the trial opened, a Zirve Publishing employee
who had moved his family into Malatya several months ago received an
e-mail message threatening in ugly terms to "take away your right to
live ... in a very short time."
"You will go to join your three friends. You will die the very same
way they did," ended the message, which Zirve staff members turned
over to the police.
A week later, Ihlas News Agency reported on November 15 that police
had arrested and jailed the perpetrator of the death threats, who
had a previous criminal record as a computer hacker.
At the request of the murderers' defense team of lawyers, who declared
they had not had sufficient time to examine the prosecution files
and prepare the accused suspects to testify, the court adjourned the
hearing until January 14.
Prior to that, the court declared that the status of the defendants'
prison detention would be reviewed on December 18.
Commenting on religious freedom in a Turkey 2007 Progress Report
released by the European Commission (EC) earlier this month in
Brussels, the EC noted a national deterioration in attitudes and acts
of violence against non-Muslims.
"Attacks against clergy and places of worship of non-Muslim communities
have been reported," the report stated. "Missionaries have been
portrayed in the media or by authorities as a threat to the integrity
of the country and non-Muslim minorities as not being an integral
part of Turkish society. To date, use of language that might incite
hatred against non-Muslim minorities has been left unpunished."
Underlining the Malatya slayings, the November 6 report concluded:
"The killing took place against the background of statements and press
reports which are not conducive to the establishment of an atmosphere
of tolerance in the country."
European Union Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn was quoted recently
as saying, "The new momentum [of Turkish government reforms] should
now be used to re-launch the reforms to improve fundamental freedoms,
particularly the freedom of expression and religious freedom, so that
they prevail in all corners of the country and in all walks of life."
END
*** Photographs taken outside Malatya's Third Criminal Court on the
opening day hearing are available electronically. Contact Compass
Direct News for pricing and transmittal.
Compass Direct News
http://compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page= lead&lang=en&length=long&idelement=512 4
Nov 28 2007
CA
Widows of slain Christians speak out at opening day of trial.
MALATYA, Turkey, November 27 (Compass Direct News) - At the opening
day trial of three Christians tortured and killed here in April,
attorneys for the bereft families accused prosecutors of "sloppy"
investigations that focused on the religious activities of the victims
rather than on the crime itself.
The 20 lawyers, most of them working pro bono on behalf of the victims'
families and Turkish Protestant churches, spelled out detailed
criticisms of the prosecutors' "irresponsible" investigations at the
hearing on Friday (November 23).
The plaintiffs' attorneys objected to the tone of the indictment
and investigation, declaring that 16 of the 31 files focused on
the religious activities of the Christian victims rather than on
the murderers, who tied up, stabbed and slit the throats of Turkish
converts Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann
Geske.
According to one lawyer quoted by Milliyet newspaper on November
20, this "irrelevant" information looked like an indirect effort by
the chief prosecutor "to reduce the charges by making the victims'
attempts to spread their religion look like 'provocation.'"
"If a prosecutor sees missionary activities as criminal, then it
is not difficult to understand how some people can become crazy and
kill these missionaries!" wrote plaintiff lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz,
legal representative of the Alliance of Turkish Protestant Churches,
in a November 22 column in the Turkish Daily News.
The plaintiffs' attorneys also presented a surprise demand to broaden
the prosecution from an isolated case of terrorism to the criminal
code statutes against religious "genocide."
It was the first time the five confessed murderers, all 19 to 20
years of age, had appeared outside prison since their arrest. Two
other young men who have not been detained are also being tried,
accused of involvement in the crime. No photography was permitted of
the defendants, and they were flanked in the courtroom by more than a
dozen armed guards who shielded them from the view of court observers.
Prosecutors' Irregularities
During the four-hour court proceedings, the plaintiff team protested
a number of irregularities on the part of Malatya public prosecutors
Mehmet Badem and Omer Tetik, who had conducted the six-month criminal
investigation and prepared the written indictment submitted October 5.
In a series of four lengthy statements submitted to the court, the
plaintiff team demanded that evidence and interrogations that were
blatantly missing in the prosecutors' investigation be obtained and
included in the court trial.
Only after the indictment was filed were plaintiff and defense lawyers
allowed access to the 31 investigation files, with even the victims'
autopsies officially kept "confidential" under Turkish anti-terrorism
laws. Nevertheless, large portions of the murderers' interrogations
have been leaked to the Turkish press throughout the investigation.
Cengiz accused prosecutors of failing to properly investigate the
organizations and individuals named by the murderers during their
interrogations. No inquiries were made into inflammatory local media
reports, which he said trumpeted the killers' slanderous accusations
of immorality and political intrigue against the three victims killed
at their Zirve Publishing House workplace.
Orhan Kemal Cengiz According to an article on the Turkish Bianet
(Independent News Net) website posted yesterday, the tone of the
criminal investigation and biased reporting in the Turkish media
marks "a dangerous shift of focus from the presumed perpetrators of
a crime to conspiracy theories linking Christian missionaries and PKK
[the separatist Kurdish Workers' Party] activities."
Bianet fingered the Ihlas News Agency as one major culprit trying
to deflect blame from the killers by targeting some of the joint
team of well-known Turkish attorneys for their defense of various
Kurdish defendants accused of PKK links. Other lawyers were targeted
for representing the family of murdered Armenian Christian journalist
Hrant Dink or Necati Aydin, who had been falsely accused in 2000 of
distributing Christian materials by force.
Two days after the Malatya hearing, the plaintiff lawyers announced
they were filing an official complaint over repeated surveillance and
interference with their e-mail and telephone communications in the
days leading up to the opening of the trial on Friday (November 23).
"When we tried to open our e-mails, we had a message claiming, 'Blocked
by court order,'" attorney Cengiz told Milliyet newspaper on Sunday
(November 25). "But if this had been a court order, we couldn't have
accessed them a day later."
The lawyer noted that details of private telephone conversations within
the lawyers' group were appearing in the press during the days just
preceding the trial, including their discussions on applying "genocide"
laws in the case. "Our complete defense strategy was known beforehand,"
he said.
Widows' Remarks
The hearing over the ritual slaughter of three Christians in eastern
Turkey last April 18 grabbed national attention in last weekend's
Turkish media, with the spotlight focused on the court appearance of
two widows of the murdered men.
News clip footage and reports from the hearing led a number of national
TV and radio station broadcasts that evening, followed the next day by
prominently headlined reports in nearly all national newspapers. The
most prominent coverage focused on the two widows who attended the
hearing and briefly addressed the court as official plaintiffs in
the case.
Turkey's largest circulation newspaper, the daily Hurriyet, featured
the wife and children of Necati Aydin in its front-page banner headline
the day after the opening day hearing.
"Mommy, when will they kill us?" read the headline, flanked by a
photograph of widow Semse Aydin with her 6-year-old daughter Esther
in her arms during the murdered pastor's funeral seven months ago.
"My children are missing their father, and I cannot comfort them,"
the widow told the court. "They are asking me if they will also be
killed because they are Christians."
Susanne Geske, wife of Tilmann Geske, told the court that after
living in Turkey for 10 years, "As a Christian, I view this nation
as my own. I have established my whole life here." She noted that her
neighbors and even the local Muslim imam had come to her home to pay
condolence visits to her and her three children after the murders.
"Turkey is a secular country, and I believe a correct decision for
justice will be made," Geske concluded.
Uncover the Instigators
As the wife of a former Muslim who had converted to Christianity,
Aydin said that while she also left the prosecution of justice to
the Turkish state, she expected the court to uncover the instigators
behind the young murderers who so viciously tortured and killed her
pastor husband, along with Yuksel, also a former Muslim, and Geske.
"I want the murder mentality of these youths uncovered," Aydin
declared. "And I want not only punishment of these five youths,
but those who were behind them in this mentality."
Before and during the high-profile trial, Turkish police enforced a
heavy security clampdown around the Malatya Criminal Court building
as well as hotels where out-of-town lawyers, diplomatic observers,
journalists and some relatives of the victims were staying.
International observers admitted into the courtroom included official
representatives from the German and U.S. embassies and the European
Commission's delegation to Turkey, as well as two foreign journalists.
More than 20 Turkish Protestant church leaders gathered at the
courthouse for the trial, although due to the limited space in the
courtroom, only five were allowed to observe the proceedings.
During initial proceedings of the hearing, the plaintiff lawyers
protested the presence of several observers expected to be called to
testify in the case. The judge subsequently ordered three individuals
removed from the courtroom, including the fathers of two of the
killers.
At the hearing, plaintiffs' attorney Cengiz complained that making some
investigation files public had released private contact information,
allowing Islamic extremists to target many Protestant Christians
throughout Turkey as well as everyone the victims had contacted in
the Malatya region since 2005.
"The prosecutor failed to make a thorough investigation, and he has
also put many other lives in danger," Cengiz said.
The bench of three judges refused the plaintiff lawyers' request
to withdraw these files from the trial. Nor did the judges agree to
allow video or audio recordings of the court proceedings, although
the court stated it would consider plaintiff demands to interrogate
the defendants regarding possible commission of religious genocide
or a hate crime.
Another Death Threat
Three weeks before the trial opened, a Zirve Publishing employee
who had moved his family into Malatya several months ago received an
e-mail message threatening in ugly terms to "take away your right to
live ... in a very short time."
"You will go to join your three friends. You will die the very same
way they did," ended the message, which Zirve staff members turned
over to the police.
A week later, Ihlas News Agency reported on November 15 that police
had arrested and jailed the perpetrator of the death threats, who
had a previous criminal record as a computer hacker.
At the request of the murderers' defense team of lawyers, who declared
they had not had sufficient time to examine the prosecution files
and prepare the accused suspects to testify, the court adjourned the
hearing until January 14.
Prior to that, the court declared that the status of the defendants'
prison detention would be reviewed on December 18.
Commenting on religious freedom in a Turkey 2007 Progress Report
released by the European Commission (EC) earlier this month in
Brussels, the EC noted a national deterioration in attitudes and acts
of violence against non-Muslims.
"Attacks against clergy and places of worship of non-Muslim communities
have been reported," the report stated. "Missionaries have been
portrayed in the media or by authorities as a threat to the integrity
of the country and non-Muslim minorities as not being an integral
part of Turkish society. To date, use of language that might incite
hatred against non-Muslim minorities has been left unpunished."
Underlining the Malatya slayings, the November 6 report concluded:
"The killing took place against the background of statements and press
reports which are not conducive to the establishment of an atmosphere
of tolerance in the country."
European Union Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn was quoted recently
as saying, "The new momentum [of Turkish government reforms] should
now be used to re-launch the reforms to improve fundamental freedoms,
particularly the freedom of expression and religious freedom, so that
they prevail in all corners of the country and in all walks of life."
END
*** Photographs taken outside Malatya's Third Criminal Court on the
opening day hearing are available electronically. Contact Compass
Direct News for pricing and transmittal.