Zana Refuses to Appear Before Court

The trial hearing held before the Ankara State Security Court on 12 March 2004 of Leyla Zana and her three co-defendants ended once again in an adjournment and will reopen on 2 April.

Ankara

On 12 March, Ankara SSC continued to hear the retrial of former DEP MPs Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak.

The defendants did not attend the hearing to protest the attitude of the court and government. In the statement sent to the court by Leyla Zana stressed that they were called terrorists by the Prime Minister Tansu Çiller 10 years ago and now the Minister of Justice is still calling them terrorists. She added that the policy chosen by Çiller ended her political life.

The lawyer Yusuf Alatas said the followings on the case: "Even we were thinking that judiciary in Turkey was not independent until today we did not talk in order not to offend the personalities of judges. We did not want to change the case into a political show. Even the government made the necessary amendments for retrial they also alleged that my clients were members of a terrorist organization. So they interfered judiciary. The government did not denied the allegations that Zana was kept under arrest against KADEK. So we think that the allegations were true. Our clients are political hostages. We want them to be released."

Prosecutor at SSC stressed the following in his summing-up the case: "Despite the decision of ECHR the court gave time to the lawyers to prepare their defense, all the witnesses testified, the defendants and lawyers were allowed to ask questions to the witnesses."

The prosecutor alleged that there were no reasons to change the first decision of the court, which was also approved by the Court of Cassation and wanted the defendants to be sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment once again. The hearing was adjourned to 2 April.

* Below is a brief summary of the hearing, as published in the daily Radikal on 13 March.