Demirtaş sentenced to two and a half years in prison

Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for “insulting a prosecutor”. The basis of the show trial this Friday at the 25th Heavy Penal Court of Ankara is an alleged insult by the defendant to Yüksel Kocaman, the former chief public prosecutor of Ankara, who has since been promoted to the Court of Cassation. Kocaman had charged Demirtaş with allegedly threatening and publicly defaming a public official.

Specifically, it concerned a statement made by Demirtaş last September during a meeting with his lawyer Cahit Kırkazak. Referring to the photos of Kocaman’s wedding at the Sheraton in Ankara, which had been circulated in the media shortly before and was attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the chairman of the Court of Cassation, the minister of justice, the minister of the interior, the chief of general staff and the chairman of the election commission, among others, Demirtaş reportedly said, “There was a time when prosecutors were even given armored vehicles. Nevertheless, they did not manage to evade justice. The gift bags that someone puts in your hands will also not save you from prosecution.” According to the court, Demirtaş thus made the prosecutor a target as a “person in a counterterrorism office” among “supporters of terrorist organizations”.

Demirtaş was not present in person at the hearing and was linked in via video conferencing system from the high-security prison in Edirne, western Turkey, where he has been held hostage since the end of 2016. In the courtroom, the 48-year-old politician, who is himself a lawyer, was defended by Hadi Cin, Levent Kanat, Aydın Erdoğan and Mahsuni Karaman. During the reading of the prosecution’s plea, there were fierce protests from the defense because Demirtaş was described in it as a “person with links to the armed and terrorist organization PKK/KCK.” Demirtaş’s lawyers called the trial “politically motivated” and a “farce” and demanded acquittal for their client. They said, the fact that the trial came about because of the statement about Yüksel Kocaman showed the “anti-judicial marching band” in the courts. The presiding judges ruled that the alleged threat posed by Demirtaş’s statements did not exist, but did not see any mitigating circumstances that justified reducing the sentence. The decision was based on the fact that Demirtaş’s comment was disseminated on Twitter.

In prison despite ECtHR ruling

Selahattin Demirtaş has been in prison for over four and a half years. The then HDP co-chairman was arrested on November 4, 2016, at the same time as numerous other Kurdish and left-wing politicians, including co-chairwoman Figen Yüksekdağ, and subsequently imprisoned. Despite a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), he has not been released.