Retrial of Progressive Lawyers Association members: 'A lawyer lost her life in this case'

Drawing: Murat Başol

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After the Court of Cassation overturned the sentences of Progressive Lawyers Association (ÇHD) Chair Selçuk Kozağaçlı and its member Barkın Timtik, the retrial of the case started yesterday.

Another case against the lawyers was previously combined with this case.

Announcing its interim judgment, the İstanbul 18th Heavy Penal Court ruled for the continuation of the arrest of the two lawyers.

Kozağaçlı and Timtik were present in the courtroom. Representatives of lawyers' organizations from Europe and MPs also followed the hearing.

Eighteen lawyers from the ÇHD were sentenced to a total of 159 years in prison in March 2019 on "terrorism-related" charges with the court ruling was almost solely based on anonymous witness testimonies. 

In protest of the ruling, two of the lawyers, Ebru Timtik and Aytaç Ünsal, started a hunger strike demanding a fair trial and turned it into a death fast in April 2020.

Timtik lost her life on the 238th day of the death fast in August last year whereas Ünsal accepted treatment and ended his strike on September 4, 2020, after the Court of Cassation ruled for his release.

The Court of Cassation upheld the prison sentences of the lawyers on September 15, 2020.

Photo: M. Turgay Bilge/Twitter

"Ebru would be alive, Aytaç wouldn't be mutilated"

Kozağaçlı took the floor first and briefly said the following:

"Only one right decision was given in this case: When the case was open at the İstanbul 37th Heavy Penal Court, a merge request was made on the grounds that these files were repeating. This wrong judgment was only partially overturned by the Court of Cassation.

"Meanwhile, Ebru [Timtik] lost her life, Aytaç is being tried to be mutilated. Our friends were made convicts. If the İstanbul 37th Heavy Penal Court had merged its file with the case at your court before, Ebru would be alive now, Aytaç wouldn't be mutilated.

"We are in the ninth year of this case, I haven't requested a release at any stage. I have been on trial without arrest for seven years in this case.

"I haven't requested to be exempted, I went abroad more than 10 times and came back. I attended every hearing. It is wrong to accuse me of escaping trial.

"We stood trial in another case that is 70 percent similar to this case. That case is the reason for our arrest. Pronouncing its judgment, the court didn't ask for my last words.

"Akın Gürlek concluded the case that you have been examining for nine years in four-and-a-half months in a repeating trial. The verdict was announced to an empty hall in my absence. In other words, he said to you, 'This is how a trial is done.' If this case is repeating for me, why is it not for Oya Aslan, for Özgür Yılmaz?

Kozağaçlı and Timtik (Photo: People's Law Bureau)

"I haven't been requesting a release since the start of this case. I won't request it from you either. It is useful to talk about other issues. I have been on trial for nine years in these cases. I went abroad many times when I was not arrested. I came back to the country again. Is Mr. Prosecutor talking about the suspicion of my escape as this is the case?

"Your court needs to objectify the reasons for escape and hide. There need to be concrete facts like 'He had communications with human traffickers, changed his appearance.' But there are no concrete facts here.

"You may have real reasons for keeping me under arrest. Someone might have told you 'If you release them, we will hurt you.' So far, all six judges who released me were exiled and demoted.

"Because these can't be written in the ruling, you write 'suspicion of escape.' Three arrest orders were issued against me in this case. I was abroad in the first one, I came after stating the flight number on television. I reached the airport by a four-hour drive in a smuggled jeep on a road hit with rockets by ISIS. Although I returned to my country paying three times the normal fare, the court arrested me because of 'escape and hide.'

"I was arrested although I went to the courthouse to testify. You may call it idiocy but we had to expose this unlawfulness.

"Do I think even the rulings of a person who courageously states that he doesn't recognize the Constitution and the Constitutional Court should be abided by? No, not recognizing these rulings is the professional duty of every attorney.

"We don't do hunger strikes because we are arrested. But we resist if we are not treated fairly. Ebru didn't say, 'Why did you arrest us?' She said, 'Why didn't you hear my witnesses, why didn't you collect my evidence?'

"Ebru has a will for us: Justice. Therefore, the last thing to say is, 'If you behave in a way that is not worthy of human dignity, if you are not fair, we will not surrender."

"Ebru will live"

Speaking after Kozağaçlı, Barkın Timtik, Ebru Timtik's sister, briefly made the following statement:

"My colleagues who struggle for Ebru's demands are here. I greet them and my colleagues who came from abroad.

"We are arrested for political reasons, we didn't do any activities that don't comply with the profession. With these phony cases, not our liberty is stolen, but a life was taken from us. Everything on the merits of the case was said by Ebru.

"Ebru Timtik will continue to live as a new generation of lawyers and intellectuals.

"We had a trial process where the presiding judge of the İstanbul 37th Heavy Penal court forced the prosecutor's office to give an opinion multiple times.

"Lawyers were killed and arrested in many countries of the world. We are also in a period where lawyers are the weakest in Turkey. But we will continue to make judges and prosecutors act in compliance with laws and fairly.

"We are being tried, arrested and killed for 'not doing our job as the states want' rather than defending our clients.

"A lawyer lost her life in this case. For this reason, no rulings you have given surprised me and no rulings you will give will surprise, please or upset me. There is no justice in our country. There is no law. There is no trial." 

(AS/VK)