ANKARA - Lawyer Nuray Özdoğan, who spoke at the hearing of the Musa Anter case, which will drop due to prescription in September 2022, stated that the court should not wait any longer to take the statement of Abdulkadir Aygan and said: "They were proven guilty as charged. The accused should be punished immediately."

 

The hearing of the case brought against the murder of Kurdish scholar Musa Anter on September 20, 1992 in Diyarbakır was held at the Ankara 6th High Criminal Court.

 

While three months before the case for the JİTEM main case drops due to prescription and the case of Ayten Öztürk, who was killed by Mahmut Yıldırım with the code name "Yeşil" in 1993, Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Ankara MP Filiz Kerestecioğlu, Human Rights Association Co-Chair Öztürk Türkdoğan, İHD Central Executive Board (MYK) Member Nuray Çevirmen, Journalist-Writer Hüseyin Aykol, as well as lawyers from the Lawyers' Association for Freedom (ÖHD) and many people participated in the hearing for observation.

 

In the hearing, which started with the reading of the documents added to the file after the identification, it was stated that the letter written by the Ministry of Justice was not responded to in order to obtain the necessary information from the police chief about the murder of the accused Cemil Işık in Germany.

 

IHD CO-CHAIR RECALLS PEACE PROCESS

 

Requesting to be involved in the case file, IHD Co-chair Öztürk Türkdoğan said: "IHD was founded in 1986. Therefore, as of the date of the crime, IHD was active in Turkey. Therefore, we think that our association was harmed by this crime. IHD has been fighting for democracy since the day it was founded. The loss of Anter's life has hurt the Kurdish people. Not only Anter, but also many unsolved murders were committed at that time, and many villages were burned. Therefore, what happened those days must come to light. Commissions have been established in the Parliament in order to shed a light on unsolved murders. In the reports submitted to the investigation commission, it was determined that there were thousands of unsolved murders. We also shared the balance sheets of the İHD and reports especially for the democratic solution of the Kurdish problem. Subsequently, a solution process began in 2013. We have been actively involved in this process. We have presented our views to the government. At that time, we also presented our views in the parliamentary research commission on social peace. I think the İHD has the right to participate in such cases. In political murder cases, we naturally have to engage in discussions over the victim's political, ethnic or social identities. Türkdoğan demanded that İHD's request to participate in the case be accepted.

 

ÖHD REQUESTS PARTICIPATING IN THE CASE

 

Attorney Alişan Şahin, who took the floor on behalf of ÖHD, also requested to participate. Şahin said, “The policy of impunity since then paved the way for the legitimisation of these murders. There is strong evidence that these massacres might happen again in the future as well. We demand that our request to participate be accepted.”

 

'ERDOĞAN WANTS AYGAN'S EXTRADITION'

 

Musa Anter's son Dicle Anter said: "Abdulkadir Aygan's statement has not been taken for years, but at the moment, Erdoğan wants his extradition. This is a contradiction. His statement must have been talen by now."

 

REQUEST OF SEPERATION OF THE CASE

 

Nuray Özdoğan, one of the lawyers of the case, emphasized the risk of statute of limitations and said, “We repeat our statements for you to make a decision on the statute of limitations. Timeout of the file was requested deliberately. We expect your court to reach a conclusion by evaluating the social conditions of this murder. We want the application of Article 72 of the TCK in this file. At this stage, we have been waiting for the arrest of the accused for 30 years. We reiterate our request for separation of the case. If you will reject our request, you should not wait any longer to take Aygan's statement. They were proven guilty as charged. The accused should be punished immediately."

 

REQUESTS FOR PARTICIPATION IN THE CASE REJECTED

 

Lawyers for the defendants demanded the rejection of the requests to participate. The prosecution, which gave its opinion on the demands, demanded that the İHD and ÖHD's requests to participate in the case be rejected on the grounds that "they were not directly harmed by the crime".

 

Announcing its interim decision, the presiding judge rejected the institutions' requests to participate in the case on the grounds that "they were not directly harmed by the crime". Since it was understood that the judicial control measure, which was decided to be implemented taking into account the nature of the crime ascribed to the accused Hamit Yıldırım and the maximum period of detention, was still valid, the requests for its removal was rejected.

 

The presiding judge, who also rejected the request for the separation of the file, adjourned the next hearing to September 15 without making a decision.