Trial on Sivas Massacre to be Closed by Prescription?

The trial on the so-called Sivas Massacre was continued before the Ankara 11^th High Criminal Court on 21 June. The Sivas massacre in central Anatolia was an attack against Alevi intellectuals and artists. 37 people lost their lives when the Madimak Hotel in Sivas was set on fire on 2 July 1993.

The file regarding seven fugitive defendants was separated from the main case. Defendant Cafer Erçakmak could not be arrested yet despite an arrest warrant. It was demanded to separate the file of Erçakmak and prosecute him on a different basis. It was furthermore requested to drop procedures against the other six defendants since the statute of limitation has been reached.

At the Tuesday hearing (21 June), Public Prosecutor Hakan Yüksel announced that defendant Erçakmak constituted the offence of "attempting to overthrow the constitutional order by force" according to Article 146/1 of the Turkish Criminal Law (TCK).

Yüksel pointed out that is crime did not fall under the statute of limitation yet. The prosecutor also reminded the fact that the arrest warrant decided for in his absence has not been executed yet. Yüksel indicated that the prosecution of the other defendants should not fall behind even further. Hence, he requested to uphold the decision for the arrest warrant about Erçakmak and to separate his file from the main case in order to prosecute him on a different basis.

15 years later

The actions attributed to defendants Şevket Erdoğan, Köksal Koçak, İhsan Çakmak, Hakan Karaca, Yılmaz Bağ and Necmi Karaömeroğlu constitute breaches of Article 146/3 of the TCK and Article 5 of the Anti-Terror Law on "participating in the attempt to overthrow the constitutional order by force", the prosecutor said. He pointed out that the exceptional statute of limitations for this crime was 15 years according to Articles 102/3 and 104/2 TCK.

Yüksel stated that the crime was committed on 2 July 1993 and thus fell under the statute of limitation on 2 July 2008. Therefore, the prosecutor demanded to drop procedures against defendants Şevket Erdoğan, Köksal Koçak, İhsan Çakmak, Hakan Karaca, Yılmaz Bağ and Necmi Karaömeroğlu. (HK)