No Releases in Peace Groups Trial
10 of the 34 members of the so-called "Peace Groups" had their second hearing at the Diyarbakır 4th High Criminal Court on Wednesday (25 August). Requests for the release of the seven detained defendants pending trial were again dismissed.
26 refugees from the UN refugee camp in Mahmur and eight former members of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) crossed the border to south-eastern Turkey on 19 October 2009. They followed their own personal decisions as an attempt to push forward the jammed political process of finding a solution to the Kurdish question.
The defendants face charges such as "membership of an illegal organization", "spreading propaganda for an illegal organization" and "committing a crime on behalf of an illegal organization without being a member of the organization".
The hearing was attended by detained defendants Elif Uludağ who came from Qandil and Ayşe Kara, Abdullah Yaman, Caziye Kabul, Zehra Tunç and Sisin Yaman from Mahmur and their lawyers. Lütfü Taş from the Qandil group was not able to appear at court because of health reasons.
The defendants' lawyers presented their defence and requested to release their clients pending trial.
Defence lawyer Fethi Gömüş stated that it was contrary to the law to detain the people coming from Mahmur in particular. "These people left their country because of their wrongdoing in the past and they spend several years in the Mahmur refugee camp run by the United Nations. Thus, the people coming from Mahmur have no connections to the organization [PKK]. These people came to create an environment of peace after according announcement had been made by the President and then by the Prime Minister and after statements from Qandil and İmralı [where PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan is imprisoned]. We do not believe that the statements of our clients constitute a crime. For this reason I request the decision to release my clients".
After a brief intermission, the court board announced to continue the detention of the defendants under consideration of the kind of offence and the present evidence. The court furthermore decided to renew the arrest warrants issued for Mehmet Adamış, Nizar Buldan and Yusuf Şen in the previous hearing. The case was postponed to 17 October in order to allow time for the preparation of the final speech of the Public Prosecutor. (BB/VK)