ANKARA - Interpreting the Dedeoğulları massacre trial as "an invalid trial", Lawyer Atilla Kart said: "The article regulating genocide and crimes against humanity was not implemented."

 

7 members of the Dedeoğluları family, who were subjected to racist attacks by the Keleş and Çalık families on May 12, 2021, in the Meram district of Konya, were murdered by gunman Mehmet Altun on July 30, 2021, as the necessary protection measures were not taken after the attack.

 

THE COURT DECIDED WITHOUT LAWYER

 

The final hearing of the case brought against the gunman Mehmet Altun after the attack was held on November 17. At the hearing held at the Konya 4th High Criminal Court, the decision, which the court board made without intervention, after the unlawful participation of the MPs and the only surviving member of the family, Çetin Dedeoğulları, was taken out of the courtroom, led to public debates about "the racist massacre is wanted to be covered up".

 

The court board sentenced gunman Mehmet Altun to 7 times aggravated life imprisonment for "deliberately killing 7 people by designing with a monstrous feeling", 4 years for "damaging property by burning", 4 years for "violating the immunity of residence in a qualified manner", "2 years in prison for "violating the Law on Firearms, Knives and Other Tools".

 

INSTIGATORS ACQUITTED

 

Instigators Yahya Çalık, İbrahim Keleş, Ramazan Çalık, Ali Çalık, Lütfi Keleş, Ali Keleş (son of Lütfi Keleş), Veli Keleş, Ali Keleş (son of Veli Keleş), Ayşe Keleş and Ali Keleş (son of Harun Keleş) ) was acquitted. Atilla Kart, one of the lawyers of the Dedeoğulları massacre case, evaluated the decisions made on 17 November and drew attention to the attitude of the court board at the hearing. Emphasizing "a judgment with no effect in terms of legal, conscientious and legitimacy", Kart said: "A 'formal trial' had been carried out in the case for a year."

 

HTS RECORDS SHOULD BE RESEARCHED

 

Stating that the court board "could not get out of the framework given to it by the judicial bureaucracy" at the verdict hearing on November 17, Kart said: "The massacre was evaluated as the enmity between two neighbors. If the court does not want the Turkish State to be under suspicion, if the court wants the material truth to be revealed, public institutions and organisations and authorities will do it. The court has to research the relationship with security companies, HTS and expert reports. When the court doesn't do this, as a court, the court puts public institutions under institutional suspicion."

 

CRIMINAL COMPLAINT ABOUT THE DELEGATION

 

Kart said that they filed a criminal complaint against the 4th, 8th and 9th Heavy Penal Courts in Konya to the Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK) on the issue of abuse of duty and authority and lack of access to justice.

 

FAKE REPORT

 

Reminding that they requested a judge to reject the verdict, Kart said: “The court did not allow us to record the refusal of the judge process in the minutes. Not only did the court not allow us to write down our reasons for refusal in the minutes, but the court also tried to keep a memorandum and said that the intervening attorneys did not want to explain the reasons for the refusal, the judge", in other words, the court tried to keep fake minutes. Why would a court president have to trample on the 20-22 years old legal acquis?”

 

TURKEY DOES NOT IMPLEMENT THE ARTICLES

 

Emphasizing that the 76th and 77th articles of the TCK, which entered the TCK in 2004 and regulate crimes against humanity and genocide, have not been implemented until today, Kart said: “These articles were supposedly introduced to combat these crimes more effectively, but only in the October 10 Gar Massacre, they were defined as crimes against humanity. We see that there are elements of these crimes, both material and moral, in the Konya Meram Massacre, but they remain only as articles in our penal code. Although some crimes are committed in this direction in Turkey, the application of those articles is avoided because there is a siege network over the judiciary in Turkey.”

 

MA / Fırat Can Arslan