Istanbul court rejected all requests from defense lawyers to discuss further evidence and told the defendants to prepare their final defense statements until 22 April

CANSU PİŞKİN, ISTANBUL 

An Istanbul court ruled to keep business person and civil society figure Osman Kavala in pre-trial detention at the end of the latest hearing of what is publicly known as the Gezi Trial, held on 21 March 2022.

The Istanbul 13th High Criminal Court also rejected all the requests submitted during the hearing by lawyers of Kavala and his co-defendants to expand the investigation and examine more evidence, including voice recordings of the conversations of the defendants whose transcripts are partially cited in the indictment. The lawyers also asked the court to call witnesses to testify about the accusations and the co-plaintiffs to explain the grievances allegedly caused by the defendants.

“No evidence has been discussed and no evidence has been gathered. Requests to gather more evidence have been automatically rejected,” lawyer Tora Pekin, representing defendant Ali Hakan Altınay, said.

The court, however, concluded in its interim decision that such requests would not “make any contribution to the case file” and adjourned the trial until 22 April 2022 to allow the defendants and their lawyers to prepare their final defense statements. The court also said the extension was final.

Trial for Gezi protests, 2016 coup attempt and espionage

Kavala, who has been imprisoned since 2017, marked his 1600th day in prison at the weekend. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled against his detention, finding that it was politically motivated. The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, which is in charge of supervising the execution of ECtHR judgments, effectively initiated the rare infringement proceedings against Turkey in February 2022, citing its continued failure to implement the judgment and release Kavala from prison.

Kavala, along with 15 other civil society figures, journalists, artists and others, was charged with “attempting to overthrow the government” in connection with the anti-government protests of 2013, which were sparked by government plans to demolish Gezi Park in downtown Istanbul as part of a redevelopment plan. He was acquitted in February 2020 but was immediately rearrested, this time on charges of “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order” and “political espionage” in connection with the failed coup attempt of 15 July 2016. US academic Henri Barkey was indicted as co-defendant.  

The “espionage” case was later merged with the Gezi trial after the acquittal decisions of February 2020 were overturned by an appeals court in January 2021, leading to a re-trial. In what was widely seen as an attempt to prolong the trial and Kavala’s detention, the case was then merged with another Gezi-related case, in which 35 members of the football fan club Çarşı were on trial. The acquittal decisions handed by the trial court in the Çarşı case in December 2015 were overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeals in March 2021, similarly initiating a re-trial.

At the previous hearing of the case on 21 February, the court decided to separate the Çarşı case from the Gezi-July 15 coup attempt trial. On 4 March, the prosecutor submitted his final opinion on the case to the court, asking the court to convict Kavala and co-defendant Mücella Yapıcı to aggravated life sentence on the charge of “attempting to overthrow the government.”

The prosecutor demanded up to 20 years in prison for six other co-defendants, Çiğdem Mater, Ali Hakan Altınay, Mine Özerden, Can Atalay, Tayfun Kahraman and Yiğit Ali Ekmekçi, face up to 20 years in prison for “aiding” the offence of “attempting to overthrow the government.”

In his final opinion, the prosecutor also asked the court to separate the case files of nine defendants -- Henri Barkey, Can Dündar, Pınar Öğün, Gökçe Yılmaz, Handan Meltem Arıkan, Hanzade Hikmet Germiyanoğlu, Mehmet Ali Alabora, Yiğit Aksakoğlu and İnanç Ekmekçi – who live abroad and have not attended the court hearings.

Kavala: Unlawfulness of my detention has become obvious

Kavala, who refused to attend previous hearings of the trial citing his lack of faith in a fair trial, joined Monday’s hearing through judicial video-conferencing system SEGBİS from the Silivri Prison where he is held. His seven co-defendants were present in the courtroom.  

In a brief statement to the court regarding his ongoing detention, Kavala said no evidence has been discussed during the trial process to support the charges on the basis of which he has been held in detention for the past two years. "After my acquittal [in the Gezi Trial in 2020], I was rearrested on two charges: 15 July 2016 coup attempt and espionage. Since then, there has been no information or evidence put forward to support the espionage charge or contacts with Henri Barkey” Kavala said, referring to prosecution’s claims that he and Barkey had met in Istanbul prior to the coup attempt of 2016.

"The prosecutor's final opinion does not mention the espionage charge,” Kavala said. “The unlawfulness of my detention for espionage has become completely obvious."

Kavala’s lawyer Köksal Bayraktar criticized the lack of inquiry into Kavala’s alleged meetings with Barkey. “You never asked which hotel Barkey stayed [in Istanbul]. The prosecution says Kavala and Barkey met at a restaurant and you never asked which restaurant. You never summoned the waiters working at that restaurant to testify as witness. This is not a joke because Kavala faces aggravated life sentence on the basis of this,” he said.

Another lawyer representing Kavala, Deniz Tolga Aytöre, also criticized the lack of any reference to the charge of espionage in the prosecutor’s final statement. “For the past two years, you have been requesting continuation of Kavala’s detention under Article 328 [of the Turkish Criminal Code, covering the crime of espionage]. But you say nothing about the espionage in the final opinion,” he said.

Lawyer İlkay Koyuncu similarly said: “Even though Kavala has been in detention for alleged espionage for the past two years, the prosecution could request neither his conviction nor acquittal of that charge in the final opinion.”

Political interference

Kavala’s lawyers and some of the defendants criticized political interference in the trial. "We know there was a meeting to discuss this trial at the presidential palace and that Justice Minister Abdülhamit Gül resigned as a result of it,” said co-defendant Can Atalay at the start of the hearing, referring to some recent media reports to that effect. “This is a trial that has cost the resignation of a minister."

Kavala’s lawyer İlkan Koyuncu said it was not the court that was not in charge of the trial: “The trial has been done in meetings led by President Erdoğan and the verdict has been reached in Beştepe,” referring to the presidential palace.