Journalist Deniz Yücel faces prison sentence for ‘insulting’ a prosecutor with a tweet

* Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

The prosecutor has demanded a prison sentence for journalist Deniz Yücel for "insulting a public official" with a social media post.

Put on trial over his tweet dated February 20, 2019, Deniz Yücel, the former Turkey correspondent of Germany's Die Welt newspaper, is on trial at the İstanbul 24th Criminal Court of First Instance.

Facing charges for "insulting" Hasan Yılmaz, the former İstanbul Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor and the current Vice Minister of Justice, Deniz Yücel, who lives in Germany, did not attend his hearing today (November 30) while his lawyer Merve Kurhan was present in the courtroom.

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After Yücel's lawyer Kurhan made her statement, Hüseyin Emre Erbaş, the prosecutor of the hearing, took the floor and stated that the prosecutor's office did not request the extension of the prosecution and that he was ready to pronounce his final opinion as to the accusations.

In his opinion, prosecutor Erbaş demanded that journalist Deniz Yücel be penalized on charge of "publicly insulting a public official" on the grounds that his social media message about complainant Hasan Yılmaz was of dishonorable, degrading and defamatory nature.

He has requested that the journalist be sentenced to up to 2 years, 4 months in prison. The court has accepted the request of Yücel's lawyer for additional time and adjourned the hearing till December 28.

What happened?

In the indictment lodged by Public Prosecutor Celal Sarıdere, journalist Deniz Yücel is facing charges as per the Article 125 (Offences against dignity - Insult) of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK).

As the criminal evidence, the indictment cites the open source investigative report and the response from the Border Gates' Bureau Chief's Office dated March 7, 2019. Hasan Yılmaz, the former İstanbul Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor, is the aggrieved party in the indictment.

The remarks made by Yücel in his tweet, over which he now faces up to 2 years, 4 months in prison, were also uttered by him in the statement of defense that he submitted from Germany on May 10, 2019 as part of the main trial where he was on trial for "terror propaganda".

In the related tweet, Yücel first quoted the following passage from his statement of defense and posted it on social media:

"I know Hasan Yılmaz, the Deputy Public Prosecutor who is conducting the 'investigation' against Osman Kavala. He was the man who told me during the interrogation, 'You called [jailed PKK leader Abdullah] Öcalan the "commander in chief". Showing him a copy of the related article published in Die Welt, I said, 'Look, one doesn't need to know German to understand that the German word "Chef"'s equivalent in Turkish is not "commander in chief" but "chief". He just gave me a blank stare. Then, he lodged the thing that he called an 'indictment' in his own way. Then, when a former police chief arrested in Silivri for being a member of the [Gülen] community and knowing Hasan Yılmaz before said in a conversation between us, 'He is the dumbest prosecutor of Çağlayan [Courthouse in İstanbul]'... What should I do? I couldn't object. (The prosecutors of the community were committing the same legal breaches more slyly; it is another story.)"

Sharing the above excerpt from his defense, Deniz Yücel tweeted, "The men who issued the 'Gezi indictment' against Osman Kavala and others and similar other indictments are not only ravenous militants in the guise of prosecutors. They are also... I mean, they are... Look:"

Osman Kavala ve diğerleri hakkındaki "Gezi iddianamesini" ve benzeri iddianameleri düzenleyen adamlar, sadece savcı kılıfında gözü dönmüş militanlar değiller. Aynı zamanda şeyler. Yani baya baya şeyler. Bakınız: pic.twitter.com/63QXap2AYB

— Deniz Yücel (@Besser_Deniz) February 20, 2019

There is another court case filed against Deniz Yücel, as part of which the journalist has been on trial at the İstanbul 2nd Criminal Court of First Instance on charges of "insulting the President" (TCK 299) and as per the Article 301 of the TCK (Degrading the Turkish nation, state of the Republic of Turkey, the organs and institutions of the state).

Having served a year behind bars in Turkey, Yücel was also previously sentenced to 2 years, 9 months, 22 days in prison for "terror propaganda".

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(HA/SD)