All defendants in the Ankara Jitem Case, including prominent figures former police chief and Interior Minister Mehmet Ağar and former intelligence agent Korkut Eken, were acquitted during their trial in Ankara on Friday, meaning that there are now no longer any pending trials for crimes committed by Turkish state forces during the notorious war of the 1990s against the country’s left-wing and Kurdish opposition.
The Ankara Jitem case revolved around the extrajudicial killings of 19 individuals between 1993 and 1996 in Ankara and neighbouring cities. The seventh hearing in the case took place at Ankara High Criminal Court No 1.
Nineteen defendants, including Mehmet Ağar, former Special Operations Department Head İbrahim Şahin, and former special operations officers Korkut Eken, Ayhan Çarkın, Ayhan Akça, Ercan Ersoy, Ahmet Demirel and Enver Ulu, all alleged members of the Turkish Contras, were involved in the trial.
The prosecution argued for the defendants’ acquittal based on contradictory statements and the passage of time, which hindered the acquisition of new evidence.
The participating lawyers sought time to respond to the closing statement, but their request was denied by the court bench, which saw it as an attempt to prolong the trial. Subsequently, the lawyers representing the defendants expressed their agreement with the summing up of the prosecution and called for them to be acquitted.
Eres Baskın, a participant in the case, addressed the court in emotional terms, expressing the need for the truth about the fate of the 19 individuals involved to be uncovered. Baskın, who had been seeking justice for a decade, vowed to continue the struggle outside the courtroom, joining forces with organisations like the Saturday Mothers, who advocate for justice in cases of enforced disappearances.
Lawyer Sertaç Ekinci argued that the court lacked sufficient power to shed light on the unsolved murders and challenged the acquittal request. He highlighted the use of Uzi weapons in the crimes, which had been disclosed by Sedat Peker, a former mafia boss turned whistleblower now in exile. Ekinci considered the acquittal request to be a violation of general legal principles and urged the court to reject it.
Other lawyers involved in the case also voiced their concerns. Yusuf Ataş criticised a decision of the Court of Appeal, asserting that it mirrored the opinion of the trial court, thus undermining the notion of a fair trial. Nuray Özdoğan stressed the importance of discussing all evidence and criticised the prosecution for what appeared to be defence of the defendants.
Several of Turkey’s rights organisations, including the Monitoring Association for Equal Rights and the Human Rights Association, issued a joint statement in February, calling for the case to be prevented from falling foul of the statute of limitations and for the securance of justice.
In the end, the court decided to acquit all defendants, leaving a sense of disappointment and despair among the families of victims, who had hoped that justice would finally be served. This acquittal decision raised concerns about a prevailing culture of impunity and the need for accountability in the Turkish judicial system.
As the Ankara Jitem Case comes to a close, questions remain about whether the crimes committed during the 1990s, which marked the infamous war against the country’s progressives and the Kurdish opposition, will ever be fully confronted and resolved.
BACKGROUND
The reports of Turkey’s Parliamentary Commission for the Investigation of Failure-Murdered Political Assassinations in 1995 and the Susurluk Commission in 1996 revealed the establishment of a unit known as JİTEM, which stands for “Gendarmerie Intelligence Counter Terrorism.” This unit was set up within the state organisation under the pretext of counter-terrorism but has been extensively and systematically involved in acts of torture, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings on behalf of the state since the late 80s. A significant amount of information and documents were found as evidence to support these claims.
However, despite the evidence, no investigations were launched into JİTEM’s activities, and no trials were initiated for a long period of time. The indictments prepared in 1999 and 2005, regarding the enforced disappearance of 12 people in and around Diyarbakır, including Hasan Caner, Hasan Utanç, Tahsin Sevim, Mehmet Mehdi Kaydu, Harbi Arman, Lokman Zuğurli, Zana Zuğurli, Servet Aslan, Şahabettin Latifeci, Ahmet Ceylan, Mehmet Sıddık Etyemez, and Abdülkadir Çelikbilek, accused JİTEM of “participating in the JİTEM organisation,” “establishing an organisation to commit a crime,” and “committing multiple homicides.”
The determination of the appropriate court to handle these cases became a subject of debate, involving the state security courts, military courts, specially authorised courts, high penal courts, and dispute courts. Finally, in 2010, the trials commenced at the Diyarbakır High Criminal Court No.2, referred to as the JİTEM Main Case. In 2014, this case was merged with the investigation into the murder of Kurdish intellectual and journalist Musa Anter, and for ‘security’ reasons, it was transferred to Ankara High Criminal Court No.6 in 2015. In 2019, the case regarding the enforced disappearance of Ayten Öztürk, a factory worker from Elazığ, was also consolidated with these ongoing cases.
