Güran family files another appeal: Attention drawn to HTS records! 'The most important witness in the case...'

A new development has occurred in the case regarding the murder of 7-year-old Narin Güran, whose lifeless body was found in a sack in a creek bed 19 days after she went missing in the rural Tavşantepe neighborhood of Diyarbakır's Bağlar district. Family members and their lawyers, who were sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment for the crime of 'intentional killing of a child in participation,' are filing successive appeals against the court's decision.

In the trial held at the Diyarbakır 8th High Criminal Court, uncle Salim Güran, mother Yüksel Güran, and brother Enes Güran were sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment for the murder. Neighbor Nevzat Bahtiyar, who admitted to helping transport the body, was sentenced to 4 years and 6 months in prison for the crime of 'destroying, concealing, or altering evidence of a crime.'

While the process of challenging the court's decision continues, Enes Güran's lawyer, Mustafa Demir, most recently filed an appeal with the 8th High Criminal Court to be submitted to the Diyarbakır Regional Court of Justice. The Güran family's lawyers presented their objections regarding the evidence examinations and the trial process to the court.

The petition stated that the National Criminal Bureau (UKB) could not make a determination on the camera belonging to the Daran 2 military base, despite defendant Nevzat Bahtiyar being 3 times the volume of Narin Güran, and noted, “Narin's last moment of being seen appears as 15:15:14 as reflected in the school cameras, and since the school camera is 4 minutes ahead, the real time should be calculated as 15:11:14. The shadow detected on the camera belonging to the Daran 2 military base was reported by the National Criminal Bureau (UKB) as 15:18:49. Since this camera is 6 minutes and 45 seconds ahead, we understand that it detected the shadow, which it claims is Narin, near the barn according to the real time of 15:12:04. The time between 15:11:14 and 15:12:04 is 50 seconds, and the UKB miscalculated this as 1.5 minutes in its report. When the attached image is examined, first of all, it is impossible for a person to cover this distance in 50 seconds, and considering that the identified place is rocky with steep cliffs, it would be impossible for a child to move through here, and the distance to the path will be understood more clearly with the necessary on-site inspection. Because, as the crow flies on maps, the distance between the place where Narin was last seen and the place identified by the UKB is 84 meters.

Considering the condition of the road, it is not possible for a person to cover a place over 84 meters in 50 seconds. How will we explain the fact that the UKB, in contrast to its claim of identifying Narin in the footage, could not identify Nevzat Bahtiyar, who claims to have gone up once and come down once? Furthermore, how should we explain the court's acceptance that there is no evidence to the contrary of Nevzat Bahtiyar's statements, despite the fact that defendant Nevzat Bahtiyar is 3 times the volume of the victim and no identification could be made?

Regarding the court's determination on the vehicle meeting, we see that the UKB reported the passing of a tractor with a blue trailer and a white vehicle side-by-side as a vehicle meeting, calling it the red vehicle belonging to defendant Nevzat Bahtiyar, and that this was not included in the prosecutor's opinion or the verdict after the explanation of what these vehicles were.

In other words, in the UKB's report, it could not distinguish between a tractor with a trailer that is at least 50 times larger than Narin and a vehicle, and since it was 250 meters closer to the camera than the place where it identified Narin in the camera angle, it would not be possible for us to rely on the determinations made by these people in light of the existing data at a point where it could not distinguish between red and blue colors,” the statements were included.

‘THE MOST IMPORTANT WITNESS IN THIS CASE IS HEDİYE GÜRAN’

In the petition, which states that Hediye Güran is the most important witness in the case, it was noted, “The Diyarbakır 8th High Criminal Court did not justify why it did not take into account the evidence that could be in favor of the client while discussing the evidence in its reasoned decision. There are important witness statements showing that the client Enes Güran had no connection to the incident of his sister's murder.

We would like to state that the reasoned decision is incomplete because it does not explain why the statements of the client's siblings Muhammed Emre Güran and Eren Güran, the client's uncle's wife Hediye Güran who came to their house after 15:30, the HTS record regarding the call with the client's friend Halil in Malatya, the client's friends Muhammed Yağmur, Süleyman Kaya, Yusuf Kaya, Furkan Kaya, Ufuk Kaya, and Osman Güran and Birsen Güran, who saw the client looking for his sister in the evening, were not taken as a basis.

In our opinion, the most important witness in this case for all defendants is Hediye Güran. This witness explained in full detail that defendant Nevzat Bahtiyar's accounts were untrue, that the client and his mother were in their own home with their other two siblings, that the client and his mother were sleeping, that there was no unusual situation, and that they were doing routine chores.

When looking at the witness's accounts, her conversations with defendant Yüksel in the morning hours before the incident, and her accounts in front of her own children, it will be seen that they are all consistent. However, the court wrote that it did not accept the statements of this witness, whose statements are extremely important, on the grounds that they did not match other evidence. What is meant by this 'other evidence' is not written in the reasoned decision.

The 'other evidence' referred to as the narrowed base station study is that the witness and her children stated that the phone was at home, and the other evidence, defendant Nevzat's statements, is that our statements regarding the fact that this statement contradicts and is impossible, and the witness's statements that overlap with other statements being ignored in the face of this is not an acceptable situation.

While a satisfying explanation would be required as to why the other evidence was clearly written and why the statements of the most important witness in the case were pushed out of the evaluation, the fact that the court did not devote 3 sentences to this in its reasoned decision of over 940 pages caused the decision to be incomplete in our opinion. As a result, if we look at it in light of the explanations we have made in the file, the court's acceptance that Narin Güran's lifeless body was taken from the house belonging to Arif Güran, that the client was a joint perpetrator 'because he was at home,' that he was aware of the uncle's statement 'I killed Narin' after his brother saw his relationship with his mother to hide things and did not react, that the other siblings were in no way aware of this, but that according to the narrowed base station there was very intense activity in and around the house, that while there was no need to look for a reason for the family to kill their own children, the court could not find a reason for defendant Nevzat, and that despite there being neither defendant Nevzat's statement nor any other evidence in the file regarding the client's participation in the crime, it proceeded to punish, and that there was also his brother Muhammet Emre Güran who was in the same situation as the client, is enough for us to understand how contrary to law and reason it is to proceed to punishment even within all these accounts,” the statements were included.

CANCELLATION OF THE VERDICT AND RELEASE REQUESTED

In the petition, requesting the cancellation of the verdict given against Enes Güran and his release, it was stated:

“With the acceptance of our appeal for the other reasons presented above and to be taken into account ex officio, we respectfully submit and request that the conviction decision of the Diyarbakır 8th High Criminal Court dated 28.12.2024, numbered 2024/396 Basis and 2024/529 Decision, be overturned due to being contrary to law in terms of procedure and substance, that the client defendant be acquitted, and that considering that the client's continued detention, which is completely devoid of legal basis along with the unlawful conviction decision given by the court of first instance with irrelevant and insufficient justifications, causes irreparable damage for both the client defendant and his family, his detention status be evaluated with priority and a decision be made for his release.”