Demirtaş Acquitted in Trial About Insulting Minister Soylu

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Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş was acquitted in the hearing held today (January 17) at Sincan Prison No.2. Demirtaş was tried on the claim that he insulted Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu.

Demirtaş was sued due to his statement addressing Soylu that “You gathered 3 thousand 500 people around you, you are visiting cities one by one to fraud” prior to June 7, 2015 elections.

Ankara 10th Criminal Court of First Instance ruled acquittal of Demirtaş who attended the hearing in person.

Demirtaş will also attend another hearing in which he is tried on charge of “Insulting State of the Republic of Turkey and Government of the Republic of Turkey” due to his statement he made in front of the HDP İstanbul provincial building in the wake of the bomb attack launched on October 10 Peace Rally.

The next hearing is on April 18, 2017.

Demonstration ban by the Governorship

Originally the hearings of Demirtaş would be held at Ankara Courthouse. With the decision taken yesterday, both hearings were moved to Sincan Prison. Demirtaş was taken to Sincan Prison from Edirne Prison.

Presenting Demirtaş to appear before judge in Sincan as reason, Ankara Governorship banned “all sorts of rallies, demonstrations, sit-in acts, commemorations, and such protests”.

Kept in Edirne Type F Prison since November 4, 2016, Selahattin Demirtaş appeared before judge for the first time following 14-month detention in the hearing in which he is tried on charge of “insulting the president” on January 12, 2017. (AS/TK)