Fugitive Hizbullah Leaders Retried at Lightning Speed, Then Acquitted: 'Good Conduct' Discount for 183 Killings

Rastinews — Fugitive Hizbullah leaders were retried and acquitted at lightning speed:

A "good conduct" discount for 183 killings

Edip Gümüş and Cemal Tutar, senior figures in the Hizbullah organization held responsible for 183 killings carried out as "unsolved murders" in the 1990s, walked free after a retrial that amounted to little more than a legal process tailored to the individual — receiving just six years in prison each. The case was kept hidden from victims' families, and the defendants, fugitives for 15 years, were even granted a "good conduct" reduction.

Sevda Karaca, an Emek Partisi (EMEP) MP for Gaziantep, brought the Diyarbakır 6th Heavy Penal Court's ruling on senior Hizbullah figures Edip Gümüş and Cemal Tutar before the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM).

In a written question submitted to the TBMM Speaker's Office for Justice Minister Akın Gürlek to answer, Karaca said the ruling on the leaders of an organization tied to numerous killings, beatings and cases of torture in the 1990s — chiefly in Batman, Mardin and Diyarbakır — had triggered serious public debate.

"Convicted only of organization membership"

In her question, Karaca said the court had convicted defendants facing charges over grave crimes solely of "organization membership," and had additionally granted a good-conduct reduction to defendants who had been fugitives since 2011.

Karaca argued this approach demanded both legal and moral explanation.

Criticism over how Constitutional Court rulings were applied

The question also referenced the Constitutional Court's (AYM) 2019 ruling that some Hizbullah defendants tried before courts with military judges had suffered a violation of their right to a fair trial.

Karaca said the retrial should have applied only to those named in the Constitutional Court's violation ruling, yet other convicted Hizbullah members outside its scope were also granted retrials, with their sentences suspended and the men released. She said no other organization's case file had received this treatment, calling it a practice reserved specifically for Hizbullah.

"Acquitted within three and a half months"

Karaca recalled that Edip Gümüş, a senior Hizbullah figure, and Cemal Tutar, identified as head of the organization's military wing, left the country after their release in 2011.

Despite the absence of any Constitutional Court ruling ordering a retrial in their case, she said, the Diyarbakır 6th Heavy Penal Court opened retrial proceedings at their lawyers' request, and the defendants — known to be abroad — attended hearings via the SEGBİS video-link system from Batman.

Karaca said that within roughly three and a half months, the court acquitted the men of killings they had previously confessed to and which had been examined over years of litigation, citing a "lack of concrete evidence." The court also cleared the defendants of leading the organization, reasoning that Hizbullah had "only one leader."

"Families of the dead were left out of the process"

Karaca said relatives of those killed were never made parties to the case, effectively stripping them of any right to appeal.

Recalling the 1992 killings of Namık Tarancı, the Diyarbakır representative of Gerçek magazine, and Mehmet Sincar, a DEP MP for Mardin, Karaca said such rulings damaged public conscience at a time when a democratic solution to the Kurdish issue was under discussion.

"Why haven't public officials faced proceedings?"

Karaca noted that various official reports, including one from the TBMM's commission investigating unsolved killings, had pointed to ties between Hizbullah and certain public officials, and criticized the absence to date of any effective investigation into those individuals.

10 questions for Minister Gürlek

In her question, Karaca asked Justice Minister Akın Gürlek the following:

1. Is there a Constitutional Court ruling underlying the retrial request by Hizbullah leaders Edip Gümüş and Cemal Tutar? What is the justification for applying Constitutional Court rulings to Hizbullah defendants on an individual, case-by-case basis?

2. While Constitutional Court rulings go unenforced by local courts for hundreds of people, including Kurdish politicians and Gezi Park detainees, how does your Ministry assess the bending of every legal rule when it comes to Hizbullah defendants?

3. How does your Ministry assess an acquittal delivered within just three and a half months, citing "lack of concrete evidence," for perpetrators of dozens of killings, beatings and torture offenses already established and ruled upon in past court decisions?

4. What is the legal and moral justification for applying a good-conduct reduction to these defendants?

5. How do you explain that the retrial of Edip Gümüş and Cemal Tutar for killings they committed proceeded without the knowledge of the victims' families? Has your Ministry examined this matter?

6. How was it possible for defendants who had been fugitives for years and were subject to a red notice to attend hearings via SEGBİS video link from Batman?

7. Does this ruling leave the files on Hizbullah's 1990s killings — chief among them the murders of journalist Namık Tarancı and DEP MP Mehmet Sincar — exposed to the risk of the statute of limitations?

8. How many Hizbullah defendants in total were released on the basis of Constitutional Court rulings citing fair-trial violations tied to military judges, and subsequently fled? For how many of them has an arrest warrant been carried out?

9. Has any investigation ever been opened into public officials and administrators who, according to official reports including that of the TBMM's commission investigating unsolved killings, supported, overlooked or directed the Hizbullah terrorist organization in the 1990s? When will this shield of protection be lifted?

10. Has the department established under your Ministry to investigate unsolved killings examined Hizbullah's killings? If so, what came of it?

Source: Evrensel