Court’s Final Rule: Helmet Can’t Be Arrest Evidence

“Gas masks, sea googles, face rugs, construction helmets, bike helmets, gloves, slings, Palestinian scarves, unfired gas bomb cartridges, tourniquets, plasters and compress-tissues.”

Those were the items for which a court issued arrest warrants on 7 Gezi Park protestors - a verdict that has been overturned yesterday by a vacation high criminal court. 

High Criminal Court Judge Mustafa Erdoğan overturned the other court’s decision, saying that the conditions required for arrest order have not been met: 

“Article 100 of Turkey’s new Court Tribunals Law brought several criteria in order to prevent limitless ruling right and arbitrary decisions. The most important of these criteria is a new definition called ‘category crimes’ - a category of crimes in the doctrine and practice of law which require arrest of defendants under the high suspicion of crime committing. It is obvious that charges on defendants are not listed under catalog crimes.” 

“On the other hand, investigation authorities have not mentioned that there is risks on defendants’ probable escape.” 

“Public unrests and their continuation are not reasons for arrest. There has been no changes in terms of evidence since suspect were initially released. Therefore, we don’t think the arrest warrants are appropriate.” 

The verdict reached by the vacation high criminal court last night removed the arrest warrants for 7 defendants. 

What happened?

On June 18 Gezi Park detainees Alper Merdoğlu, Emre Horasanlı, Emre Güzel, Gökbey Gül, İsmail Işık Sapmaz, Murat Tözen and Özkan Ekinci were order to stand trial for violating Turkey’s Law 2911 of Public Meetings and Demonstrations. 

Initially, the court released all 7 defendants for reasons associated with “the nature of crime, defendants’ having a permanent residence and impossibility of evidence manipulation”. 

However, General Attorney’s Office of Istanbul objected the decision of court on June 21. 5 days later, the court announced its decision on the objection. The court ordered the arrest of 7 defendants - who are mainly doctors, sculptures, engineers and students. 

The verdict listed the “crime evidences” as follows: 

“Gas masks, sea googles, face rugs, construction helmets, bike helmets, gloves, slings, Palestinian scarves, unfired gas bomb cartridges, tourniquets, plasters and compress-tissues.”

The verdict also defined Gezi Park protests as “demonstrations that extended the barrier against public order and peace”. 

Defendant lawyer objected the verdict yesterday. “The court issued the arrest orders without the support of solid evidence. It lost its independence under the directives of PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,” the objection statement said. (AS/BM)