Abdulkerim Seyhan (27) was killed when the military barracks opened fire against the crowd returning from the condolences of Bilal Gezer and Sinan Toprak who were killed during the 6-8 October 2014 Kobani protests in Kerboran (Dargeçit) district of Mêrdîn (Mardin) on 9 October 2014. Cihat Ceylan, Abdulhakim Mete, Ramazan Akın and Kerboran Co-Mayor Sinan Akan were wounded with bullets hitting various parts of their bodies. Following the incident, Dargeçit Chief Public Prosecutor's Office initiated an investigation against 23 people, most of whom were special operations soldiers, on the charges of ‘killing with probable intent’ and ‘wounding with probable intent’. In September 2023, the Dargeçit Chief Public Prosecutor's Office issued a decision of ‘no prosecution’ in the file, which was kept confidential for 9 years. 

 

In the justification of the prosecutor's decision, it was claimed that the bullets recovered from the bodies of Abdülkerim Seyhan, who was killed, and the wounded were "deformed and it was not possible to determine from which weapon they were fired". In the justification, it was also claimed that it was not possible to determine from which weapons the empty casings collected from the surroundings came from.

 

Lawyer Ahmet Arıkan appealed the non-prosecution decision of the Dargeçit Chief Public Prosecutor's Office to the Midyat Criminal Judgeship of Peace, stating that ‘an effective and efficient investigation was not conducted’ in the file and requested the lifting of the non-prosecution decision. However, Midyat Criminal Judgeship of Peace rejected the objection, arguing that the decision of the prosecutor's office was in accordance with the "law and procedure". 

 

The judgeship's decision brought to mind the "copy-paste" decisions that were frequently on the agenda before. It was seen that the judgeship took a decision that had nothing to do with the case file. In its decision, the judgeship stated, "The request of the complainant institution's representative for the confiscation of the seized contrabands is rejected." 

 

‘PERPETRATORS LEFT UNPUNISHED’

 

Lawyer Ahmet Arıkan noted that both the prosecutor's decision of non-prosecution and the judge's rejection of the objection were faulty from the beginning to the end, and pointed out that there was a ‘confidentiality’ decision on the file for 9 years. After 9 years, Arıkan stated that the decision was not in accordance with the law, and that it was an approach to close the file, and said, "When the file was opened years later, it was already opened to close it. If they really wanted to carry out an effective investigation, it would have been determined from whose gun those bullets came out, and it would have been revealed who fired where and how on the day of the incident. However, instead of doing this, they waited for years, arrested Kurdish politicians on the grounds of these incidents, and finally sentenced them. The perpetrators of the murdered Kurdish youth were also left unpunished. The perpetrators of the injured people were left unpunished. This case is a repetition of the judgements that Turkey has been making for a hundred years on crimes committed against the Kurds with the weapons of the state." 

 

‘COPY-PASTED’

 

Noting that the judgeship decided to reject the prosecutor's decision despite the fact that they presented many justifications that the decision of the prosecutor's office was wrong, Arıkan said, "When we look at the decision, it is neither related to our demands nor to the file. It says, 'Refusal of confiscation of customs contrabands'. This file is a Kobani file. Although it is a file related to the killing of a Kurdish youth and the injury of many people during the Kobani protests, these expressions were used in the decision. We always express the decisions taken by copy-pasting. In this file, a copy and paste was made in the same way. It has become so ordinary that they do not even feel the need to check the decisions before they are notified to us lawyers. This decision has once again proved how right we are in our criticisms that we have been voicing for years." 

 

MA / Ahmet Kanbal