Şemdinli Bombing Trial Is Adjourned Until September 19

The third hearing of the November 2005 Şemdinli Bombing, in which noncommissioned officers Ali Kaya and Özcan İldeniz, and a Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) informant Veysel Ateş are accused of bombing a bookstore owned by a former member of PKK, was held at Van Gendarmerie Law and Order Corps Command Military Court on Friday. The court was adjourned until September 19, 2008.

Kaya, İldeniz and Ateş were not at the hearing. At today’s hearing, Seferi Yılmaz, the owner of Umut Bookstore, the bookstore which the accused were caught bombing, and Metin Korkmaz, the brother of M. Zahir Korkmaz, who died at the blast, testified. Dinçer Aslan, one of the lawyers who withdrew from the case on the ground that a military court cannot be independent in this case, was also there in the audience. 

Aslan told Bianet the following about the case:

“We asked for the depositions of 20 witnesses; only 10 came. The defense lawyers objected to the statements of the accused. Seferi Yılmaz said that witnesses can only come from the shop owners. There were instructions to consult the statements by the PKK informants. The prosecutor made a request for the survey of the crime scene. I believe that consulting the statements of the PKK informants is in order to save the accused.”

“In Turkey the judiciary is still under the control of the certain institutions. Although the 3^rd High Criminal Court of Van had already sentenced the accused to 39 years in prison, the 9th Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals had decreed on 16 May that the case should be heard by a military court.

The Supreme Court interfered

Following Supreme Court’s interference, the 3rd High Court of Van decreed that the Semdinli case was outside its jurisdiction. It sent the case to the Van Law and Order Corps Command Military Court.

The objections by the lawyers were counteracted with an investigation and the High Commission of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) had dispersed the panel of judges who had initially sentenced the defendants. 

Van Prosecutor Ferhat Sarıkaya, responsible for the controversial Semdinli indictment prepared for the Şemdinli bookshop bombing, was suspended from duty, disbarred and sacked. In his indictment, Sarikaya had implicated senior security personnel, including today’s Chief of Staff Yaşar Büyüakanıt, in a conspiracy to set up an illegal organization and carrying out covert operations in the region, claiming that Turkey's Land Forces Commander was also involved.