Selahattin Demirtaş: "Selçuk Mızraklı will be released on September 8"
RASTİ-Selahattin Demirtaş, former HDP Co-Chair held at Edirne F-Type Prison, said that the Amed (Diyarbakır) Metropolitan Municipality's former
RastinewsSelahattin Demirtaş, former HDP Co-Chair held at Edirne F-Type Prison, announced that Dr. Adnan Selçuk Mızraklı, former Co-Mayor of the Amed (Diyarbakır) Metropolitan Municipality with whom he shares a cell, will be released from prison on Tuesday, September 8.
Demirtaş's article titled "Sakızcı Memo" was published today on the website of the QAD Peace Research Association. In the article, Demirtaş wrote the following about Mızraklı:
"Dr. Adnan Selçuk Mızraklı is the pure-hearted sage who spent seven years in prison for four months as mayor of Diyarbakır, and, having completed his sentence, will be released on Tuesday, September 8, before 'brotherhood' has yet come to him."
Describing his relationship with Mızraklı, with whom he has shared a ward for about five years, Demirtaş said, "For the past five years, I have been entrusted to him, and he to me. He will leave here on Tuesday morning and be at Diyarbakır Airport by evening. Now he is entrusted to you."
Trustee appointed four months after the ballot box, arrest two months later
Mızraklı, a surgeon and graduate of Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, was elected as an HDP MP for Amed in 2018, and was elected Co-Mayor of the Metropolitan Municipality with over 62 percent of the vote in the local elections of March 31, 2019.
The Ministry of Interior removed Mızraklı from office on August 19, 2019, and appointed a trustee in his place. Mızraklı was taken into custody on October 21, 2019, and arrested the following day on charges of "membership in an organization" and "organizational propaganda."
Overturned ruling, retrial, upholding
The Diyarbakır 9th High Criminal Court sentenced Mızraklı to 9 years, 4 months and 15 days in prison on March 9, 2020. The Court of Cassation's 3rd Criminal Chamber overturned the ruling in December 2022 on the grounds of "incomplete examination and insufficient justification," but rejected his request for release. At the end of the retrial, the same court handed down the same sentence on November 29, 2023; the Court of Cassation's 3rd Criminal Chamber upheld the verdict on October 9, 2024, and the sentence became final.
Mızraklı's 2025 request to be transferred to an open prison and to benefit from probation was also rejected by the Prison Administration and Observation Board.
Thus, Mızraklı was able to remain in the mayor's seat for only four months, while spending seven years in prison.
Not the framework law, but the execution schedule
The release is not the result of the "framework law" passed by the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM), which brought the situation of political prisoners onto the agenda, but rather the expiration of the execution period of the finalized sentence.
Mızraklı and Demirtaş were visited at Edirne Prison in August by DEM Party İmralı Delegation members Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar.
There has been no official statement on the matter from the Ministry of Justice, the prison administration, or Mızraklı's lawyers. The release process will begin once the execution prosecutor's order reaches the prison administration.