Defendant on trial ‘because she watched a lynching on the sidewalk’

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Arrested pending trial for three years and facing an aggravated life sentence, Ayten Öztürk will appear before the judge tomorrow (March 2).

In her hearing of the case held at the İstanbul 3rd Heavy Penal Court on October 3, 2019, the prosecutor's announced his opinion as to the accusations and referred to Ayten Öztürk's watching of a lynching in the neighborhood as criminal evidence against her:

"In his identification during the investigation, defendant Mesut Pekgöz identified Ayten Öztürk as the person who attended the meeting on drugs and gambling at Okmeydanı Rights and Freedoms Association and was watching the act of lynching while Selahadding Cirit was being lynched..."

Another evidence brought against Öztürk is that she attended a meeting at Okmeydanı Rights and Freedoms Association: "In the statements of ... defendant Burak Altundal, [he indicated that] he had seen Ayten Öztürk in the association building, they put the phones in the basket in the association, the personnel there told them to leave the phone..."

Öztürk is now facing a life sentence aggravated twice on charge of "deliberate killing" twice as per the Article 82/1 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) and as per the Article 5/1 of the Anti-Terror Law (TMK).

The file of the case where she is on trial "because she was caught with a fake passport" has been merged with this case.

'The defendant with the scantest evidence'

Didem Baydar Ünsal, an attorney of the defendant, made her defense at the hearing where the prosecutor announced his opinion.

"My defendant is the only arrested defendant in this case. As a matter of fact, she is the defendant with the scantest evidence against herself," attorney Baydar Ünsal said in her statement at the court.

She briefly added, "The only evidence against my client is the witness statement indicating that she was waiting in the vicinity of the scene of the incident. While the defendant was previously released by your court, she was arrested by another court so that the marks of torture caused by her abduction from Lebanon would not be seen. If the file had been properly examined, my client would not have been arrested."

Non-prosecution for criminal complaint

The People's Law Bureau has made the following statement about the incident of "abduction from Lebanon" mentioned by the lawyer:

"The court case where Ayten Öztürk is now standing trial is based on the incident where a person named Selahaddin Cirit was lynched in Okmeydanı in 2008 and lost his life in hospital as a result of this. There was no arrested defendant in the case that had been going on for over 10 years.

"Ayten Öztürk was taken into custody at Beirut Airport on March 8, 2018. She was held there for five days; then, while she was being handed over to the authorities in Turkey on March 13, 2018, a bag was put over her head and she was taken to an unknown location. She was subjected to severe torture in this unknown location for 6 months.

"At the end of this 6-month period, Öztürk was left in a field in Yapracık, Ankara on August 28, 2018 with two suitcases and one backpack. A few minutes after she was left there, she was detained by the Ankara Counterterrorism teams. She was held in detention for 3 days; she was referred to the courthouse on August 31, 2018 and arrested."

While Öztürk filed a criminal complaint about this torture, her criminal complaint has ended in a decision of non-prosecution. (AS/SD)