The Court of Cassation upheld the 6-year and 3-month prison sentence given to Bahadır Turan, a special operations police officer who shot Seyfullah Turan, a 14-year-old boy who was playing ball with his friends in an empty field in the center of Colemêrg (Hakkari) on April 23, 2009, with the stock of a long-barreled gun and seriously wounded him, on charges of “qualified injury”. Following the Court of Cassation's decision on September 9, Turan was arrested on October 21. Turan is currently being held in Üsküdar Paşakapısı Closed Prison. 

 

Turan's lawyer applied to the “extraordinary appeal legal remedy” on November 4, requesting a stay of execution for his client. In the application made to the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Cassation, the following allegations were made: “Considering the damages that will occur as a result of not stopping the execution, the irreversible elimination of the personal rights of the client who serves as a civil servant, the severe loss of rights that the client will suffer, as well as the time that the file will spend in the extraordinary appeal legal remedy process, all these issues will be evaluated that the irreparable and difficult damages in the future cannot be eliminated unless the execution is stopped.”  

 

DECISION BY THE COURT PROSECUTOR WITH JET SPEED

 

The Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Cassation, which had previously requested that the verdict in the case be upheld, made a decision on November 11th with jet speed on the application made by the defendant's lawyer. The Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Cassation requested that the verdict be overturned and approved with correction. The file was sent to the 1st Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation. 

 

EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY 

 

While the decision of the Chamber is being awaited, Seyfullah Turan's lawyer Murat Timur reacted to the situation and stated that there has been an extraordinary activity in the file. 

 

'SPECIAL LAW IS BEING APPLIED' 

 

Stating that a special law is applied in cases where public officials are tried as defendants, Timur said that the Seyfullah Turan case was much discussed in the public opinion. “In this case, there was an act of murder by the police. Despite this, the accused police officer was not detained even for a single day. The trials took too long. As a matter of fact, the trial resumed after the Constitutional Court decision. A very serious effort was made to prolong the trial. We know that in cases where public officials are on trial, a special law is applied to them. Impunity has both judicial and political dimensions. When the perpetrator is a public official, personalized law is applied instead of ordinary law. In cases where Kurds and dissidents are on trial, people are tried, arrested and given heavy sentences even for very simple crimes. The police officer in the case should have been tried for manslaughter, but he was tried for another simple injury. After the Constitutional Court ruled on the violation, the file came to the Elazığ Criminal Court. The court seriously resisted the Constitutional Court's decision and kept the file pending for a long time,” he said.  

 

'THEY DID EVERYTHING TO PREVENT US FROM FOLLOWING THE CASE'

 

Pointing out that single-defendant cases are usually concluded in a maximum of two years, Timur evaluated the main reason for this case taking so long as the policy of impunity. “In order to facilitate the trial for the accused and their lawyers, the trial was taken to the cities where they were located. But it was very difficult for the victims and their lawyers to go to Isparta. In other words, they did everything to prevent us from going to the trial. For 3 years the trial continued in Isparta. The distance between Colemêrg and Isparta is 1,600 kilometers. After Isparta, the file was moved to Elazığ. In 2 cities, there was no fair trial. This policeman should have been sentenced for torture and manslaughter,” Timur said.  

 

'THEY ARE TRYING TO GET THE POLICE OUT OF PRISON'

 

Timur stated that after the arrest of the police officer, the Public Prosecutor of the Court of Cassation made an extraordinary effort for the defendant, “We see that there is a very important effort for the immediate release of the defendant. When this case was on appeal, the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Cassation had expressed its opinion and asked for the verdict to be upheld. But after the verdict was upheld, this time he says that the verdict is not appropriate. What happened 11 months later that changed the prosecutor's opinion? We are now seeing an extraordinary law in operation. The reason why gross human rights violations are committed is personalized law. One of them committed a gross violation of human rights, attempted to kill a person, but the fact that the police have been in prison for 10 days has disturbed the Supreme Court of Appeals Public Prosecutor's Office,” he said. 

 

'THIS WILL CONTINUE' 

 

Timur continued as follows: “Our applications to the Supreme Court of Appeals Public Prosecutor's Office for reversal in favor of the law in political cases are responded to in a minimum of 4 months. Sometimes it even takes 6-7 months. But in this case, the police lawyer's application was decided within a week and the file was sent to the relevant criminal department. While almost all applications in political files are rejected by the prosecutor's office, this file is accepted immediately. There is a special way here and I think this way will continue.”

 

MA / Adnan Bilen - Özlem Yacan