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The 12th hearing of the case concerning the 2015 suicide bombings by ISIS in the capital city of Ankara was held on Friday (September 3).
Two witnesses, Muhammed Kasım Kurt, who talked on the phone to ISIS "border emir" İlhami Balı about the kidnapping and killing of private Sefer Taş, and Yıldız Bozkurt, whose name was on the fake identity card of fugitive defendant Walentina Slobodjanjuk, testified at the Ankara 4th Heavy Penal Court.
Attending the hearing via teleconference, Kurt said that he was the head of a border village and claimed that he didn't know İlhami Balı and other ISIS members involved in the bombings.
However, he later said he had been involved in the negotiations about two kidnapped soldiers. "ISIS had kidnapped our two soldiers and martyred one of them ... I helped them to take our soldiers back through my relatives in Syria. I know İlhami Balı."
"I talked to İlhami Balı, who is said to be the border emir of ISIS in the presence of the captain, the non-commissioned officer and the specialist sergeant. I know the name of the specialist sergeant because he is from Antep but I don't know the names of the non-commissioned officer and the captain."
He said he got the phone number of Balı from his relatives in Syria and he was with "prominent" officials from the Provincial Gendarmerie Department.
"They would cover my mouth"
Kurt added that he had been threatened by Balı because he had caught a group of smugglers and ISIS members. "He said to me, 'I'm going to hang your head there.' When I would shout at him, intelligence officers would cover my mouth. ISIS detained my relatives.
"When I realized that I was in trouble and the state was not coming for help, I released the men I had held. They released my relatives two days after I released them."
The other witness, Yıldız Bozkurt, said she didn't know Walentina Slobodjanjuk. When she was asked about the phone conversations between them, she said she didn't talk to foreigners and no one else used her phone.
Attorney Senem Doğanoğlu demanded the prosecutors file a criminal complaint against Bozkurt.
The court rejected the request to hear the soldiers whom Kurt mentioned in his testimony. The next hearing will be held on November 24.
The Ankara Massacre
A suicide attack was launched against the Peace Rally in Ulus, Altındağ in the capital city of Ankara at around 10.04 a.m. on October 10, 2015. While 69 people lost their lives at the scene of the incident, a total of 103 people and two attackers lost their lives. After the bombs exploded, police officers used tear gas on the wounded and those who were trying to help them. As a result of this intervention, the wounded could not be referred to hospitals quickly and the survivors were also traumatized. The scene of the incident was not placed under protection and crime scene investigation teams and prosecutors did not come to the scene immediately. The teams arrived after about one and a half hours and deputy public prosecutor after two and a half hours. The indictment concerning the attack was approved on July 13, 2016. Accordingly, the order for the attack was given by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria's (ISIS) representative to Turkey, İlhami Balı. It was stated in the indictment that it was the same people who organized the Suruç bombing, which had killed 33 people. Fourteen suspects including Balı face from 5,083 to 7,820 years in prison on the charges of "attempted murder multiple times" and "attempting to annihilate constitutional order". The trial started on November 7, 2016. On August 3, 2018, the Ankara 4th Heavy Penal Court handed an aggravated life sentence for "violating the constitutional order" and 100 aggravated life sentences for "wilful murder" to nine defendants. They were also sentenced to 10,557 years in prison each for "attempted murder" (Abdulmubtalip Demir, Talha Güneş, Metin Akaltın, Yakup Şahin, Hakan Şahin, İbrahim Halil Alçay, Resul Demir, Hüseyin Tunç and Hacı Ali Durmaz). The trial of the fugitive defendants is continuing as their cases were separated. The families of the deceased hold a commemoration ceremony on the 10th day of every month in front of the Train Station. The peace rally participants who lost their lives in the massacre are: Abdülkadir Uyan, Metin Kürklü, Gökhan Akman, Orhan Işıktaş, Gülhan Karlı Elmascan, Yılmaz Elmascan, Nevzat Sayan, Bilgen Parlak, Hacı Kıvrak, Rıdvan Akgül, Rıdvan Akgül, Hacı Mehmet Şah Esin, Gökmen Dalmaç, Elif Kanlıoğlu, Hakan Dursun Akalın, Ercan Adsız, Ayşe Deniz, Berna Koç, Fatma Esen, Gülbahar Aydeniz, Eren Akın, Canberk Bakış, Tayfun Benol, Nizamettin Bağcı, Kasım Otur, Başak Sidar Çevik, Nilgün Çevik, Resul Yanar, Mehmet Ali Kılıç, Tekin Arslan, Sezen Vurmaz, Dilaver Karharman, Onur Tan, Umut Tan, Sarıgül Tüylü, Dilan Sarıkaya, Ali Kitapçı, İsmail Kızılçay, Muhammet Demir, Korkmaz Tedik, Veysel Atılgan, İbrahim Atılgan, Emine Ercan, Kübra Meltem Mollaoğlu, Meryem Bulut, Seyhan Yaylagül, Ebru Mavi, Ali Deniz Uzatmaz, Ziya Saygın, Vahdettin Özgan, Cemal Avşar, Ahmet Katurlu, Selim Örs, Azize Onat, Dicle Deli, Güney Doğan, Binali Korkmaz, Mehmet Zakir Karabulut, Leyla Çiçek, Metin Peşman, Mesut Mak, Adil Gür, Gökhan Gökbönü, Şebnem Yurtman, Osman Turan Bozacı, İdil Güneyi, Abdullah Erol, Mehmet Hayta, Özver Gökhan Arpaçay, Şirin Kılıçalp, Uygar Coşgun, Ahmed Alkhadi, Nurullah Erdoğan, Gözde Arslan, Aycan Kaya, Yunus Delice, Sevgi Öztekin, Mehmet Tevfik Dalgıç, Sevim Şinik, Emin Aydemir, Fatma Karabulut, Ramazan Tunç, Erol Ekici, Feyyat Deniz, Necla Duran, Osman Ervasa, Ramazan Çalışkan, Vedat Erkan, Abdülbari Şenci, Niyazi Büyüksütçü, Gazi Güray, Sabri Elmas, Erhan Avcı, Ümit Seylan, Serdar Ben, Nevzat Özbilgi, Hasan Baykara, Fatma Batur, Bedriye Batur, Ata Önder Atabay, Mustafa Budak, Ağa Bayar. |
(AS/VK)
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