Verdict in Tahir Elçi case: All accused police officers acquitted

The final hearing of the trial concerning the death of former Diyarbakır Bar Association President Tahir Elçi, who was murdered on November 28, 2015, in front of the Four-Legged Minaret in the Sur district of Diyarbakır, was held today (June 12) at the Diyarbakır 10th High Criminal Court.

The court decided to acquit all the accused police officers.

Diyarbakır Bar Association President Nahit Eren, recalling that the prosecutor had requested acquittal for the accused police officers, stated, "We invite all our legal professional friends to the hearing for support and solidarity so that this case does not go unpunished."

PROSECUTOR HAD REQUESTED ACQUITTAL FOR 3 ACCUSED POLICE OFFICERS

In the opinion submitted to the court by the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office on April 25, it was requested that "Tahir Elçi lost his life due to a bullet whose origin could not be precisely determined, that acquittal decisions be given separately for the police officers being tried without arrest, and that the fugitive defendant Uğur Yakışır be punished" on charges of killing 2 police officers and disrupting the unity and integrity of the state.

CHP ASSIGNED A DELEGATION

Meanwhile, the CHP assigned a delegation to follow the hearing. On behalf of the CHP, the hearing was followed by Ankara deputies Aliye Timisi Ersever and Okan Konuralp, Diyarbakır Deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu, İzmir deputies Sevda Erdan Kılıç and Yüksek Taşkın, Muğla Deputy Cumhur Uzun, and Trabzon Deputy Sibel Suiçimez.

At the end of the court session, the lawyers reacted to this decision.

STATEMENT FROM MINISTER TUNÇ REGARDING THE TAHIR ELÇI CASE

In his statement following the acquittal, Justice Minister Tunç said that the murder of Tahir Elçi had deeply shaken everyone.

Stating that investigations were carried out after the incident, Tunç said, "Initially, there was interference by the terrorist organization regarding the collection of evidence, and some difficulties were experienced. Afterward, the trial process began, and the proceedings took place. As of today, an acquittal has been granted; we heard it a moment ago. This is the decision of the first instance court. There is an appellate and supreme court process for this. It is a matter currently in the trial phase. We will all wait for this trial process together."

WHAT HAD HAPPENED?

Diyarbakır Bar Association President Tahir Elçi lost his life after being shot in the head during a clash that broke out while he was reading a press statement in front of the Four-Legged Minaret on November 28, 2015, in the Sur district of Diyarbakır, to draw attention to the destruction caused by armed clashes in the city to cultural heritage assets.

The clash began just before he was shot, on the nearby Gazi Street, between two PKK members and police officers. During this time, police officers named Ahmet Çiftaslan and Cengiz Erdur lost their lives. The clash spread to Yenikapı Street, where the press statement was being held, as the PKK members entered the area.

The investigation process regarding the murder of Tahir Elçi was not conducted effectively. The prosecutor conducting the investigation was changed many times. The crime scene investigation was carried out approximately 5 months after Elçi lost his life, on March 17, 2016. The bullet core that caused Tahir Elçi's death could not be found.

The security cameras located on the street where the murder took place "did not record" the moment Tahir Elçi was shot. There is a 13-second interruption in the police camera footage.

In the expert report dated March 19, 2016, prepared by the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office for Forensic Medicine and ballistics experts, it was argued that "it cannot be known medically and physically from which weapon, at what angle, and with what body position of the person the shot that caused Tahir Elçi's death occurred."

In the expert report prepared as a result of the examination of the autopsy report by the Council of Forensic Medicine on June 20, 2016, the opinion that it was medically impossible to determine the direction of the shot was reiterated.

Upon the request of the Diyarbakır Bar Association, a detailed technical report regarding the murder of Tahir Elçi was prepared by an organization called Forensic Architecture, working within Goldsmiths, University of London.

In the report, prepared using visual, auditory, and documentary sources, it was determined that three of the police officers present were under strong suspicion of committing a crime.

The report stated that these three police officers were in a direct line of fire toward Elçi and that they fired their weapons multiple times, and it was stated that one of the police officers was the only officer who fired his weapon with a clear and unobstructed line of fire toward Elçi.

The report noted that the two PKK members who fled by entering the street where Elçi was making his press statement after killing two police officers "did not appear to have fired a lethal shot" at Elçi.

Furthermore, it was stated that, contrary to the statements of some police officers who testified, no auditory evidence could be found that a long-barreled weapon was fired from a distance.

The Diyarbakır Bar Association submitted this report to the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office on December 14, 2018. The report was made public on February 8, 2019. Forensic Medicine expert Prof. Dr. Ümit Biçer also prepared an opinion parallel to the report and delivered it to the Diyarbakır Bar Association. On March 17, 2019, the Diyarbakır Bar Association submitted the report prepared by Prof. Dr. Biçer to the prosecutor's office and requested that the investigation be expanded.

In line with these reports, which clearly pointed to a police officer, the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office sent a letter to the Council of Forensic Medicine, asking whether a new evaluation could be made and whether a conclusion different from the June 20, 2016, Forensic Medicine report could be reached.

In its 2016 report, the Council of Forensic Medicine had reported that the weapon that shot Elçi could not be identified and that no clear findings could be obtained. In the report prepared on March 18, 2019, the Council of Forensic Medicine stated that there was no matter to be changed or added to the report it prepared in 2016.

The indictment was completed only 5 years after Elçi's murder, on March 20, 2020.

In addition to the three police officers mentioned in the report prepared by Forensic Architecture, one of the two PKK members was shown as a suspect in the Tahir Elçi murder. It was stated that the other PKK member died in armed clashes during the curfews. While the three police officers were charged with "causing death by conscious negligence," the PKK member was evaluated as having committed the crime of "causing death with probable intent."

The finding that it was more likely that the bullet from one of the police officers' weapons hit Tahir Elçi was not taken into account in the indictment.

In its preparatory hearing dated March 27, 2020, the Diyarbakır 10th High Criminal Court decided to ask the Diyarbakır Governorship and the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office whether the trial being held in Diyarbakır would pose a danger in terms of public safety.

The first hearing, held on October 21, 2020, was conducted under heavy security measures. A dispute occurred between the complainant's lawyers, whose requests to be included in the case before moving on to the defendants' defenses were rejected, and the court panel.

In the highly tense hearing, where the complainants were ignored and the faces of the defendants could not even be distinguished, a request for the recusal of the judges was made on the grounds that the panel was not independent and impartial.

It was decided to send the file to the higher court for the evaluation of the recusal request.

In the second hearing on March 3, 2021, the court panel reversed its interim decision from the first hearing and accepted the requests for participation before the defendants' defenses. After the defendants' defenses were also taken, the requests for the arrest of the defendants were rejected, and it was decided to apply the judicial control measure of a ban on traveling abroad and for the defendants to attend the hearings via SEGBİS (Audio and Visual Information System).

In the hearing held on July 14, 2021, five witnesses, including two secret witnesses, were heard. The secret witnesses with the codenames Lojman 2019 and i61 changed their statements from their initial testimonies and stated that they did not see the incident.

One of the witnesses said he was deceived by the prosecutor. One of the other witnesses stated that he was in prison at the time of the incident, and the other stated that he was not in Diyarbakır.

The court decided to send a writ to TÜBİTAK to examine the deleted camera recordings of the moment of the incident, to give the digital records to the participating party for examination abroad, to request a list of names of all police officers on duty at the time of the incident, to request the report prepared by the inspectors of the Ministry of Interior's Civil Inspection Board regarding the incident, and to evaluate the discovery request later.

In the hearing held on January 12, 2022, the audience restriction applied in the hall due to pandemic measures was lifted. Although it was requested that a criminal complaint be filed against the former prosecutor Kenan Karaca, who took the statements of the people who testified in the previous session, by reminding them of their statements that they gave their statements under torture, this request was rejected.

While decisions were being made regarding the requests of the Elçi family's lawyers to renew their requests for the expansion of the investigation, which were considered incomplete, incorrect, or not accepted at all in the previous session, it was revealed that the content of the hard disk of the Mardin Kebapevi camera, which saw the crime scene, was one hundred percent empty during the examination. The requests for the arrest of the defendants on the grounds that evidence had been destroyed in the time that had passed since the incident were again rejected.

In the hearing held on June 15, 2022, the "Research Report" prepared by two civil chief inspectors and one police chief inspector assigned by the Ministry of Interior and the General Directorate of Security entered the case file after 5 years.

In the 59-page report, which was submitted to the Ministry of Interior's Civil Inspection Board on June 23, 2017, and had not been given to the participating lawyers for 5 years, it was stated that some issues were left out of the scope of the report because the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office did not share information and documents regarding the investigation with the inspectors conducting the administrative investigation, and it was revealed that the phones of the organization member Mahsum Gürkan, who was followed before the murder, were wiretapped by the Intelligence Branch Directorate for two years.

Upon the revelation that the hard disk whose image was sent was empty in the examination made by TÜBİTAK to determine whether the cameras were recording and whether there was any addition-removal-cutting-editing-deletion etc. intervention on the hard disk by examining the security camera image images belonging to the PTT Balıkçılarbaşı Central Directorate and Mardin Kebap Evi, the images sent by the court for the second time also turned out to be corrupted this time.

It was decided to write a writ to the Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) to ask whether the 12-second missing camera footage was deleted, whether it was edited, or why the footage was cut. The requests of the participating lawyers to hear the intelligence officers at the scene and for the accused police officers to be present directly in court rather than via SEGBİS were rejected. It was decided to hear Ahmet Davutoğlu, who was the prime minister at the time the murder was committed.

On September 19, 2022, the court gave up on hearing Ahmet Davutoğlu on the grounds that it would not add anything new to the file.

In the hearing held on November 23, 2022, a dispute occurred between Türkan Elçi's lawyers and the court panel, upon which the Court President and members left the courtroom. The panel, which also gave a negative response to the Diyarbakır Bar Association President's request for a meeting, resisted returning to the courtroom, so the bailiff went to the podium and said that he had ended the hearing and that everyone should leave the hall; since the lawyers did not leave the hall, the Court Panel returned to the hall and continued the hearing without reconnecting the defendants who were connected via SEGBİS.

The participating lawyers made requests for the expansion of the prosecution, and it was decided to wait for the response from TÜBİTAK for the resolution of the Mardin Kebapevi camera footage and for the continuation of the travel ban for the defendants.

In the hearing held on July 5, 2023, it was requested once again to hear Ahmet Davutoğlu, and it was rejected. It was decided to wait for the response from TÜBİTAK and the results of other interim decisions.

In the hearing held on November 29, 2023, all requests regarding the collection of evidence were rejected. The file was sent to the prosecutor's office to prepare its opinion on the merits.

In the last hearing held on March 6, 2024, the attorneys for the participating party reiterated their requests for the expansion of the investigation, but the requests were rejected again.

The next hearing will be held on June 12, 2024, at 10:00.

News Source: 12punto