'What is Tragic is Not Sentences, But the State That the Trial Has Come’

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After the court announced its verdict in the trial of lawyers from the Progressive Lawyers Association (ÇHD) and People's Law Bureau (HHB), their colleagues made a statement for the press in front of the Silivri Court Halls in İstanbul yesterday (March 20).

CLICK - 18 Lawyers Sentenced to Prison for 159 Years, 1 Month, 30 Days in Total

In the final hearing of the trial held yesterday, the court board sentenced the defendant lawyers to 159 years, 1 months and 30 days in prison in total without hearing their statements of defense.

'Civil servants appointed to give verdicts...'

Speaking first in the statement for the press, ÇHD İstanbul Branch Chair Gökmen Yeşil stated that it was not an act of trial performed there:

"Those who performed the acts called a trial were not judges, either. Civil servants appointed to give foregone criminal sentences came to the hall with 'court hall' written on it and gave heavy sentences to all our friends."

ÇHD Secretary General Nergis Tuba Aslan also said, "This court board has nothing to do with judgeship or the law."

'We have seen that there is no trial'

Taking the floor after representatives from the ÇHD, Urfa Bar Association Chair Abdullah Öncel stated the following:

"We, as the bar association, have come here, thinking that there would be trial. However, we have seen that there is no trial, we have seen that the principle of fair trial has been severely violated, we have seen that the presumption of innocence has been violated. Who is tried here is not Selçuk Kozağaçlı and his friends, but attorneyship and attorneys in Turkey."

'Sentences given to forcibly tied people...'

Lawyer Several Ballıkaya also stated, "What is tragic is not the sentences, but the state that the judiciary and defence have come to." She also said,

"The conscience of this court has withered. Though they know that the arrested lawyers are on a hunger strike, the court has maltreated them for three days. It has given a judgement without attorneys, without defense, without collecting evidence or hearing the witnesses.

"That was not a court. It is almost a sentence given to forcibly tied people in prison camps. What [Presiding Judge] Akın Gürlek did was to abolish the rules of law. But, we will continue our struggle."

'Principle of fair trial has been violated"

Speaking after the lawyers, main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) İstanbul MP Mahmut Tanal said, "The court has left the humanist criminal law aside and observed, in a sense, enemy criminal law. A verdict given by a court observing enemy criminal law is not a fair verdict. The principle of fair trial and presumption of innocence have been violated."

'We have seen that rules of law are broken'

Fabio Marcelli, a lawyer from the Criminal Law Attorneys of Italy who was in Turkey to follow the trial, made the following statement:

"We have witnessed here how the general rules of law and international law have been violated. We have seen how the universal rules of law have been broken. We have seen that independent trials and right of defense have been violated. We have seen that the trial did not conform to the rules of law. We think that all defendants have to be released immediately." (AS/SD)