The court has ruled to acquit Bağdat of “inciting the people to hatred and enmity” and “insulting a public official” as the legal elements of the crime had not formed

CANSU PİŞKİN, İSTANBUL

The 12th hearing in the trial of journalist Hayko Bağdat on charges of “insulting the president,” “insulting a public official” and “inciting the people to hatred and enmity was held at the İstanbul 50th Criminal Court of First Instance on 10 July 2024. The charges against Bağdat were brought over his articles titled “Erdoğan hakkında son yazım,” (“My last article on Erdoğan”) which was published on the ozguruz.org website on 14 April 2017 and various social media posts he shared over the years.

Lawyers for the parties were present at the hearing, which P24 monitored.

The prosecutor, who repeated their final opinion on the case presented at the 21 February 2024 hearing in the trial requested the acquittal of Bağdat from the charge of “inciting the people to hatred and enmity.” The prosecutor requested sentencing for Bağdat for the crimes of “insulting the president” and “insulting a public official” due to his 2017 article titled “Erdoğan hakkında son yazım” and social media posts he shared in 2014, 2018 and 2019.

Co-plaintiff Erdoğan’s lawyer said they agreed with the prosecutor’s final opinion and requested sentencing for Bağdat.

One of the lawyers representing Bağdat, Fatih Aydın, said they agreed with the prosecutor’s final opinion with regards to acquittal and disagreed with regards to sentencing. Lawyer Aydın pointed out that the expressions quoted in the prosecutor’s opinion were not present in indictments for the merged case or in Bağdat’s posts and said, “There is no difference in terms of the quality of the crime when we compare the posts for which the prosecution requests acquittal and those for which it requests sentencing. The expression ‘Katil ve hırsızsın Erdoğan,’ (‘You’re a murderer and a thief Erdoğan’) which the prosecutor claims my client used in 2018, is not present in the indictment.” Lawyer Aydın stated that Bağdat had not been asked to provide a defense statement for the merged cases and that there were procedural gaps in the case file.

Muhammed Ünsal, another lawyer representing Bağdat, said that elements of the crimes of “insulting a public official” and “insulting the president” had not formed. Lawyer Ünsal said, “Article 26 brings a statute of limitations of four months for news items on news sites. This period begins from the date of the criminal complaint. This case was filed after the four-month statute of limitations had expired. The posts are in keeping with journalistic ethics. I request the acquittal of my client, who is being tried over posts which are within the limits of freedom of the press and expression.”

The court ruled to acquit Bağdat of the charges of “inciting the people to hatred and enmity” and “insulting a public official” as the legal elements of the crime had not formed. The court found that the crime of “insulting the president” had been established for the two posts shared by Bağdat in 2019 and sentenced the journalist to 1 year 2 months and 17 days of imprisonment. The sentence was suspended.