Forensic medicine report for child killed by police in Diyarbakır not completed in seven years

Photo: MA

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A court has rejected a request for the arrest of the police officer responsible for the 2015 killing of Helin Hasret Şen, 12, in the mostly Kurdish-populated southeastern province of Diyarbakır.

Şen was shot by an armored vehicle while she was going to the grocery shop with her mother.

Police officer A.E. is on trial for "wilful murder." He attended yesterday's (September 6) hearing at the Diyarbakır 1st Heavy Penal Court via video conference.

At the hearing, the prosecutor demanded the deficiencies in the case file be completed.

The report requested from the Forensic Medicine Institute (ATK) at the first hearing of the case has not been sent to the court, the judges said.

Speaking at the hearing, Ekrem Şen, Helin's father, said, "My daughter has been under the ground for seven years. The murderer hasn't been put into prison yet."

Her mother, Nazmiye Şen, also said, "I want the defendant to be arrested and dismissed from his duty immediately."

Defendant investigated by colleagues

Abdullah Zeytun, the attorney of the Şen family, said the defendant should be arrested, citing witness statements and camera recordings.

The fact that the defendant is a civil servant and that the officers investigating the incident worked in the same department as him were also reasons sufficient to arrest the defendant, according to the lawyer.

Because the aggrieved person was a Kurd, the investigation was not carried out rigorously, he said.

Impunity

The investigation was not carried out in compliance with the law judicially or administratively, the lawyer said, adding that the "approach of impunity prevails."

Had the perpetrator not been a police officer, he would have been arrested immediately, said Zeytun.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in many cases of deaths and violence in which law enforcement officers were involved, he added.

Yakup Şen, another lawyer of the family, said impunity in crimes committed against the Kurds has become systematic.

"In a criminal case where a thug shots in the air and somebody gets killed although he didn't intend to kill them, a verdict of arrest is given in most cases," he said, adding that the court not arresting the defendant "raises suspects that this trial is fair."

"Disproportionate" mesure

In his statement, the defendant noted that the witnesses had said fires were shot at Helin Şen from behind, but she was killed by a bullet that hit her in the face, demanding the court to evaluate this situation.

His attorney also said Şen was killed by a shot that was fired from the opposite side, and demanded the rejection of the request of an arrest. He also demanded A.E. be exempted from the hearings.

In its interim decision, the court ruled that what happened to the forensic medicine report should be asked to the ATK, and the arrest of the defendants would be "disproportionate." (AS/VK)