Police officer facing 25 years in prison for killing waste worker not arrested again

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Police officer K.B. has been on trial and is facing 25 years of imprisonment for shooting and killing waste worker Recep Hantaş in the southeastern Diyarbakır province. Once again the request for his arrest was rejected at today's hearing (May 16).

K.B., who has been on trial with the charge of "killing with eventual intent", was present at the hearing held at the Diyarbakır 10th Heavy Penal Court.

Recep Hantas, a 20-year-old Kurdish man, was shot dead by police in Turkey's southeastern city of Diyarbakır while he was collecting waste paper in the Yenişehir district, Şehitlik Neighborhood, Sümer Park region at around 4 am on 14th April 2019.

Prosecutor asked for punishment

The attorney of the defendant, relatives of Hantaş, and the lawyers of the Hantaş family, Mehmet Öner and Şilan Çelik were present at the hearing, reported by Mezopotamia Agency (MA).

The prosecutor repeated the opinion in the previous hearing that police officer K.B. should be sentenced to prison for "killing with eventual intent." and demanded that the deficiencies in the file be rectified.

Two police officers R.E. and M.U. were also there at the crime scene when the incident happened. The attorney of the Hantaş family asked the court board to hear the statements of these witnesses.

Attorney Öner, reminding the opinion of the prosecution, once again repeated the demand for the arrest of the defendant.

The court, on the other hand, rejected the request for the arrest of the accused police officer and decided to hear the statements of the witness police officers.

The next hearing will be held on June 21.

What happened?

20-year-old Recep Hantaş was shot to death by police officer K.B. on April 14, 2019, while he was collecting scraps in Yenişehir district in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeastern province of Diyarbakır. His friend R.Y., who was with him at the time of the incident, said that the police opened fire without any warning while they were sitting in the park.

Right after the incident, K.B. was arrested. However, the police officer was released the same year on May 24 after 40 days of imprisonment.

Two years later, the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office has filed an indictment about the death of Recep Hantaş and the prosecutor's office has requested that police officer B. be sentenced to 18 years to 25 years in prison for "killing with eventual intent."

Adding the camera footage to the indictment as well, the prosecutor's office has stated that the moment when officer Kazım B. was seen in the footage, there was smoke coming from the barrel of his long-barreled gun; in the meanwhile, Hantaş entered the blind spot and fell on the ground.

In his statement, police officer Kazım B. said that he had not fired his weapon by specifically targeting Recep Hantaş, but fired into the air.

CLICK: Shooting Hantaş to death in a park, police officer faces up to 25 years in prison

(AS/TB)