Expression Interrupted

Journalists and academics bear the brunt of the massive crackdown on freedom of expression in Turkey. Scores of them are currently subject to criminal investigations or behind bars. This website is dedicated to tracking the legal process against them.

Prosecutor seeks aggravated life sentence for Osman Kavala in Gezi Trial

Prosecutor seeks aggravated life sentence for Osman Kavala in Gezi Trial

 

The prosecutor submitted his final opinion on the case, asking the court to sentence Kavala and Mücella Yapıcı to aggravated life sentences for “attempting to overthrow the government”

 

The prosecutor in the Gezi Trial, where 17 defendants including the jailed business person Osman Kavala face “coup” and “espionage” charges, has submitted his final opinion to the court, demanding that Kavala and architect Mücella Yapıcı be convicted of “attempting to overthrow the government,” punishable by aggravated life sentence.

 

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.”

 

Kavala, also a leading civil society figure, has been in prison since November 2017 as part of the trial into the nationwide anti-government protests of 2013, which was sparked by opposition to a redevelopment plan involving the Gezi Park in downtown Istanbul. He and other defendants were acquitted of all charges in February 2020, but he was rearrested as part of a separate investigation into the coup attempt of 15 July 2016 on charges of “coup attempt” and “espionage.” The acquittal verdict was also reversed later by an appeals court, paving the way for re-trial.

 

The prosecutor’s final opinion, submitted to the court ahead of the next hearing in the trial slated for 21 March, also asks the court to separate the case files of 9 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. US academic Henri Barkey was charged along with Kavala in connection with the second trial involving the 2016 coup attempt. Rest of the defendants are on trial in the Gezi Park case.

 

In his final opinion, dated 4 March, the prosecutor described the nationwide Gezi protests as an “uprising” and claimed that they aimed to overthrow the government either through forcing the government to resign or, should this fail, create the conditions for a civil war or coup similar to what happened in Syria or Egypt. He also claimed that the defendants had gone through training long before the protests began in the summer of 2013 and worked to mobilize the public to take to the streets to achieve their goals during the protests.

 

The Gezi case has turned into a protracted and convoluted one after it was merged first with the 2016 coup attempt case against Kavala and Barkey and then the so-called “Çarşı Trial” involving 35 defendants from a popular soccer fan club which supported the Gezi protests. The Çarşı case was separated from the merged Gezi and 2016 coup attempt cases where Kavala faced coup and espionage charges at the end of the latest hearing in the case held on 21 February 2022.

 

Although Kavala was immediately rearrested on charges of “coup” and “espionage” after his acquittal in the Gezi case in February 2020, the prosecutor’s latest opinion to the court does not include the “espionage” charge.

 

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Kavala’s detention constituted a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, which is in charge of supervising the implementation of the European Court judgments, has taken the rare step of triggering the infringement proceedings against Turkey for its continued failure to implement the judgment and release Kavala.

 

In its replies to the Council of Europe, Turkey has argued that Kavala was acquitted of the charges examined by the European Court and that his ongoing detention was on the basis of new charges and evidence related to the 2016 coup attempt.

 

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