Security directorate doesn’t inform the court about ‘ISIS actions’

* Drawing: Ercan Altuntaş

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

Instead of the information requested by the Ankara 22nd High Criminal Court as part of the Kobanî trial, the table of police-soldier deaths in 2014-2021 has been sent by the Directorate General of Security.

CLICK - No release in Kobanî trial

In the trial over the "October 6-8, 2014 Kobanî protests" where 108 people are facing charges, the 6th hearing will be held on November 8.

21 of the 108 politicians from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) facing aggravated life sentences, including its former Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, are currently behind bars.

Request for investigating ISIS

As reported by Zemo Ağgöz from the Mezopotamya Agency (MA), at the related session of the hearing on June 26, 2021, the lawyers of defendants underlined that no investigation was launched against ISIS over the deaths that occured on October 6-8, 2014. The lawyers requested that the actions taken by ISIS since the year 2014 be inquired.

Upon this request, the Ankara 22nd High Criminal Court wrote a writ to the Directorate General of Security to ask for information.

In the writ, the court demanded that "...the deaths and injuries caused as a result of the incidents be presented as a list."

At the hearing of the case held on October 27, the court, without indicating the content of the documents, said, "...it is seen that an answer has been given; it has been received and added to the file."

No information on ISIS in the table

In the document added to the file by the court without indicating its content at the hearing and sent by the Directorate General of Security upon the court's request, there is a table titled "The data on terrorism within the jurisdiction of the police between the years of 2014 and 2021."

In the table sent by the Directorate General of Security to the court, there is no information as to how many of the related incidents or actions were carried out by ISIS. The table lists the data on casualties and fatalities of soldiers, police officers, village guards and civilians.

According to the data in the table, in the 9,436 incidents that occured from 2014 to 2021, 349 police officers, 194 soldiers, 13 village guards and 884 civilians lost their lives while 3,122 police officers, 1,402 soldiers, 32 village guards and 6,631 civilians were wounded.

2,918 incidents happened in 2014, 3,581 in 2015, 2,119 in 2016, 345 in 2017, 162 in 2018, 165 in 2019, 95 in 2020 and 51 in 2021. (AS/SD)