Eleven people were handed down prison sentences of 91 years and eleven months in total as the result of the trial on the "Ağrı Union of Kurdistan Communities Turkey Assembly (KCK/TM). The decision was given at the final hearing on 14 June before the Erzurum 2nd High Criminal Court.
The KCK intends to organize Kurdish people. The organization also includes the armed outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
As reported by FıratNews, 18 defendants were charged with "membership in an illegal organization". They were taken into custody and arrested subsequently in the course of operations carried out on 13 February 2010 in Patnos, Doğubayazıt and Diyadin as districts of Ağrı and in Van and Muş, three cities in the Kurdish-majority south-east of Turkey. Employees of the head office of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) were also among the defendants as well as party members and a journalist.
The Tuesday hearing was attended by detained defendants Hamit Duman, Nevzat Tekid, Gökmen Çiftçi and Şefika Bilici, all of whom were working at the BDP head office, and lawyers Baran Bilici, Cemal Demir, Şaziye Önder, Timurhan Gül and Timur Demir.
"They spoke in an unknown language"
The defendants requested to present their defence in Kurdish. The court board dismissed this request and registered that "the defendants spoke in an unknown language". Consequently, the statements of the defendants were not taken. The defence lawyers claimed that this trial was politically motivated and demanded their clients' acquittal.
However, the court board rejected this demand too and announced its decision after a brief intermission. Detained defendants Bilici, Tekid and Çiftçi were each sentenced to imprisonment of 13 years; Duman received a 16-year prison sentence.
The other defendants were handed down prison sentences of various lengths. Mustafa Akyol, Provincial Chairman of the BDP in Ağrı, and Mehmet Şirin Açık, District Chair of the BDP in Patnos, were each sentenced to seven years and six months behind bars. Mehmet Babayiğit, Deputy Mayor of Doğubayazıt, journalist Mirza Mehment Şen and Yusuf Yılmaz, Mayor of Patnos, received prison sentences of six years and three months each. All defendants were convicted of "membership in an illegal organization".
Defendants İlhan Çevik and Cesim Göktepe were tried under allegations of "making propaganda for an illegal organization" and each sentenced to ten months in jail. The court file will be forwarded to the Court of Appeals. (AS/VK)
