DİYARBAKIR – Serdar Çelebi, the lawyer of Mehmet Emin Özkan, who has been held in prison for 25 years after being framed for the Lice Massacre, as told by a former intelligence officer said: "The state wants things to remain the same because Özkan was framed and punished as the perpetrator of this incident."

 

The statements of a former intelligence officer who spoke to Yeni Yaşam that the process started with the murder of Bragadier General Bahtiyar Aydın was organized by  the 7th Corps Commander Hasan Kundakçı and his deputy, former Chief of General Staff İlker Başbuğ came to the fore. According to the former intelligence officer, Kundakçı and Başbuğ spoiled the evidence and helped the law enforcement officers to be acquitted. 

 

This information provided the attention to the case of 83-year-old sick prisoner Mehmet Emin Özkan, who was prosecuted for his alleged involvement in the events and sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment and has been in prison for 25 years.

 

Özkan, who was forced into migration and moved to Adana after the Lice massacre because their village was burned to the ground and they were under a lot of pressure by the law enforcement, was arrested here on the charge of "aiding a terrorist organization". While Özkan was on trial for this crime, two alleged PKK members, who were detained, testified that they saw him with the PKK group, which they claimed to have participated in the Lice events.

 

Although these two individuals stated that they gave their statements under torture during the court process, the Konya State Security Court (DGM) sentenced Özkan to life imprisonment for "destroying the unity and integrity of the state" in 1994, even before the indictment was prepared for the new accusation. However, the Court of Cassation overturned the decision of Konya SSC due to the sentencing before the indictment was prepared.

 

Upon this decision, Konya SSC sentenced Özkan to the same sentence with a half-page indictment. The Court of Cassation, which had previously overturned Özkan's file and had no evidence other than the statements of two people who said they had testified under torture in court, this time upheld the sentence given with a half-page indictment. 

 

With the new regulation after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decisions that the trials in these courts "contrary to the right to a fair trial" due to the presence of military members in the DGM delegations, Özkan was re-tried at the Adana 7th High Criminal Court. Despite the life sentence was overturned due to the re-trial decision, their request for release was rejected. There is still no decision about Özkan's case.

 

'THE TRIAL PROCESS TOOK ITS PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF TURKISH JUDICIAL SYSTEM

 

Özkan's lawyer Serdar Çelebi spoke to the newspaper Yeni Yaşam about the Lice massacre and his client Mehmet Emin Özkan's statements and the trial process.

 

Çelebi said that his client had to migrate to Adana for security reasons while the villages of the people were burned to the ground by the law enforcement officers and told, "He was detained later in 1994 with the accusation of 'Aiding and abetting an illegal organization' and soon he was arrested. He was sentenced to life in prison and has been in prison since then. He was taken into custody with the allegation of 'aiding and abetting an illegal organization'. But the fact that he was later sentenced for 'burning down Lice' with some fabricated evidence and statements of confessors- even though they later told that their statement was taken under torture- has taken its place in the history of Turkish judicial system."

 

AN EFFECTIVE INVESTIGATION HAS NOT BEEN CONDUCTED

 

Noting that Özkan did not know any language other than Kurdish, Çelebi noted that his statements were taken in Turkish during the investigation phase, Çelebi said: "He made his defense in Kurdish. At every stage of the trial, Özkan tried to explain that he did not commit this crime and that he had nothing to do with it, but the court did not respect his defense even though there was no evidence against him. There were two confessors' statements, but they also withdrew their statements during the court process. Despite the withdrawal of the statements, the court sentenced him to life imprisonment on the grounds that he participated in the action where Lice was set on fire. We've heard it often. It has already been mentioned in the press. There were always allegations that Lice was burned by the dark forces within the state, not by any organization. But there was never an effective investigation."

 

'WE SEE THAT THE COURT PROCESS WAS TAMPERED WITH'

 

Reminding that the file was taken over by the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office 15 years after Lice was burned, Çelebi said: "The investigation in question was an investigation aimed at finding the perpetrators. As a result of that investigation, an indictment was prepared about two soldiers. Of course, with the opening of that case, it was confirmed and determined by the judicial authorities that Özkan was not involved in this incident. In the indictment prepared by the public prosecutor, there were determinations that Özkan was not involved in this incident and these were included in the indictment. We then applied for a retrial and the court accepted our request. But Özkan was never released because the execution was not halted. Ofcourse we wondered why he was never released despite all the evidence. There was an illegal mechanism interfering with the trial process. And with the statements of this former intelligence officer, all of our suspicians were confirmed."

 

'DARK FORCES WITHIN THE STATE WANTS EVERYTHING TO REMAIN THE SAME IN THIS FILE'

 

Attorney Çelebi also evaluated the statements of former intelligence officer regarding the transfer of the Lice file from Diyarbakır to İzmir and İlker Başbuğ's intervention in the trial.

 

Çelebi said: "We learn that the file was taken from Diyarbakır and transferred to İzmir, and that some of the judges were able to hear the case there as a result of an intervention and that they were aiming to acquit the soldiers there. They appearantly wanted Özkan to stay in prison so bad and they did not want to reveal the truth about the fire in Lice. They wanted everything to stay the same in this file."

 

Expressing that the statements of the former intelligence officer in question reveal the state of the judiciary in Turkey, Çelebi said, "There are interesting things in the confessions. For example, there are some allegations that other people were also involved in the burning of Lice, but they could not be included in the file. This shows the state of Turkish judiciary."