Selahattin Demirtaş appears in court

Former HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş attended the hearing at the Mersin 14th Criminal Court of First Instance via SEGBİS from Edirne Prison, where he has been incarcerated for seven years. HEDEP Mersin MP Ali Bozan and party officials are observing the hearing.

There were 25 lawyers in the courtroom to defend Demirtaş. The lawyers presented their defense on the merits.

"10 FILES MERGED"

According to the report by Abidin Yağmur from Artı Gerçek; Lawyer Özgür Özbek said, "10 files have been merged. This means 10 prosecutors have been involved. While evidence in favor of the defendant should also be collected, there is only evidence against him. The speeches that are the subject of the lawsuit were made during his time as an MP. Immunity and irresponsibility for speeches made in Parliament also apply to speeches made outside of Parliament. Prosecutors should have checked whether these speeches were also made in Parliament. Two files from Diyarbakır are missing from the merged file. In addition, some of the TBMM (Grand National Assembly of Turkey) records requested by the court are missing. For this reason, we are requesting additional time. Two DVDs and one CD in the file are damaged," he said.

"BEŞTAŞ AND THE DEPUTY INTERIOR MINISTER OF THE PERIOD SHOULD BE HEARD"

Defending Demirtaş against the accusations regarding his statements about the events in Cizre, lawyer Özbek said, "In the case file at the Mardin Criminal Court of First Instance regarding the Cizre events, Osman Baydemir was heard, but Meral Danış Beştaş was not. Meral Danış Beştaş and the Deputy Interior Minister of the period should be heard so that the efforts made by my client and the HDP to stop the conflict environment can be seen and what was experienced in Cizre can be understood," he said.

"ANYONE OF AVERAGE INTELLIGENCE UNDERSTANDS THAT THE SPEECHES ARE THE SAME"

Lawyer Mahsuni Karaman said, "For 7 years, we have been saying that the speeches that are the subject of the lawsuits filed against Demirtaş are similar to his parliamentary speeches and should be considered within the scope of irresponsibility. Unfortunately, there has been no court or judge who has taken this into account. The ECHR stated in its ruling that it was astonished that this request of the client was not taken into account by the courts. Any person of average intelligence understands that the speeches made at rallies and the speeches made in Parliament are the same," he said.

DEMİRTAŞ: I WAS DISCRIMINATED AGAINST DURING THE TRIAL PROCESS BECAUSE I AM A KURDISH POLITICIAN

Starting his defense after the lawyers, Selahattin Demirtaş said, "Articles 14 and 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) are being violated with this case. I was discriminated against during the trial process because I am a Kurdish politician. The prosecutor, who looks at things ideologically and politically and tries to cover up the crimes of the state, stated that soldiers and police were fighting against the trenches. He said that I insulted them. Well, did any coup plotters emerge from those soldiers and police after July 15? They did. Well, did the prosecutor investigate them?" he said.

Demirtaş continued as follows:

"The prosecutor did not look at the fact that I was an MP, that I was the leader of an opposition party, that I was a citizen, the political atmosphere of the period, those who gave instructions from Parliament to the police and soldiers to 'leave no stone unturned,' the politicization of the judiciary, or the promotion of the judge who gave sentences to me, Canan Kaftancıoğlu, and Selçuk Kozağaçlı. He did not look at the fact that there were 1.5 million tweets calling me 'terrorist Demirtaş'."

DEMİRTAŞ SHOWED PHOTOS OF TORTURE

Showing photos regarding the torture inflicted on corpses in various provinces, Demirtaş said, "Has the prosecutor investigated whether I made these words up or whether I said them by looking at a concrete event? What you need to protect is not those who commit this baseness, but humanity," he said.

"I WILL CONTINUE TO SAY THIS EVEN IF I LIE IN PRISON FOR A HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS"

Saying, "I am being tried because I am a Kurd," Demirtaş continued his words as follows:

"If I were a racist, fascist gang leader, I would not be tried. I will continue to say this even if I lie in prison for a hundred thousand years. I said too little at that time. The millions of people who elected me chose me to say these truths. Not saying these things is baseness. Our demands are legitimate. If the court eliminates the discrimination I have been subjected to because of my ethnic identity and political identity, it will be a fair trial."

LAWYER REQUESTS REJECTED

Following Demirtaş's defense, the court panel rejected all of the lawyers' requests and set the new hearing date for May 15, 2024. The court decided to request the missing files, DVDs, CDs, and parliamentary records.

INITIAL ASSESSMENT FROM LAWYERS

After the court session, lawyer Ramazan Demir said the following about the case:

"This file was a file opened by merging multiple files due to the statements and expressions made by Mr. Demirtaş in different periods, especially during military operations, regarding the crimes committed against the Kurdish people. They were all merged in Mersin. It was a file filled with investigations initiated under Article 301, the 'charge of degrading the organs of the state and the government.'

Today, the prosecution's office, in its opinion, stated that this was a case opened due to the words expressed by Demirtaş regarding the crimes committed during the operations carried out especially in Cizre, the massacres carried out, and the torture inflicted on human bodies, at the head of which is Hacı Lokman Birlik, and both the killings and the subsequent torture inflicted on their bodies, such as Taybet Ana.

"THERE ARE TOO MANY MISSING ITEMS IN THE FILE"

The prosecution's office gave an opinion with the conviction that issues that have been the subject of thousands of international and national news reports, reports, and decisions, and issues that are known to the entire public of Turkey and the world, degrade the state and its organs as a whole. Therefore, they wanted Mr. Demirtaş to be sentenced for these. There are too many missing items in the file, where we expected a decision to be made as of today. We have already been expressing for years that these deficiencies need to be completed. In today's hearing, the court accepted only some of the requests we have frequently made before and decided to bring and physically examine files on similar subjects. Therefore, the trial is not over. Mr. Demirtaş will continue to be tried for these words and these expressions."

News Source: 12punto