The Malatya Massacre Trial Introduces New Charges
In the last hearing of the murder trial of German citizen Tilman Ekkehart Geske and Turkish citizens Necati Aydin and Ugur Yüksel, who were brutally murdered at the Zirve Publications building in Malatya, in eastern Turkey, on 18 April 2007, the court decided to allow the children of Suzanne Geske, Tilman Geske’s wife, and Şemse Aydın, Necati Aydın’s wife, to watch the proceedings.
All the accused, whether arrested or not, were at the seventh hearing of the case at the 3rd High Court of Malatya yesterday (June 9). While the unarrested accused Kürşat Kocadağ and Mehmet Gökçe were present at the court, the arrested accused Emre Günaydın, Salih Gürler, Cuma Özdemir, Hamit Çeker and Abuzer Yıldırım were brought in from Malatya E Type Prison.
None of the accused had accepted that they had taken place in the massacre in the previous hearings on April 14 and May 12; they had told that they were there since they were afraid of Günaydın and they did not tie or stab anyone.
In order to eliminate the inconsistencies, the court read the statements of the accused to them in the morning hearing. Moreover, the court introduced additional charges of “violent seizure” and “looting,” reading them to the accused as well.
The arrested defendants had accused Günaydın
The five defendants are accused of murdering the three Protestants, Geske, Aydın and Yüksel, in Malatya on April 18, 2007.
Günaydın, one of the accused, was injured while trying to escape from the balcony. The other arrested defendants accuse Günaydın, who was arrested after his treatment, for organizing the incident. (EÖ/EZÖ/TB)